[IP] Behind the magic curtain
Begin forwarded message:
From: Monty Solomon <monty@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: January 10, 2006 3:20:52 AM EST
To: undisclosed-recipient:;
Subject: Behind the magic curtain
Behind the magic curtain
Next week Steve Jobs of Apple will grab media attention with another
simple-looking stage show. Mike Evangelist tells the insider secrets
of his gruelling preparation
Thursday January 5, 2006
The Guardian
If the chief executive of Cadbury-Schweppes speaks at a conference,
or Nike's boss introduces a new kind of trainer, you might expect to
see it covered in specialist magazines, then quickly forgotten. But
on Tuesday a chief executive will stand up and announce something,
and within minutes it will be scrutinised across the web and on
stockbrokers' computers. It will be in newspapers. They'll talk about
it for months.
That chief executive is Steve Jobs, and I know why that speech makes
an impact. To a casual observer it is just a guy in a black shirt and
jeans talking about some new technology products. But it is in fact
an incredibly complex and sophisticated blend of sales pitch, product
demonstration and corporate cheerleading, with a dash of religious
revival thrown in for good measure. It represents weeks of work,
precise orchestration and intense pressure for the scores of people
who collectively make up the "man behind the curtain". I know,
because I've been there, first as part of the preparation team and
later on stage with Steve.
Objectively, Apple Computer is a mid-sized company with a tiny share
of its primary market. Apple Macintoshes are only rarely seen in
corporate environments, and most software companies don't even offer
Apple-compatible versions of their products. To put it another way,
Apple is just bit larger than Cadbury-Schweppes and about the same
size as Nike or Marks and Spencer in terms of annual sales.
Such comparisons come up short in trying to describe Apple's place in
the world of business, because they leave out a key factor: Steve
Jobs. That's something only one other company - the filmmaker Pixar -
can claim. He's the closest thing to a rock star you will find in the
world of business.
When Apple announces something new, people pay attention. This is
due, in large measure, to Steve and the way he delivers Apple's
messages. His preferred method of making major product announcements
is at one of his public presentations, or "keynotes" as they are
called inside the company.
Steve starts his preparation for a keynote weeks in advance,
reviewing all the products and technologies he might include.
Although development and release schedules are set far in advance, he
still has to satisfy himself that the chosen products are
keynote-ready. For software, this can be hard to decide: the
engineering work is usually still underway, so he will make a
preliminary determination based on seeing unfinished software. More
than once this has caused some tense moments in rehearsal when
programs haven't behaved.
...
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,16376,1677772,00.html
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