Profile of Jonathan Ive
“We try to solve very complicated problems without letting people know how complicated the problem was. That’s the appropriate thing…The way the parts [of the iPod shuffle] fit together is extraordinarily tight. I don’t think there’s ever been a product produced in such volume at that price, which has been given so much time and care. I’m really excited by that, and even if you can’t articulate its value, at some level I hope that integrity is obvious.”
Gore-Tex is "fostering ongoing, consistent, breakthrough creativity"
“Bill Gore threw out the rules. He created a place with hardly any hierarchy and few ranks and titles. He insisted on direct, one-on-one communication; anyone in the company could speak to anyone else. In essence, he organized the company as though it were a bunch of small task forces. To promote this idea, he limited the size of teams — keeping even the manufacturing facilities to 150 to 200 people at most…[One employee says,] ‘Your team is your boss, because you don’t want to let them down. Everyone’s your boss, and no one’s your boss.’”
2008 candidates and blogs
“Barack Obama was the only one of these candidates that had a way for bloggers to grab the code needed to embed his video into a post or web site…Being on the internet means something different in this election. Having a site isn’t enough any more. These candidates will need to microchunk their messages, and make them available broadly. They need to be reaching audiences not just through The New York Times and CNN, but via blogs and iPods as well. More than anything, they need to reach out to people and talk to them directly without all of the spin.”
Bill Gates' Vista PR lap falling flat?
“When put in this context Microsoft just seems so big and slow and old, hidebound by 30 years of culture and organizational silos that seem impregnable. And it appears that Vista – the product, the PR, the marketing approach – is the result of such an organization. At times brilliant, very heavy, complicated and expensive. This is not a product for today. This is a product for an era when the desktop ruled. And that era is long gone.”
The most underappreciated appliance in your kitchen: the broiler
“If I’d told you I had an appliance that could brown like a grill, was as convenient as your oven, and cooked most food in less than 10 minutes, you’d buy it. But you don’t need to.”
Coming soon: Chief Experience Officers
Adaptive Path interview with Lou Carbone: “When you look at the organizations of the past, [they were like] bus drivers driving buses along the prescribed route, [with a] certain number of stops to make and doing the same routine over and over again. And the customer really came along for the ride. Today, [when it comes to] doing business, the model is considerably more like taxis. We’re not even sure what the customer needs until the customer communicates [it to us] and we can anticipate what they want. Then what we end up doing is snapping together a set of capabilities to deliver the experience that they want. And that’s very, very different.”
Did Viacom lose out on $48 million because of YouTube?
“Video content on a site such as Comedycentral.com commands as much as a $40 CPM. If an ad at a $40 CPM was sold against each of the 1.2 billion streams Viacom claims the 100,000 unauthorized clips represent, that’s a missed revenue opportunity of as much as $48 million.” [via DF]
Jimmy Kimmel on avoiding meetings
“The fewer meetings the network asks for, the better things are going, I think. We’re down to just the bare minimum of meetings with the ABC executives, so I think things are heading in the right direction. Though I’m sure I’ll do something stupid and everybody will be mad and then there will be a lot of meetings again. Really, my main goal on a day-to-day basis is to avoid meetings at all costs.” [tx TK]
Why is change so hard?
“Of course, radical change often isn’t possible in business situations. Still, it’s always important to identify, achieve, and celebrate some quick, positive results for the vital emotional lifts that they provide. Harvard’s Kotter believes in the importance of ‘short-term wins’ for companies, meaning ‘victories that nourish faith in the change effort, emotionally reward the hard workers, keep the critics at bay, and build momentum. Without sufficient wins that are visible, timely, unambiguous, and meaningful to others, change efforts invariably run into serious problems.’”
Elevator pitch inspiration: classic TV show intros
“It can be challenging to boil down what you do into a short blurb…For inspiration, I suggest paying attention to the 30-second narrations at the beginning of TV shows.” [via CPU]