Yesterday was a day of mourning of course, mourning the man many refer to as "our Edison" as in the man who changed our world more than anyone through ideas, inspiration and innovation. And although I never met Steve Jobs, he always struck me as the kind of person who just wanted to help people... help people in any way he could. And I'm pretty sure he succeeded and I'm pretty sure his legacy of helping others will carry on for many generations to come.
It's kind of hard to sum up just what Steve Jobs meant to everyone... yes everyone. Even those who have never used a Mac, or iPod, or iPad or iPhone, you were impacted by Steve Jobs. How? Well even if you don't own an Apple product, chances are you used something similar... a different brand of mobile phone or pc, mp3 player, etc., and chances are very good that the makers of those products were influenced and inspired - whether they want to admit it or not, by Steve Jobs.
Yesterday our CCO, Jan Talamo put it quite succinctly today in a Tweet: "Thanks Steve for changing the world!"
I mean, that's it right there, isn't it? Steve Jobs changed the world. And how many people can you honestly say that about? Well I don't know how many exactly but rest assured the list is not very long.
Here's a fantastic animated tribute to Steve Jobs created by a company in Taiwan....
Steve Jobs, aside from all his innovative qualities and accomplishments will also be remembered - at least by me, for his quotes. I'm a big quote guy, as it were and Steve Jobs had some truly inspirational and moving quotes during his life and I want to share some of them with you today.
"Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me ... Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me."
"You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new."
"It's not about pop culture, and it's not about fooling people, and it's not about convincing people that they want something they don't. We figure out what we want."
"So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet." (As one who didn't finish college, this one in particular resonates with me.)
"Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles."
"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently - they're not fond of rules...because the ones how are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do." (This one definitely resonated with yours truly. Crazy misfit? You know it...)
"Kick-start your brain. New ideas come from watching something, talk to people, experimenting, asking questions and getting out of the office!"
I want to leave you today with two images. The first is a screenshot of the homepage for Wired.com and the second is something I saw online and I liked it so much I made a copy of it. I call it "The Only To Do List You Will Ever Need" and I think Steve Jobs would have liked it, too.
Sources: The Star Group, Steve Jobs - A Job Well Done, A Life Well Lived