A new Book, Inside Apple, reveals the secret systems, tactics and leadership strategies (also called as Apple's "cultish secrecy) that allowed Steve Jobs and his company to churn out hit after hit and inspire a cult-like following for its products.
If Apple is Silicon Valley's answer to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, then author Adam Lashinsky, Fortune writer, provides readers with a golden ticket to step inside. In this primer on leadership and innovation, the author will introduce readers to concepts like the "DRI" (Apple's practice of assigning a Directly Responsible Individual to every task) and the Top 100 (an annual ritual in which 100 up-and-coming executives are tapped a la Skull & Bones for a secret retreat with company founder Steve Jobs).
According to Apple Insider, a blog which is known for publishing and breaking unheard news about Apple, the book reveals the existence of a secret room at Apple, devoted solely to designing product packaging and what users experience when opening a new product. This packaging room is located in a walled-off section of the company's main marketing building, and according to the new book, is "so secure that those with access to it need to badge in and out."
And what employees inside this secret packaging room do? The book reveals that in the room, employees perform "the most mundane of tasks -- opening boxes." One of the packaging designers spent months in the room, just opening hundreds of iPod box prototypes, until he felt the same, as he had expected himself to.
[Tech24Hours says: Packaging Boxes have a special fascination for small boys. As a child, I used to be on cloud nine whenever I managed to get a box which had pointed corners and clean edges. The fact that for Apple, the inexpensive box merits as much attention as the high-margin electronic device inside, says for itself, why Apple experience begins right from unboxing an Apple Product. The act gives the same joy, as a toddler gets, while getting a useless carton from the home’s recycle Bin.]
The book also reveals that Steve Jobs had interest in a startup camera company before he died late last year.The Book reveals that just months before his death, Jobs met with the CEO of Lytro in Palo Alto, the maker of a new "light field camera" that creates "living" pictures.But, in its current form, Lytro's relatively large, tube-shaped camera, didn’t appeal to Jobs’ sense of aesthetics. Although, a deal never materialized between Apple and Lytro, Jobs did ask 32 year old Ng send him an e-mail outlining three things he wanted Lytro to do with Apple.
Notably, Lytro's technology gained considerable attention last October, at All Things D's AsiaD Conference, for its camera that lets users focus a picture after it has been captured.
The book, throws light on Apple’s ‘no free lunches provided to employees on the company's corporate headquarters after first-day orientation’ philosophy and on Apple personalities like iOS chief, Scott Forstall ("CEO-in-waiting, while the head of Internet software), Eddy Cue (seen as a "dealmaker" crucial to the company's negotiations with outside partners like content providers and wireless carriers).
Based on numerous interviews, the book offers exclusive new information about how Apple innovates, deals with its suppliers and is handling the transition into the Post Jobs Era. Lashinsky, a Senior Editor at Large for Fortune, knows the subject cold: In a 2008 cover story for the magazine entitled The Genius Behind Steve: Could Operations Whiz Tim Cook Run The Company Someday he predicted that Tim Cook, then an unknown, would eventually succeed Steve Jobs as CEO.
While Inside Apple is ostensibly a deep dive into one, unique company (and its ecosystem of suppliers, investors, employees and competitors), the lessons about Jobs, leadership, product design and marketing are universal. They should appeal to anyone hoping to bring some of that Apple magic to their own company, career, or creative endeavor.)
--------
If Apple is Silicon Valley's answer to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, then author Adam Lashinsky, Fortune writer, provides readers with a golden ticket to step inside. In this primer on leadership and innovation, the author will introduce readers to concepts like the "DRI" (Apple's practice of assigning a Directly Responsible Individual to every task) and the Top 100 (an annual ritual in which 100 up-and-coming executives are tapped a la Skull & Bones for a secret retreat with company founder Steve Jobs).
According to Apple Insider, a blog which is known for publishing and breaking unheard news about Apple, the book reveals the existence of a secret room at Apple, devoted solely to designing product packaging and what users experience when opening a new product. This packaging room is located in a walled-off section of the company's main marketing building, and according to the new book, is "so secure that those with access to it need to badge in and out."
And what employees inside this secret packaging room do? The book reveals that in the room, employees perform "the most mundane of tasks -- opening boxes." One of the packaging designers spent months in the room, just opening hundreds of iPod box prototypes, until he felt the same, as he had expected himself to.
[Tech24Hours says: Packaging Boxes have a special fascination for small boys. As a child, I used to be on cloud nine whenever I managed to get a box which had pointed corners and clean edges. The fact that for Apple, the inexpensive box merits as much attention as the high-margin electronic device inside, says for itself, why Apple experience begins right from unboxing an Apple Product. The act gives the same joy, as a toddler gets, while getting a useless carton from the home’s recycle Bin.]
The book also reveals that Steve Jobs had interest in a startup camera company before he died late last year.The Book reveals that just months before his death, Jobs met with the CEO of Lytro in Palo Alto, the maker of a new "light field camera" that creates "living" pictures.But, in its current form, Lytro's relatively large, tube-shaped camera, didn’t appeal to Jobs’ sense of aesthetics. Although, a deal never materialized between Apple and Lytro, Jobs did ask 32 year old Ng send him an e-mail outlining three things he wanted Lytro to do with Apple.
Notably, Lytro's technology gained considerable attention last October, at All Things D's AsiaD Conference, for its camera that lets users focus a picture after it has been captured.
The book, throws light on Apple’s ‘no free lunches provided to employees on the company's corporate headquarters after first-day orientation’ philosophy and on Apple personalities like iOS chief, Scott Forstall ("CEO-in-waiting, while the head of Internet software), Eddy Cue (seen as a "dealmaker" crucial to the company's negotiations with outside partners like content providers and wireless carriers).
Based on numerous interviews, the book offers exclusive new information about how Apple innovates, deals with its suppliers and is handling the transition into the Post Jobs Era. Lashinsky, a Senior Editor at Large for Fortune, knows the subject cold: In a 2008 cover story for the magazine entitled The Genius Behind Steve: Could Operations Whiz Tim Cook Run The Company Someday he predicted that Tim Cook, then an unknown, would eventually succeed Steve Jobs as CEO.
While Inside Apple is ostensibly a deep dive into one, unique company (and its ecosystem of suppliers, investors, employees and competitors), the lessons about Jobs, leadership, product design and marketing are universal. They should appeal to anyone hoping to bring some of that Apple magic to their own company, career, or creative endeavor.)
No comments
Post a Comment