tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/steve-jobs-237/articlesSteve Jobs – The Conversation2024-03-20T13:59:13Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2223032024-03-20T13:59:13Z2024-03-20T13:59:13ZConspiracy theorists seem to favour an intuitive thinking style – here’s why that’s important<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580680/original/file-20240308-26-fcuzuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5982%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/wrapped-mouth-forefinger-sign-conspiracy-1238620543">Ralf Geithe/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>I have been researching the psychology of conspiracy beliefs for seven years now and people often ask me why people believe in them. This is not a simple question. </p>
<p>There <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pops.12568">are many reasons</a> people might endorse conspiracy theories. Something that stands out to me, though, is how our thinking styles can influence the way we process information and therefore <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2079-3200/11/11/207">how prone we can be</a> to conspiracy beliefs.</p>
<p>A preference for <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/acp.2995">intuitive thinking</a>, over <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/acp.3790">analytical thinking styles</a> seems to be linked to endorsement of conspiracy theories. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2079-3200/11/11/207">Intuitive thinking</a> is a thinking style reliant on immediate and unconscious judgments. It often follows gut feelings, whereas analytical thinking is about slower, more deliberate and detailed processing of information. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/intelligence-doesnt-make-you-immune-to-conspiracy-theories-its-more-about-thinking-style-220978">I’ve written before</a> about how we can develop a more effortful, analytical thinking style to reduce our predisposition to conspiracy beliefs. </p>
<p>Research has shown critical thinking skills have many life benefits. For example, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1871187116300384?casa_token=HdOYh26XhEgAAAAA:HYLmEBNeaggtWPqyvt94Mhhi4nNOvzPfji6tud3HPHB2Okhz4mEpzJ9HyX7Hmgal1jl8PkyJew">a study from 2017</a> found that people who scored higher in critical thinking skills reported fewer negative life events (for instance, getting a parking ticket or missing a flight). Critical thinking was a stronger predictor than intelligence for avoiding these types of events. It’s not clear why this is. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Girl thinking with arms resting on a table, arrows in different directions above her head" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580683/original/file-20240308-26-xrwt5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580683/original/file-20240308-26-xrwt5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580683/original/file-20240308-26-xrwt5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580683/original/file-20240308-26-xrwt5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580683/original/file-20240308-26-xrwt5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580683/original/file-20240308-26-xrwt5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580683/original/file-20240308-26-xrwt5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Analytical thinking can make you less likely to believe in conspiracy theories.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/thinking-girl-solving-problem-135457706">Marijus Auruskevicius/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the other hand, <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2079-3200/11/11/207">intuitive thinking</a> has been linked to thinking errors. For example, intuitive thinking styles can lead to over-reliance on mental shortcuts, which can also increase susceptibility to <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/acp.2995">conspiracy theories</a>. </p>
<p>This can lead to dangerous consequences. For example, greater intuitive thinking has been linked to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/08870446.2019.1673894?casa_token=pJXUleitfAQAAAAA:mgqoHZ9oqgTvliAYLVRwbCJET1kDYFE6P3tOsN3jIJjnVvnZq-a1beoHacw67dqGgzZR6hm3KpmY">anti-vaccine conspiracy beliefs</a> and vaccine hesitancy.</p>
<p>However, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/29/steve-jobs-and-albert-einstein-both-attributed-their-extraordinary-success-to-this-personality-trait.html">extremely successful people</a>, such as Albert Einstein and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, argued the importance of using their intuition and attributed their achievements to intuitive thinking. </p>
<h2>The value of intuitive thinking</h2>
<p>One benefit of <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/MD-04-2017-0333/full/html">intuitive thinking</a> is that it takes little or no processing time, which allows us to make decisions and judgments quickly. And, in some circumstances, this is vital. </p>
<p>People working in <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/MD-04-2017-0333/full/html">crisis environments </a>(such as the fire service) report the need to use intuitive thinking styles. During crises, it can be unrealistic to consistently use analytical thinking. </p>
<p>Experienced crisis managers often rely on intuitive thinking in the first instance, as their default strategy, but as the task allows, draw on more analytical thinking later on. Critical and intuitive thinking styles can be used in tandem. </p>
<p>What is important also is that this type of intuition develops through years of experience, which can produce <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/MD-04-2017-0333/full/html">expert intuition</a>. </p>
<p>Intuition can be crucial in other areas too. <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01420/full">Creativity</a> is often seen as a benefit of intuitive thinking styles. A review <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01420/full">conducted in 2016</a> of research into idea generation found that creativity is positively linked to intuitive thinking. </p>
<p>Although creativity is difficult to define, it can be thought of as similar to problem solving, where information is used to reach a goal, in a new or unexpected way. </p>
<p>However, it is also important to note that the 2016 review found that combining intuitive and analytical thinking styles was best for idea evaluation. </p>
<h2>What is the solution?</h2>
<p>Now, research often focuses on developing ways to improve analytical thinking in order to reduce endorsement of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010027714001632?casa_token=EczBVWzrbWsAAAAA:Hq12hyS1txB3Ia_eM5yCVuReXqoVyGafhz2CTrq5U2JkTDsJs7Wl-LKm7Op_H3JVXWF9K5YQLQ">dangerous conspiracy theories</a> or reduce <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fstl0000188">thinking errors and misconceptions</a>. </p>
<p>However, we often consider analytic and intuitive thinking styles as an either-or, and when making decisions or judgments we must choose one over the other. However, a 2015 <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/bdm.1903">meta-analysis</a> (where data from multiple studies are combined and analysed) of 50 years of cognitive style research found evidence that these thinking styles could happen at the same time. </p>
<p>Rather than two opposing ends of a spectrum, they are separate constructs, meaning that these thinking styles can happen together. Research in decision-making also suggests that <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01088/full">thinking style is flexible</a> and the best decisions are made when the thinking style a person uses aligns with the situation at hand. </p>
<p>Some situations are more suited to analytical thinking styles (such as number tasks) while some are more suited to using intuition (such as understanding facial expressions). An adaptive decision-maker is skilled in using both thinking styles.</p>
<p>So perhaps one way to reduce susceptibility to conspiracy theories is improving adaptive decision-making. <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0258985">My 2021 study</a> found that when people were confronted with the misconceptions they had previously made, overestimating the extent to which others endorse anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, they re-evaluated their decisions. This could suggest that thinking styles can depend on the situation and information at hand. </p>
<p>Although in many situations <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1871187116300384?casa_token=HdOYh26XhEgAAAAA:HYLmEBNeaggtWPqyvt94Mhhi4nNOvzPfji6tud3HPHB2Okhz4mEpzJ9HyX7Hmgal1jl8PkyJew">analytical thinking is better</a>, we shouldn’t dismiss the intuitive thinking style conspiracy theorists seem to favour as unworkable or inflexible. The answer could lie in understanding both thinking styles and being able to adjust our thinking styles when needed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222303/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Darel Cookson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The pros and pitfalls of this type of thinkingDarel Cookson, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1828312022-08-09T12:17:20Z2022-08-09T12:17:20ZHow ‘living architecture’ could help the world avoid a soul-deadening digital future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477909/original/file-20220805-35508-n38306.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1997%2C997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Which lesson should the technology field take from architecture: modernist efficiency or 'living structure'?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/kXMoA061bKk; https://www.flickr.com/photos/morville/19827686945/in/album-72157655666777948/">Jamie Street/Unsplash; Peter Morville/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>My first Apple laptop felt like a piece of magic made just for me – almost a part of myself. The rounded corners, the lively shading, the delightful animations. I had been using Windows my whole life, starting on my family’s IBM 386, and I never thought using a computer could be so fun. </p>
<p>Indeed, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs said that computers were like <a href="https://medium.learningbyshipping.com/bicycle-121262546097">bicycles for the mind</a>, extending your possibilities and helping you do things not only more efficiently but also more beautifully. Some technologies seem to unlock your humanity and make you feel inspired and alive. </p>
<p>But not all technologies are like this. Sometimes devices do not work reliably or as expected. Often you have to change to conform to the limitations of a system, as when you need to speak differently so a digital voice assistant can understand you. And some platforms bring out the worst in people. Think of anonymous flame wars. </p>
<p>As a researcher who <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=YqMcw0wAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate">studies technology, design and ethics</a>, I believe that a hopeful way forward comes from the world of architecture. It all started decades ago with an architect’s observation that newer buildings tended to be lifeless and depressing, even if they were made using ever fancier tools and techniques. </p>
<h2>Tech’s wear on humanity</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2020/06/30/tech-causes-more-problems-than-it-solves/">The problems with technology are myriad and diffuse</a>, and widely studied and reported: from <a href="https://doi.org/10.31887/DCNS.2020.22.2/mkorte">short attention spans</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-817319-0.00015-3">tech neck</a> to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2019.1628658">clickbait</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/widm.1356">AI bias</a> to <a href="http://shamenationbook.com">trolling and shaming</a> to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221075759">conspiracy theories and misinformation</a>.</p>
<p>As people increasingly live online, these issues may only get worse. Some <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/metaverse-108137">recent visions of the metaverse</a>, for example, suggest that humans will come to live primarily in virtual spaces. Already, people worldwide spend on average <a href="https://www.comparitech.com/tv-streaming/screen-time-statistics/">seven hours per day on digital screens</a> – nearly half of waking hours. </p>
<p>While public awareness of these issues is on the rise, it’s not clear whether or how tech companies will be able to address them. Is there a way to ensure that future technologies are more like my first Apple laptop and less like a Twitter pile-on? </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464500/original/file-20220520-21-sywqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in his 70s with gray hair wearing a blue button-down shirt" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464500/original/file-20220520-21-sywqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464500/original/file-20220520-21-sywqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464500/original/file-20220520-21-sywqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464500/original/file-20220520-21-sywqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464500/original/file-20220520-21-sywqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=660&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464500/original/file-20220520-21-sywqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=660&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464500/original/file-20220520-21-sywqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=660&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christopher Alexander in 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ChristopherAlexander2012.jpg">Michaelmehaffy/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over the past 60 years, the architectural theorist Christopher Alexander pursued questions similar to these in his own field. Alexander, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/29/arts/christopher-alexander-dead.html">who died in March 2022 at age 85</a>, developed <a href="http://www.patternlanguage.com">a theory of design</a> that has made inroads in architecture. Translated to the technology field, this theory can provide the principles and process for creating technologies that unlock people’s humanity rather than suppress it.</p>
<h2>How good design is defined</h2>
<p>Technology design is beginning to mature. Tech companies and product managers have realized that <a href="https://www.dmi.org/blogpost/1093220/182956/Design-Driven-Companies-Outperform-S-P-by-228-Over-Ten-Years--The-DMI-Design-Value-Index">a well-designed user interface is essential for a product’s success</a>, not just nice to have.</p>
<p>As professions mature, they tend to organize their knowledge into concepts. Design patterns are a great example of this. A design pattern is a reusable solution to a problem that designers need to solve frequently. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.usability.gov/what-and-why/user-experience.html">user experience</a> design, for instance, such problems include helping users enter their shipping information or get back to the home page. Instead of reinventing the wheel every time, designers can apply a design pattern: clicking the logo at the upper left always takes you home. With design patterns, <a href="https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/ui-design-patterns">life is easier for designers, and the end products are better for users</a>. </p>
<p>Design patterns facilitate good design in one sense: They are efficient and productive. Yet they do not necessarily lead to designs that are good for people. They can be sterile and generic. How, exactly, to avoid that is a major challenge.</p>
<p>A seed of hope lies in the very place where design patterns originated: the work of Christopher Alexander. Alexander dedicated his life to understanding what makes an environment good for humans – good in a deep, moral sense – and how designers might create structures that are likewise good. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hbwnDdPWjig?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Christopher Alexander discussing place, repetition and adaptation.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>His work on design patterns, dating back to the 1960s, was his initial effort at an answer. The patterns he developed with his colleagues included details like how many stories a good building should have and how many light sources a good room should have. </p>
<p>But Alexander found design patterns ultimately unsatisfying. He took that work further, eventually publishing his theory in his four-volume magnum opus, “<a href="http://www.natureoforder.com/overview.htm">The Nature of Order</a>.”</p>
<p>While Alexander’s work on design patterns is very well known – his 1977 book “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/a-pattern-language-9780195019193">A Pattern Language</a>” remains a bestseller – his later work, which he deemed much more important, has been largely overlooked. No surprise, then, that his deepest insights have not yet entered technology design. But if they do, good design could come to mean something much richer.</p>
<h2>On creating structures that foster life</h2>
<p>Architecture was getting worse, not better. That was Christopher Alexander’s conclusion in the mid-20th century. </p>
<p>Much modern architecture is inert and <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2016/04/the-psychological-cost-of-boring-buildings.html">makes people feel dead inside</a>. It may be sleek and intellectual – it may even win awards – but it does not help generate a feeling of life within its occupants. What went wrong, and how might architecture correct its course?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464498/original/file-20220520-21-sw7ofp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cluster of nearly-featureless city buildings with competing shapes and colors" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464498/original/file-20220520-21-sw7ofp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464498/original/file-20220520-21-sw7ofp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464498/original/file-20220520-21-sw7ofp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464498/original/file-20220520-21-sw7ofp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464498/original/file-20220520-21-sw7ofp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464498/original/file-20220520-21-sw7ofp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464498/original/file-20220520-21-sw7ofp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An example of the kind of postmodern architecture Christopher Alexander criticized.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/garryknight/4537442773">Garry Knight/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Motivated by this question, Alexander conducted numerous experiments throughout his career, going deeper and deeper. Beginning with his design patterns, he discovered that the designs that stirred up the most feeling in people, what he called living structure, shared certain qualities. This wasn’t just a hunch, but a testable empirical theory, one that he validated and refined from the late 1970s until the turn of the century. He identified <a href="http://web.sfc.keio.ac.jp/%7Eiba/papers/PURPLSOC14_Properties.pdf">15 qualities</a>, each with a technical definition and many examples. </p>
<p>The qualities are:
</p><ul>
<li>Levels of scale
</li><li>Strong centers
</li><li>Boundaries
</li><li>Alternating repetition
</li><li>Positive space
</li><li>Good shape
</li><li>Local symmetries
</li><li>Deep interlocking and ambiguity
</li><li>Contrast
gradients
</li><li>Roughness
</li><li>Echoes
</li><li>The void
</li><li>Simplicity and inner calm
</li><li>Notseparateness
</li></ul><p></p>
<p>As Alexander writes, living structure is not just pleasant and energizing, though it is also those. Living structure reaches into humans at a transcendent level – connecting people with themselves and with one another – with all humans across centuries and cultures and climates. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464496/original/file-20220520-11-9v8mvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A tall Chinese pagoda against a blue sky rises above a row of trees in the foreground" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464496/original/file-20220520-11-9v8mvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464496/original/file-20220520-11-9v8mvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464496/original/file-20220520-11-9v8mvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464496/original/file-20220520-11-9v8mvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464496/original/file-20220520-11-9v8mvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464496/original/file-20220520-11-9v8mvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464496/original/file-20220520-11-9v8mvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Giant Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi'an, China. Alexander considered this building a paragon of living structure, with its beautiful scale, inner calm and connectedness to its setting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giant_Wild_Goose_Pagoda.jpg">Alex Kwok/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet modern architecture, as Alexander showed, has very few of the qualities that make living structure. In other words, over the 20th century architects taught one another to do it all wrong. Worse, these errors were crystallized in building codes, zoning laws, awards criteria and education. He decided it was time to turn things around. </p>
<p>Alexander’s ideas <a href="https://www.planetizen.com/features/116600-why-christopher-alexander-still-matters">have been hugely influential in architectural theory and criticism</a>. But the world has not yet seen the paradigm shift he was hoping for. </p>
<p>By the mid-1990s, Alexander recognized that for his aims to be achieved, there would need to be many more people on board – and not just architects, but all sorts of planners, infrastructure developers and everyday people. And perhaps other fields besides architecture. The digital revolution was coming to a head. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464502/original/file-20220520-16-at1ndy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a virtual world showing a medley of elements: a statue, warped checker floors, and signs" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464502/original/file-20220520-16-at1ndy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464502/original/file-20220520-16-at1ndy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464502/original/file-20220520-16-at1ndy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464502/original/file-20220520-16-at1ndy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464502/original/file-20220520-16-at1ndy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464502/original/file-20220520-16-at1ndy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464502/original/file-20220520-16-at1ndy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A scene from the game Second Life, evocative of the widespread metaverse imagery. Is it more like the postmodern scene or the Chinese pagoda?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Italian_Metaverse_in_Second_Life_game.png">ZZ Bottom/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Alexander’s invitation to technology designers</h2>
<p>As Alexander doggedly pursued his research, he started to notice the potential for digital technology to be a force for good. More and more, digital technology was becoming part of the human environment – becoming, that is, architectural.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Alexander’s ideas about design patterns had <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/181610.181617">entered the world of technology design</a> as a way to organize and communicate design knowledge. To be sure, this older work of Alexander’s proved very valuable, particularly to software engineering.</p>
<p>Because of his fame for design patterns, in 1996 Alexander was invited to give <a href="https://www.patternlanguage.com/archive/ieee.html">a keynote address at a major software engineering conference</a> sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98LdFA-_zfA">his talk</a>, Alexander remarked that the tech industry was making great strides in efficiency and power but perhaps had not paused to ask: “What are we supposed to be doing with all these programs? How are they supposed to help the Earth?” </p>
<p>“For now, you’re like guns for hire,” Alexander said. He invited the audience to make technologies for good, not just for pay.</p>
<h2>Loosening the design process</h2>
<p>In “<a href="http://www.natureoforder.com/overview.htm">The Nature of Order</a>,” Alexander defined not only his theory of living structure, but also <a href="https://metropolismag.com/programs/the-wholeness-generating-technology-of-christopher-alexander/">a process for creating such structure</a>. </p>
<p>In short, this process involves democratic participation and springs from the bottom up in an evolving progression incorporating the 15 qualities of living structure. The end result isn’t known ahead of time – it’s adapted along the way. The term “organic” comes to mind, and this is appropriate, because nature almost invariably creates living structure. </p>
<p>But typical architecture – and design in many fields – is, in contrast, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci4020017">top-down and strictly defined from the outset</a>. In this machinelike process, rigid precision is prioritized over local adaptability, project roles are siloed apart and the emphasis is on commercial value and investment over anything else. This is a recipe for lifeless structure. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464509/original/file-20220520-24-u7q62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="tree fern amid other green fern foliage" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464509/original/file-20220520-24-u7q62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464509/original/file-20220520-24-u7q62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464509/original/file-20220520-24-u7q62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464509/original/file-20220520-24-u7q62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464509/original/file-20220520-24-u7q62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464509/original/file-20220520-24-u7q62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464509/original/file-20220520-24-u7q62b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An example of natural living structure: a tree fern crozier unfurling.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/brewbooks/2418272227">brewbooks/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Alexander’s work suggests that if living structure is the goal, the design process is the place to focus. And the technology field is starting to show inklings of change. </p>
<p>In project management, for example, the <a href="https://www.workfront.com/project-management/methodologies/waterfall">traditional waterfall approach</a> followed a rigid, step-by-step schedule defined upfront. The turn of the century saw the emergence of <a href="https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/agile-versus-waterfall-approach-erp-project-6300">a more dynamic approach, dubbed agile</a>, which allows for more adaptability through frequent check-ins and prioritization, progressing in “sprints” of one to two weeks rather than longer phases.</p>
<p>And in design, the human-centered design paradigm is likewise gaining steam. Human-centered design emphasizes, among other elements, continually testing and refining small changes with respect to design goals.</p>
<h2>A design process that promotes life</h2>
<p>However, Alexander would say that both these trajectories are missing some of his deeper insights about living structure. They may spark more purchases and increase stock prices, but these approaches will not necessarily <a href="https://www.humanetech.com/technologists">create technologies that are good for each person and good for the world</a>. </p>
<p>Yet there are some emerging efforts toward this deeper end. For example, <a href="https://jnd.org">design pioneer Don Norman</a>, who coined the term “user experience,” has been developing his ideas on <a href="https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/humanity-centered-design">what he calls humanity-centered design</a>. This goes beyond human-centered design to focus on ecosystems, take a long-term view, incorporate human values and involve stakeholder communities along the way. </p>
<p>The vision of humanity-centered design calls for sweeping changes in the technology field. This is precisely the kind of reorientation that Alexander was calling for in his 1996 keynote speech. Just as design patterns suggested in the first place, the technology field doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel. Technologists and people of all stripes can build up from the tremendous, careful work that Alexander has left.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182831/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Gorichanaz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The late Christopher Alexander’s groundbreaking work on patterns has informed the development of technology for decades, but it’s the architect’s later work that holds the key to a healthier digital life.Tim Gorichanaz, Assistant Teaching Professor of Information Studies, Drexel UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1831372022-06-29T00:56:48Z2022-06-29T00:56:48ZThe iPhone turns 15: a look at the past (and future) of one of the 21st century’s most influential devices<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471283/original/file-20220628-24-y2t4bx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=46%2C0%2C5184%2C3453&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is 15 years since Apple released what’s arguably its flagship device: the iPhone. A decade and a half later, there are few products that have managed to reach a similar level of brand recognition.</p>
<p>Announced to an eager audience in 2007, the iPhone has revolutionised how we communicate and even how we live day to day. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MnrJzXM7a6o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone on January 9 2007.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The large-screen revolution</h2>
<p>The iPhone was released in the United States in June 2007, and in a further six countries in November. </p>
<p>From the launch of Mac computers in the 1970s to the iPod in 2001, Apple already knew how to engage with its audience – and how to encourage extraordinary levels of hype when <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070629165202/">launching a product</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.newsweek.com/first-look-test-driving-iphone-102625">Early reviews for the iPhone</a> were almost universally glowing, applauding Apple’s attention to detail and style. The only problem flagged was network connectivity – and this was an issue with slow speeds on phone carrier networks, rather than the device itself.</p>
<p>Consumers’ appreciation of the iPhone’s style was no surprise. It was indicative of an emerging trend towards smartphones with large-format screens (but which still reflected the form of a phone). The Nokia N95 was another such example that hit the market the same year.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A Nokia N95 with its keypad closed." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467214/original/file-20220606-16-2tf15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467214/original/file-20220606-16-2tf15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467214/original/file-20220606-16-2tf15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467214/original/file-20220606-16-2tf15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467214/original/file-20220606-16-2tf15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467214/original/file-20220606-16-2tf15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467214/original/file-20220606-16-2tf15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 2007 Nokia N95 had a slide-out keypad.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Asim18/Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The original iPhone offered wifi, supported 2G EDGE connectivity and had internet download speeds below 500Kbps (compared to multi Mbps speeds today).</p>
<p>It was also limited to 4GB or 8GB models. This might sound pitiful compared to the 1TB options available today, but it’s enough to hold hundreds of songs or videos and was <a href="https://phys.org/news/2006-03-samsung-unveils-8gb-hard-disk.html">revolutionary</a> at the time. </p>
<h2>The Apple assembly line</h2>
<p>The iPhone 3G was rolled out across the globe in July 2008, with significantly improved data speeds and the addition of the <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/07/app-store-turns-10/">Apple App Store</a>. Even though it offered a mere 500 apps at launch, the app store marked a significant improvement in phone functionality. </p>
<p>And just as users started getting used to 3G, it was superseded by the 3GS about a year later.</p>
<p>This cycle of regularly pushing out new products was critical to Apple’s success. By releasing regular updates (either through whole product iterations, or more minor functionality improvements) Apple managed to secure an enthusiastic audience, eager for new releases each year.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A comparison of iPhone sizes from the iPhone 5S to the iPhone 12" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467215/original/file-20220606-12-4fbmy9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467215/original/file-20220606-12-4fbmy9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=165&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467215/original/file-20220606-12-4fbmy9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=165&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467215/original/file-20220606-12-4fbmy9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=165&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467215/original/file-20220606-12-4fbmy9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=207&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467215/original/file-20220606-12-4fbmy9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=207&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467215/original/file-20220606-12-4fbmy9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=207&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">iPhone sizes got noticeably larger from the iPhone 5S release to the iPhone 12.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tboa/Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Also, since older products would often be passed down within families, Apple’s product pipeline helped it establish a multi-generational user base. This pipeline continues to operate today.</p>
<h2>New approaches to old ways</h2>
<p>The iPhone family has delivered size, speed and storage improvements over its 15-year history. Some of its “new” features weren’t necessarily new to the market, but Apple excelled at delivering them in highly integrated ways that “just worked” (as founder Steve Jobs would say).</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qmPq00jelpc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">“It just works” – Steve Jobs (1955-2011)</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2013, the iPhone 5S introduced touch ID, which allowed users to unlock their phones with a fingerprint. While this had first been introduced with the <a href="https://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/70394/docomo_pushes_handset_fingerprint_authentication/">Fujitsu F505i</a> back in 2003, Apple delivered a robust implementation of the feature. Of course, it wasn’t long before enterprising individuals learnt how to <a href="https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2013/ccc-breaks-apple-touchid">bypass the mechanism</a>. </p>
<p>The iPhone 8, released in 2017, brought with it the face ID feature. This still had <a href="https://www.macrumors.com/2019/08/08/face-id-bypassed-glasses-tape/">weaknesses</a>, but was at least immune to being unlocked with a photo.</p>
<p>Beyond security, the iPhone series has also produced year-on-year improvements in camera technology. While the original model sported a paltry two-megapixel camera, later models featured multiple lenses, with resolution boosted to 12 megapixels – rivalling many digital cameras on the market.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.air-charge.com/our-technology/wireless-charging-smartphone-compatibility/apple-iphone-wireless-charging">Wireless charging</a> was introduced with the iPhone 8 (although preceded by <a href="https://bishoprobeson.xyz/wireless-charger/">Samsung</a> as early as 2011). And the bezel-less design of the iPhone X, released in 2017, built on features found in the <a href="https://www.phonearena.com/news/history-of-the-notch-and-bezel-less-smartphone-design_id105800">Sharp Aquos S2</a> from the same year.</p>
<h2>Controversy</h2>
<p>Nonetheless, the iPhone has not been without problems. The introduction of the iPhone 7 in 2016 saw the removal of the standard 3.5mm headphone socket – and many weren’t happy.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1099022236978237443"}"></div></p>
<p>While an adaptor was initially provided for customers to connect their regular headphones, it was only free for about two years. After that it had to be purchased. In 2016 there were indications of a spike in wireless headphone <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/08/apple-faces-tough-sell-after-scrapping-iphone-7-headphones-jack">sales</a>. Perhaps somewhat conveniently, Apple <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/07/apple-unveiled-the-159-wireless-airpods/">launched its AirPods</a> (wireless Bluetooth earbuds) at the same time.</p>
<p>A similar change came in 2020 with the release of the iPhone 12. Arguing consumers had a multitude of spare devices – and perhaps trying to ride on the green re-use agenda – Apple <a href="https://au.pcmag.com/mobile-phones/83454/no-charger-in-the-box-everything-you-need-to-know-about-charging-the-iphone-12">removed chargers</a> from the unboxing experience.</p>
<p>Users still received a charge cable, but it was a USB-C to lightning cable, whereas previous iPhone chargers would have a USB-A socket (the standard USB port). </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471276/original/file-20220628-13-ex91d0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Apple phone cable" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471276/original/file-20220628-13-ex91d0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471276/original/file-20220628-13-ex91d0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471276/original/file-20220628-13-ex91d0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471276/original/file-20220628-13-ex91d0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471276/original/file-20220628-13-ex91d0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471276/original/file-20220628-13-ex91d0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471276/original/file-20220628-13-ex91d0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When Apple stopped offering chargers it provided a USB-C to lightning cable, despite older chargers having a USB-A socket.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Apple</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The justification iPhone users would have a box full of old chargers overlooked the fact that none of them would be likely to support the newer and faster USB-C cable.</p>
<p>So you could use your old USB-A to lightning cable and charger to charge your shiny new phone, but you’d be limited to slower charging speeds.</p>
<h2>Future</h2>
<p>If the past 15 years are anything to go by, it’s likely the iPhone will continue with annual product releases (as we write this article many will be anticipating the iPhone 14 <a href="https://www.macrumors.com/roundup/iphone-14/">due later this year</a>). </p>
<p>These models will probably bring improvements in speed, weight, battery life, camera resolution and storage capacity. However, it’s not likely we’ll be seeing many <em>groundbreaking</em> innovations in the next few years. </p>
<p>The latest iPhones are already highly sophisticated mini computers, which means there’s limited scope for fundamental enhancement.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most radical change will be the shift from Apple’s proprietary lightning connection to USB-C charging, thanks to a <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20220603IPR32196/deal-on-common-charger-reducing-hassle-for-consumers-and-curbing-e-waste">new European Union directive</a>. And while a common power connector standard is widely considered a positive move, Apple wasn’t convinced:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We believe regulations that impose harmonisation of smartphone chargers would stifle innovation rather than encourage it. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>As display technologies evolve, Apple may turn to the clam-shell phone design, with a fully <a href="https://www.macrumors.com/2022/02/21/apple-exploring-20-inch-foldable-macbook/">foldable display screen</a>. </p>
<p>Samsung has already brought this <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/19/21142728/samsung-foldable-glass-galaxy-z-flip-explained-schott-corning">to the market</a>. But Apple, in true fashion, will likely wait until the technology (particularly the glass) has evolved to deliver an experience in line with what iPhone users have come to expect.</p>
<p>While we can’t predict what the iPhone will look like in another 15 years (although <a href="https://www.wrappz.com/blog/iphone-in-2040/">some have tried</a>), it’s likely the demand for Apple products will still be there, driven by Apple’s strong brand loyalty.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-usb-c-charger-rule-shows-how-eu-regulators-make-decisions-for-the-world-184763">New USB-C charger rule shows how EU regulators make decisions for the world</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183137/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite its ‘innovator’ status, Apple usually wasn’t the first one to offer groundbreaking new features. But it knew how to adopt existing features in groundbreaking ways.Ismini Vasileiou, Associate Professor in Information Systems, De Montfort UniversityPaul Haskell-Dowland, Professor of Cyber Security Practice, Edith Cowan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1664372021-08-25T09:53:14Z2021-08-25T09:53:14ZA diet consisting mainly of fruit is bad for you<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417973/original/file-20210826-2243-15s35b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C0%2C4473%2C2997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fruitarianism is one of the most restrictive diet choices available.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/M_xIaxQE3Ms">Julia Zolotova/unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Plant-based diets have become increasingly popular in recent years, both for <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/3/1478">health and ethical reasons</a>. One extreme form of plant-based diet is “fruitarianism”, a diet based largely on consumption of raw fruit. At first glance, this may sound healthy, but what effect will this type of restrictive diet have on the body? And is it a healthy diet choice?</p>
<p>There is solid evidence that plant-based diets are good for the body. Plant-based diets may <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/9/8/848">reduce the risk of heart disease by 40% and stroke by 29%</a>. Plant-based diets have also been shown to be a useful strategy for <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nutd20173?report=reader">helping people lose weight</a>. </p>
<p>While plant-based diets have clear benefits for health and <a href="https://academic.oup.com/advances/article/10/Supplement_4/S380/5624053?login=true">environmental sustainability</a>, fruitarianism is one of the most restrictive diet choices available and has almost no evidence to support health benefits. There is no definitive description of what a fruitarian diet should consist of, although one commonly cited “rule” is that <a href="https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/what-fruitarian-diet">between 55% and 75% of the diet should comprise raw fruit</a>. Beyond this, there is some variability; some fruitarians eat grains, some also eat nuts and oils. </p>
<p>Apple co-founder, Steve Jobs, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/healthmain/strange-eating-habits-steve-jobs-119434">experimented with a fruitarian diet</a>, supplementing it with nuts, seeds and grains. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2014/dec/03/-sp-trouble-with-fruitarians">Some adherents of fruitarianism stick to an 80-10-10 rule</a>: 80% of calories coming from fresh fruit and vegetables, 10% coming from protein and 10% from fat. This rule is mistakenly based on the belief that humans are <a href="https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/80-10-10-diet#TOC_TITLE_HDR_3">not omnivores, but “frugivores”</a> – animals that prefer to eat raw fruit. Proponents of this belief state that the human digestive system is physiologically designed to digest fruit and raw vegetables. While this may have once been true, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02436371">the human body has evolved</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Oranges" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417974/original/file-20210826-27-1y2dp05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417974/original/file-20210826-27-1y2dp05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417974/original/file-20210826-27-1y2dp05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417974/original/file-20210826-27-1y2dp05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417974/original/file-20210826-27-1y2dp05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417974/original/file-20210826-27-1y2dp05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417974/original/file-20210826-27-1y2dp05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fruit in abundance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/1CsaVdwfIew">Edgar Castrejon/unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some fruitarians claim that “going raw” has had marked benefits including <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2830942/Woman-given-six-months-live-claims-CURED-cancer-juice-cleanses-swapping-junk-food-raw-vegan-diet.html">curing cancer</a> and <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2019/08/26/couple-who-only-eat-fruit-say-they-feel-healthier-than-ever-before-10629600/">eliminating bloating and body odour</a>. There is no robust evidence to back up these claims.</p>
<p>The idea of consuming a fruit-only (or fruit-heavy) diet might appear a healthy option at first glance, but there are potentially many problems with this form of restrictive eating. </p>
<p>There are clear and significant physical health issues to consider when the human body is provided with a largely fruit-based diet. Following this eating pattern excludes essential food groups and nutrients that the body needs to maintain normal health. </p>
<p>While most fruit is considered to be <a href="https://www.nutrition.org.uk/healthyliving/healthydiet/fruit-and-vegetables.html">healthy and nutritious</a>, a diet that almost solely relies on fruits will be deficient in nutrients, including protein, iron, calcium, vitamin B (including vitamin B12) and D, zinc and omega-3 fatty acids. Deficiency in these nutrients can have significant health implications including <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-d/">rickets and osteomalacia</a> (a softening of the bones), <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamin-b12-or-folate-deficiency-anaemia/symptoms/">anaemia</a> and issues with <a href="https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320050">bones, muscles and skin</a>. Put simply, fruit does not contain all the nutrients the body needs.</p>
<p>In addition to what is missing in a fruitarian diet, the high levels of fructose have to be considered. Fructose is a simple sugar, like glucose, but the human body processes it very differently. Fructose is metabolised solely in the liver. Excess fructose consumption can cause <a href="https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-high-fructose-intake-may-trigger-fatty-liver-disease">fat buildup in the liver</a>, leading to insulin resistance in the liver and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. While there is controversy as to whether <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/is-fructose-bad-for-you-200705012507">fructose from fruit is as bad as fructose syrup</a>, which is added to foods to sweeten them, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/139/11/2067/4751047">experiments in rats</a> fed a high fructose diet showed similarities to human fatty liver disease.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Central market in Malaysia, fruit stall" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417976/original/file-20210826-21-e7jou5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417976/original/file-20210826-21-e7jou5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417976/original/file-20210826-21-e7jou5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417976/original/file-20210826-21-e7jou5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417976/original/file-20210826-21-e7jou5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417976/original/file-20210826-21-e7jou5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417976/original/file-20210826-21-e7jou5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Most fruit is considered to be healthy and nutritious, a diet that almost solely relies on fruits will be deficient in nutrients.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/HkyE5l_S-7I">Mahdiar Mahmoodi/unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Serious harm</h2>
<p>Beyond the potential physical effects of fruitarianism, restrictive diets are also often associated with an eating disorder known as <a href="https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/get-information-and-support/about-eating-disorders/types/other-eating-feeding-problems/orthorexia/">orthorexia nervosa</a>, or an unhealthy obsession with eating “pure” food only. This means that what can start off as a healthy move towards eating more fruit and vegetables and less junk food can lead to <a href="https://www.psycom.net/eating-disorders/orthorexia/">an eating disorder, depression and anxiety</a>.</p>
<p>Worryingly, isolated cases of death or significant disease have been reported when a fruitarian style diet has been followed. Examples include a nine-month-old girl <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1542293.stm">dying after being fed a fruit-only diet</a>. The girl died vastly underweight and malnourished. Additionally, a 49-year-old man was recently reported to have <a href="https://cp.neurology.org/content/early/2020/10/28/CPJ.0000000000001005">developed reversible dementia</a> after subsisting on a fruit-only diet. </p>
<p>With little evidence of the benefits of such a restrictive diet, it is clear that people who follow this restrictive diet are potentially putting their health at serious risk. Supplementation with foods that provide the missing nutrients may help, but may be rejected by some with orthodox views on fruitarianism. Before changing a diet, especially if the change is going to be extreme, it is always wise to speak to your doctor first. Incorporating more fruit and vegetables as part of a balanced diet is a far safer, healthier way to approach fruit consumption.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166437/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Brown has previously received funding from the EU Horizon 2020 scheme to study personalised approaches to food choices.</span></em></p>A fruitarian diet is a more restrictive form of veganism, and not one to be recommended.James Brown, Associate Professor in Biology and Biomedical Science, Aston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1603182021-05-13T12:36:12Z2021-05-13T12:36:12ZApple threatens to upend podcasting’s free, open architecture<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400339/original/file-20210512-14-1tdcwwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C3%2C2117%2C1406&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Creators will now have the option to require a payment for audiences to access their content on Apple's platform.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/ear-phones-on-top-of-money-symbolizing-that-you-can-royalty-free-image/1217461301?adppopup=true">Ramyr_Dukin/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Back in 2005, an ebullient Apple CEO Steven P. Jobs <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2005/06/28Apple-Takes-Podcasting-Mainstream/">announced the integration of podcasting</a> into Version 4.9 of its desktop iTunes software, calling podcasting “TiVo for radio.” </p>
<p>Sixteen years later, during its April 20, 2021, “Spring Loaded” event, Apple has once again signaled a long-term corporate commitment to podcasting. But this time, instead of introducing listeners to the medium, Apple is creating the technical infrastructure for paid subscriptions through its Apple Podcasts service. </p>
<p>Creators will now have the option to require a payment for audiences to access their content on Apple’s platform, with <a href="https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/04/20/apple-to-take-reported-30-cut-from-podcast-subscriptions">Apple taking a 30% cut of the revenue</a>. </p>
<p>Paid subscriptions aren’t new. But as scholars who study <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ybOY0QgAAAAJ&hl=en">the podcasting industry</a>, we believe the integration of paid subscriptions into podcasting’s most powerful platforms could reshape the medium in significant ways.</p>
<h2>Millions introduced to podcasting</h2>
<p>In 2005, Apple brought podcasting into the mainstream by making the medium visible and instantly available. Transforming iTunes into a sophisticated podcatcher – software that allows users to locate and download audio files – made it easy for users to access podcast shows. It did this by allowing users to easily find and add podcast <a href="https://rss.com/blog/how-do-rss-feeds-work/">RSS feeds</a>, which give people the opportunity to automatically access new episodes as they’re released.</p>
<p>Once it began installing the now-iconic purple <a href="https://appleinsider.com/articles/15/02/25/thanks-to-serial-apples-podcasts-app-baked-into-ios-8-podcast-listens-grow-18">Apple Podcasts app by default on iPhones in late 2014</a>, many listeners discovered podcasting for the first time, <a href="https://www.edisonresearch.com/the-infinite-dial-2015/">leading to major audience growth</a>. Currently there is a proliferation of podcast apps to discover and listen to podcasts; most of them can be used at no cost to the consumer.</p>
<p>To this day, <a href="https://www.buzzsprout.com/blog/podcast-directories">Apple has by far the largest podcast directory</a>, which serves both as a gateway to tens of thousands of new podcasts and as an archive of the medium’s history by storing the RSS feeds of shows no longer releasing new episodes. </p>
<h2>The grassroots podcasting boom</h2>
<p>Apple’s initial foray into podcasting was guided by its broader strategy to increase the value of its iPod devices, which were <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/23/13359534/ipod-mini-nano-touch-shuffle-15-years-visual-history-apple">first released in 2001</a>. The goal was to entice consumers by offering an entire universe of free audio content. </p>
<p>But Jobs’ vision of podcasting as essentially time-shifted radio was ultimately shortsighted. </p>
<p>What he didn’t anticipate was the explosion of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15252019.2008.10722139">user-generated content</a> that universally expanded the availability of audio content. In fact, podcasting’s vibrancy has a lot to do with the sheer diversity of its voices and <a href="https://www.wnyc.org/story/super-niche-podcasts/">ultra-niche content</a>, thanks largely to the relatively low barriers to entry for creators. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A zoom-in of Apple's purple podcast icon." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400331/original/file-20210512-21-4igwfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400331/original/file-20210512-21-4igwfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400331/original/file-20210512-21-4igwfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400331/original/file-20210512-21-4igwfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400331/original/file-20210512-21-4igwfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400331/original/file-20210512-21-4igwfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400331/original/file-20210512-21-4igwfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Apple started automatically installing a podcast app on its iPhones in 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-podcast-application-is-seen-on-an-apple-ipad-on-october-news-photo/865878444?adppopup=true">Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Producing a podcast can be as simple as recording audio on your computer or mobile phone, uploading the content to a podcast hosting service, and then making sure that your show is listed with the major directories like Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts. </p>
<p>While there is generally a small fee charged by hosting companies for storing audio files and managing your feed, a service like Anchor – <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/14/spotify-gimlet-anchor-340-million/">purchased by Spotify for US$140 million in 2019</a> – uploads and lists podcasts for free, and has been the engine of massive podcast growth for Spotify. Users launched <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/2/21755151/spotify-podcasts-anchor-stats-data-wrapped-2020">1 million new podcasts via Anchor in 2020 alone</a>. Because RSS is an open web standard, listeners can access podcast content for free on any app or device they choose, from smart speakers to their car dashboards.</p>
<h2>Spotify gets exclusive</h2>
<p>Back in 2005, since Apple’s core business was selling hardware – at the time, iPods, Mac computers and, later, iPhones – the company took a relatively hands off approach to the emerging medium.</p>
<p>Rather than act as a content impresario, Apple’s iTunes instead operated chiefly as a convenient online storefront for free content that passed through audio files. Unlike its music store counterpart, however, Apple did not allow any financial transactions to take place around podcast content. </p>
<p>Paid subscriptions and other forms of monetization were therefore left to in-show advertising, merchandising and crowdfunding. Jealously guarding its status as an industry privacy leader, Apple didn’t even allow podcast creators to access listening data, like audience demographics or how long users listened to an episode <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2017/06/apples-new-analytics-for-podcasts-mean-a-lot-of-change-some-good-some-inconvenient-is-on-the-way/">until 2017</a>. And this was mainly in response to sophisticated audience dashboards being launched by competitors like Spotify and Google.</p>
<p>As rival Spotify moved into the space and began to secure exclusive contracts with top podcasters like <a href="https://newsroom.spotify.com/2018-08-22/the-joe-budden-podcast-lands-exclusive-partnership-with-spotify/">Joe Budden</a> and <a href="https://newsroom.spotify.com/2020-05-19/the-joe-rogan-experience-launches-exclusive-partnership-with-spotify/">Joe Rogan</a>, Apple’s preeminence as the top destination for podcast listeners was threatened. For Spotify, making exclusive podcast deals with high-profile talent was a means to draw ears into their ecosystem and keep them there. </p>
<p>Spotify’s strategy has begun to pay off, as <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/02/spotify-podcast-listeners-to-top-apples-for-the-first-time-in-2021-forecast-claims/">U.S. listenership on their podcast app is expected to surpass Apple’s in 2021</a>. It has already surpassed Apple <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/file/0022/217741/ofcom-podcast-survey-2021-full-spss.sav">in the U.K</a>.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.]</p>
<h2>Apple enters the content business</h2>
<p>At risk of being sidelined, Apple’s status as podcasting’s benevolent absentee landlord has changed.</p>
<p>For the first time, paid subscriptions will exist on its platform. Apple will allow creators to place their podcasts behind a paywall via the Apple Podcasts app. Podcasters have, for the most part, <a href="https://www.engadget.com/apples-podcast-subscriptions-are-a-mixed-blessing-133008360.html">welcomed the move</a>. Now they can easily monetize their content on the podcast platform with the most listeners, though with a hefty surcharge applied.</p>
<p>Rather than an all-or-nothing approach, Apple has decided to allow podcasters to decide <a href="https://podnews.net/update/apple-podcast-subscriptions-hello">whether their content is exclusive to Apple</a>, or whether it will appear outside of the Apple Podcast app. However, <a href="https://twitter.com/JamesCridland/status/1385030004531073026">as many podcasters have discovered</a>, this system has been turned “off” by default.</p>
<p>What does this all mean for podcasting? </p>
<p>The big takeaway here is that Apple, by taking a cut of the creators’ premium content on Apple Podcasts, is now firmly in the content business. <a href="https://ossacollective.com/spotify-exclusive-podcasts/">Like Spotify</a>, we can expect more exclusive shows for Apple Podcasts.</p>
<p>For the first time, Apple will also be storing audio files on its servers, making it a first-party podcast host, and likely stealing some business from the remaining independent third-party podcast-hosting providers that also offer premium podcast services, such as Libsyn and Blubrry.</p>
<p>A medium that exploded due to the lack of institutional gatekeepers is now seeing big tech companies act like traditional media networks, signing popular hosts and shows to exclusive contracts. Of course, other publishers like <a href="https://slate.com/podcasts">Slate</a> and <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/premium">Stitcher</a> have offered subscriptions to their shows via their own websites and mobile apps. But the much larger audience share of Apple Podcasts and Spotify has much greater potential to move the podcast ecosystem in the direction of premium paid content.</p>
<p>This presents a potential long-term threat to the free, open architecture of podcasting, though projects like <a href="https://podcastindex.org/">The Podcast Index</a> are aiming to preserve the medium as platform-agnostic.</p>
<p>One thing is for certain: Apple and Spotify have given us a glimpse of a podcasting future where the walled gardens of platform-exclusive, premium content become the norm.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160318/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim Fox has received funding from AMICAL.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Sullivan and Richard Berry do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Podcasting exploded due to the lack of gatekeepers. Now big tech companies are starting to act like traditional media networks, signing popular hosts to exclusive contracts and establishing paywalls.John Sullivan, Professor of Media and Communication, Muhlenberg CollegeKim Fox, Professor of Practice in Journalism and Mass Communication, American University in CairoRichard Berry, Senior Lecturer in Radio, University of SunderlandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1498732020-11-18T12:30:03Z2020-11-18T12:30:03ZToy Story at 25: how Pixar’s debut evolved tradition rather than abandoning it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368708/original/file-20201110-13-c84vmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C0%2C1914%2C1080&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Old meets new as Woody and Buzz become friends in the original Toy Story (1995).</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PGZnOVdxzk&ab_channel=BestMovieClips">Pixar/Youtube</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The release of Toy Story 25 years ago marked a paradigm shift in animation and cinema history. It was the first full-length feature by
Pixar Animation Studios and the world’s first fully computer-animated film. Yet, from our present-day perspective, Toy Story can be seen as evolutionary rather than revolutionary – a marker of already developing trends in the 1990s and a continuation of enduring traditions from the history of animation.</p>
<p>Premiering on November 19 1995, the novelty of the computer techniques used by Pixar was central to Disney’s marketing of Toy Story. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/22/movies/film-review-there-s-a-new-toy-in-the-house-uh-oh.html">Press reviews</a> invariably highlighted the technological innovation of the film. </p>
<p>Toy Story’s plot anticipated this battle between old and new. The film follows traditional cloth cowboy doll, Woody, as he deals with his young owner Andy’s affections being usurped by the shiny plastic and electronics of spaceman Buzz Lightyear. This mimics how computer animation threatened to replace hand-drawn animation techniques. But the narrative’s final reconciliation between Woody and Buzz, both equally loved by Andy, is suggestive of the cautious innovation the film entails.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CxwTLktovTU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>A Toy Story world</h2>
<p>Toy Story is undoubtedly one of the most important and influential animated features of the 20th century. In this regard it is only equalled by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1987/07/12/movies/snow-white-at-50-undimmed-magic.html">Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs</a> (1937), the first full-length animated feature film. </p>
<p>The film spawned three sequels, released in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNWSGRD5CzU">1999</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcpWXaA2qeg">2010</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmiIUN-7qhE&ab_channel=Pixar">2019</a>, which together have earned more than <a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchise/fr3796340485/?ref_=bo_frs_table_21">US $3 billion</a> (£2.2 billion) in global box office takings. Alongside these films, there have been <a href="https://collider.com/toy-story-tv-specials/">two television specials</a>, <a href="https://www.pixar.com/toy-story-toons-1">three short films</a> and several <a href="https://www.cbr.com/toy-story-spinoffs-forky-bo-peep/">TV spin offs</a>. </p>
<p>Anyone visiting Disney theme parks around the world can encounter Toy Story <a href="https://disney.co.uk/parks/discover-toy-story-land">characters and rides</a>, eat at the film’s famous <a href="https://disneyland.disney.go.com/dining/disneyland/alien-pizza-planet/">Pizza Planet</a>, and even ride through <a href="https://www.disneyworld.co.uk/attractions/hollywood-studios/toy-story-mania/">Andy’s room</a>. </p>
<p>You’ll find the film’s characters in any toy shop, supermarket or children’s clothes store. Innumerable books based on the films – aimed at both children and a general audience – have been published, as well as <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/toy-story-9781844576678/">academic studies</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/h-Kzub7YXQM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Toy Story is <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030368500">widely credited</a> with influencing the regular production across other major studios of computer-animated films. As the <a href="https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/cumulative/released-in-1995">highest-grossing</a> film released in 1995, it demonstrated that computer-animated films could be lucrative. Foreseeing this success, Steve Jobs took a gamble, taking Pixar public days after the film’s release. It paid off in a hugely successful <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-11-30-fi-8751-story.html">IPO</a>, which valued the company at US $1.5 billion (£1.1 billion).</p>
<p>Critical success was equally important – the film was nominated for <a href="https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1996/T?qt-honorees=1#block-quicktabs-honorees">four Oscars</a> and John Lasseter, director and co-writer, was recognised with a Special Achievement Award. Animation was being taken seriously again for the first time in decades. Without this success the <a href="https://www.dreamworks.com/movies/shrek">Shrek</a>, <a href="https://family.20thcenturystudios.com/movies/ice-age">Ice Age</a> and <a href="http://www.despicableme.co.uk/?redirect=off">The Despicable Me and Minions</a> franchises arguably <a href="https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-computer-animated-film.html">wouldn’t exist</a>. </p>
<h2>Evolving tradition</h2>
<p>Nevertheless, it’s now clear Toy Story was a transition rather than an absolute break with the past. </p>
<p>Many of the people who worked on the film, particularly Lasseter, attended the California Institute of the Arts, which had <a href="https://calarts.edu/about/institute/history/chouinard-art-institute">long-established links with Disney</a>. As such, Toy Story was rooted in the <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/37402.37407">traditional character animation techniques</a> that had been refined at the Disney studio in the 1930s. Lasseter had been working at Disney when <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3efV2wqEjEY">Tron</a> (1982) was in production, a film whose use of early computer-generated sequences inspired the young animator but was far more <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2010/12/17/132142891/what-the-critics-don-t-get-about-tron">radical and alienating</a> to mainstream audiences than Pixar’s first feature would be. </p>
<p>Long before Toy Story, Pixar had already helped introduce the use of digital tools in traditional animation production with the <a href="http://alvyray.com/Pixar/documents/CAPS_ExecSummary_AlvyToPixar_4May86.pdf">Computer Animation Production System</a> (CAPS) – the development of which started in 1986. The results of CAPS were first seen briefly in the final shot of a rainbow in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuOkdulLji8&ab_channel=PrestissimoMasterStation">The Little Mermaid</a> (1989) and extensively in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJMlNrEbk0k&ab_channel=TheDisneyAnimationResourceChannel">The Rescuers Down Under</a> (1990), such as the spectacular opening flight sequence. </p>
<p>Disney’s early 90s films all benefited from extensive CAPS-enabled animation, including the incorporation of CGI environments – such as the ballroom sequence in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BUCMTP6uUY&feature=emb_title&ab_channel=WaltDisneyStudios">Beauty and the Beast</a> (1991), the cave escape and magic carpet character in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTjHiQKJUDY&ab_channel=MovieclipsClassicTrailers">Aladdin</a> (1992) and the wildebeest stampede in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sj1MT05lAA&ab_channel=forgottentrailers">The Lion King</a> (1994). Also, everything in those films had been processed through new computer techniques in the years before Toy Story was released. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9EuIo8VqHjs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>It is also worth considering that the distribution and exhibition of Toy Story were decidedly traditional. If you saw Toy Story in the cinema on its original release you would have seen it projected using 35mm celluloid film, like every other film at the time. Toy Story might have been the <a href="https://www.wired.com/1995/12/toy-story/">first fully digital production</a>, but its exhibition <a href="https://doi.org/10.1117/12.952781">depended upon recording</a> those digital images onto analogue film strips. This was a technology that had been in use, largely unchanged, since moving pictures <a href="https://www.loc.gov/collections/edison-company-motion-pictures-and-sound-recordings/articles-and-essays/history-of-edison-motion-pictures/origins-of-motion-pictures/">first appeared a century earlier</a>.</p>
<p>The physical limitations in this process are partly responsible for Toy Story not being released in the UK until March 22 1996, four months after the US. This was almost the last moment when staggered international releases were commonplace. This is because internet piracy, global marketing and shareholder reporting have since placed pressure for worldwide same day-and-date releases, with ever shorter theatrical windows.</p>
<p>From a cultural perspective, Toy Story is a product of its time. Its narrative about “boys toys” reflects the contemporary <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/2019/07/toy-story-4-pixar-brain-trust-women-stephany-folsom-1202153586/">male-centric Pixar brain trust</a>. The prominent <a href="https://variety.com/2019/film/news/toy-story-4-bo-peep-annie-potts-interview-1203244389/">return of a more empowered Bo Peep in Toy Story 4</a> and the lead Black characters in the forthcoming <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOsLIiBStEs">Soul</a> (2020), alongside internal <a href="https://www.cartoonbrew.com/pixar/bao-director-domee-shi-is-developing-a-feature-film-at-pixar-167248.html">personnel</a> changes, suggest the studio is taking some note of <a href="https://variety.com/2017/film/news/rashida-jones-john-lasseter-toy-story-4-1202621286/">criticism</a> about its lack of diversity. Such developments also signal a moving away from the culture that produced the original Toy Story. </p>
<p>Recognising the historical context of Toy Story can make us reconsider some of the promotional claims put forward on its behalf, but this need not diminish the true value of the film. Rather, it can help deepen our appreciation of its lasting appeal. Toy Story at 25 remains an outstanding film for its time, but nevertheless enjoyable, moving, thought-provoking today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149873/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Malcolm Cook does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The film about old toys and new turns 25 this year. Heralded as the first computer animated film, a re-examination indicates it was cautiously innovative rather than a complete break with the past.Malcolm Cook, Associate Professor in Film Studies, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1241422019-10-15T15:38:27Z2019-10-15T15:38:27ZWhy Google’s latest launch is more about the brand than the tech<p>Google has launched its latest flagship phones, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/15/20908152/google-pixel-4-xl-camera-features-release-date-price-specs-announcement">Pixel 4 and 4XL</a>. Although the new models feature relatively marginal improvements to their predecessors, the launch was staged with much fanfare by Google, as if it represented a major breakthrough for the company and the smartphone market – despite most of the product specs <a href="https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/9/18/20868935/google-pixel-4-xl-rumors-leaks-specs-details-colors-cameras-soli">being leaked before the event</a>. The launch was just the latest in a series of product launches by leading digital tech companies that sharply overstated recent innovations. </p>
<p>On September 10, for instance, <a href="https://www.apple.com/apple-events/september-2019/">Apple</a> introduced three new iPhones, revamped Apple Watches and two new subscriptions services, TV+ and Apple Arcade. Two weeks later, <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/25/everything-amazon-announced-at-its-alexa-event-today/">Amazon</a> presented a long list of new gadgets at its Alexa event. All these launches have something in common: the “novelties” they introduce are merely iterations of their existing product offering, yet they are presented as revolutionary.</p>
<p>Exaggeration does not come as a surprise in marketing and advertisement. Yet digital corporations pursue a precise strategy with their product launches. The main goal of these events is not so much introducing specific gadgets. It is to position these companies at the centre of the aura that the so-called digital revolution has acquired for billions of users – and customers – around the world.</p>
<h2>Long history</h2>
<p>Launching new technology devices through public events predates Silicon Valley. Alexander Graham Bell and Guglielmo Marconi, two of the most popular inventors and entrepreneurs in the late 19th and early 20th century, organised events to present the <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/connecting-britain/alexander-graham-bell-unveils-telephone">telephone</a> and <a href="https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789400739765">wireless telegraphy</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297075/original/file-20191015-98632-923rzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297075/original/file-20191015-98632-923rzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297075/original/file-20191015-98632-923rzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297075/original/file-20191015-98632-923rzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297075/original/file-20191015-98632-923rzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297075/original/file-20191015-98632-923rzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297075/original/file-20191015-98632-923rzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297075/original/file-20191015-98632-923rzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alexander Graham Bell launching the long-distance telephone line from New York to Chicago in 1892.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The audience at these events were mainly scientists or technical experts, but they were also attended by politicians, entrepreneurs, and even kings and queens. The celebrated American inventor Thomas Edison went one step further, presenting his new products in public events such as international exhibitions and tech fairs. </p>
<p>Like today, launches of new products helped shape public opinion and to make a name for companies such as AT&T, Marconi and Edison. They were even used to fight <a href="https://www.energy.gov/articles/war-currents-ac-vs-dc-power">commercial wars</a>. At the end of the 19th century Edison launched a campaign of public events to promote his direct current standard against the rival alternating current. He even electrocuted animals (like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoKi4coyFw0">the elephant Topsy</a>) in front of journalists to demonstrate that the other standard was dangerous.</p>
<p>More recently, Steve Jobs followed the footsteps of these inventor-entrepreneurs and codified a “genre” – the so-called keynote. Alone on stage and wearing roll neck and jeans (an informal “uniform” for geeks), Jobs launched several Apple products in front of audiences of tech-enthusiasts. These events helped build the myth of Steve Jobs and Apple.</p>
<h2>What product launches are really about</h2>
<p>Jobs’ talent was more <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Steve-Jobs/Walter-Isaacson/9781451648539">in the marketing and promoting</a> of new devices than in developing technology. Since the 1980s, Apple’s founder recognised the power of a new vision surrounding digital technologies. This vision saw the personal computer and later the internet as harbingers of a new era. </p>
<p>It was <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo3773600.html">a powerful cultural myth</a> centred around the idea that we are experiencing a digital “revolution”, a concept traditionally associated with political change that now came to describe the impact of new technology. In this context, Jobs carefully staged his launches in order to present Apple as the embodiment of this myth. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vN4U5FqrOdQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Take, for instance, Apple’s famous <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN4U5FqrOdQ">2007 iPhone launch</a>. Jobs started his talk arguing that “every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything”. His examples included key moments from Apple’s corporate history: the Macintosh reinvented “the entire computer industry” in 1984, the iPod changed the “entire music industry” in 2001, and the iPhone was about to “reinvent the phone”.</p>
<p>This is a narrow account of technological change, to say the least. Believing that one single device brought about a digital revolution is like seeing a crowd of people in Times Square and assuming they turned up because you broadcast on WhatsApp that everyone should go there. It is, however, a convenient point of view for huge corporations such as Apple or Google. To keep their position in the digital market, these companies not only need to design sophisticated hardware and software, they also need to nurture the myth that we live in a state of incessant revolution of which they are the key engine. </p>
<p>In our research, we call this myth “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15295036.2019.1632469">corporational determinism</a>” because like other forms of determinism, it poses the idea that one single agent is responsible for all changes. The way that digital media companies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google communicate to the public is largely an attempt to propagandise this myth.</p>
<p>So you should not be worried if Google’s latest launch did blow you away. The key function of product launches is not actually to launch products. It is for companies to present themselves as the smartest agents in contemporary society, the protagonists of technological change and, ultimately, the heroes of the digital revolution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124142/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tech companies use product launches to position themselves as the heroes of the digital revolution.Simone Natale, Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies, Loughborough UniversityGabriele Balbi, Associate Professor in Media Studies, Università della Svizzera italianaPaolo Bory, Lecturer in Media Studies, Università della Svizzera italianaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1093772019-01-04T14:56:09Z2019-01-04T14:56:09ZWhat is really eating Apple – and why Steve Jobs would not be doing a lot better<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252483/original/file-20190104-32148-il9aoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jobs worth?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/christmas-island-australia-may-20-2017-643756204?src=ZjPYK8kUoRO8W7XPDOZuoA-1-39">franz12</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Apple has started the new year by disappointing investors with <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/01/letter-from-tim-cook-to-apple-investors/">its first</a> profit warning in 17 years. The company said that poor sales of its <a href="https://www.macworld.co.uk/news/iphone/new-iphone-xs-2018-3646340/">latest range</a> of iPhones has helped to weaken its first financial quarter (September to December 2018). Apple now expects revenues of US$84 billion (£66 billion) with a gross profit margin of 38%, having <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-02/apple-cut-first-quarter-sales-forecast-on-weak-iphone-sales">initially expected</a> between US$89 billion and US$93 billion. In the same quarter last year, Apple brought in US$88.3 billion on a gross margin of 42%. </p>
<p>This revision <a href="https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/chart/AAPL#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">caused</a> the company’s stock to drop 10% to its lowest level in 21 months. It is time to find culprits, and I will not be surprised to see headlines like, “Tim Cook is not up to the Job(s)” or: “Seven years after Jobs’ death, Apple is starting to rot.” We mustn’t believe them, however. </p>
<p>The reason why is explained in <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Halo-Effect/Phil-Rosenzweig/9781476784038">The Halo Effect</a>, which was published by my colleague Phil Rosenzweig in 2007 – in my opinion one of the most important books in the history of management. Phil argues that perceptions of performance contaminate the assessments that we make about managers and leaders. He uses several examples, from Lego to Cisco to ABB, to show that a leader’s skills do not affect a company’s performance in a significant way. </p>
<p>When a company performs well, we tend to evaluate its leader in way that is too positive. This induces us to attribute stellar performance to certain leadership skills. So, in the case of Steve Jobs, many will eulogise his visionary perfectionism, and the great risks he took in reinventing consumer electronics categories. Yet the evidence doesn’t back this up. </p>
<h2>The dirty truth</h2>
<p>The one academic paper that has done a decent (econometric) job of identifying and quantifying the effect of individual leadership in corporate performance is <a href="http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/marianne.bertrand/research/papers/managing_style_qje.pdf">this one</a> from 2003. The two professors, Marianne Bertrand and Antoinette Schoar, from University of Chicago and MIT respectively, calculated that individual chief executives only contribute to between 2% and 4% of a company’s total performance. </p>
<p>In other words, if Apple’s profit margin is 38%, Tim Cook would be able to add or detract 1.5% at most. The same is true in reverse of Steve Jobs’ achievements during his two periods at the helm (1976-85 and 1997-2011). We can’t attribute Apple’s once skyrocketing stock to his tenure because we don’t know what the alternative best-case scenario would have been. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252492/original/file-20190104-32139-1tzx65o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252492/original/file-20190104-32139-1tzx65o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252492/original/file-20190104-32139-1tzx65o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252492/original/file-20190104-32139-1tzx65o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252492/original/file-20190104-32139-1tzx65o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252492/original/file-20190104-32139-1tzx65o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252492/original/file-20190104-32139-1tzx65o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252492/original/file-20190104-32139-1tzx65o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cook who’s talking.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/tim-cook-chief-executive-officer-apple-1069919423?src=BdA7WdkbRoQW8G906FtfJA-1-18">John Gress Media Inc</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In my view, Apple’s problems are primarily caused by external events. Cook explains in his recent letter that, with the exception of the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/01/apple-earnings-software-and-services-revenue.html">services business</a> – which includes the App Store and iTunes and accounted for 14% of revenues in financial 2018 – all the other Apple businesses will be “constrained”. This means Macs, iPads, iWatches but most importantly iPhones, which <a href="https://s22.q4cdn.com/396847794/files/doc_financials/quarterly/2018/Q4/10-K-2018-(As-Filed).pdf">accounted for</a> 62.7% of total Apple revenues in 2018, compared to 63.4% in 2016. </p>
<p>What is causing this constraint? The increasing competition from Chinese manufacturers such as Huawei and Xiaomi – but also from Google, LG and Samsung – has eroded the once dominant position of Apple in the smartphone market. Competition has been particularly damaging in emerging markets, which Cook is blaming on a strong dollar and weaker macroeconomic conditions – as opposed to any faulty Apple strategy in this part of the world. </p>
<p>With respect to markets where the iPhone has enjoyed a more dominant position – especially the US – Apple recognises that customers don’t replace their devices as often as they used to. A <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/silver-lining-apples-very-bad-iphone-news/">recent report</a> by BayStreet Research estimated that, while the average user upgraded her iPhone every 24 months as recently as 2015, by the last quarter of 2018 this holding period had jumped to 36 months. </p>
<p>This is due to fewer carrier subsidies, according to Apple – but also, in my opinion, to the fact that the new devices do not have much more to offer. I use an iPhone 7, which I bought in 2016, and I am honestly not inclined to spend US$1,000 for I-am-not-sure-which new features on a newer version. I already get much more from my current device than I need. </p>
<h2>Apple’s problem</h2>
<p>It worries me that Apple is a single-product company. Among its other revenues, iPad sales are one-tenth of iPhone sales eight years after tablets were launched. By comparison, Samsung mobile phone sales <a href="https://images.samsung.com/is/content/samsung/p5/global/ir/docs/2018_3Q_conference_eng.pdf">only represent</a> 36.6% of its total revenues. Wearables by Apple are not taking off either – and the company <a href="https://nypost.com/2018/04/03/why-microsoft-and-apple-dont-need-to-sell-your-data/">is not</a> monetising its platform business by selling customer data to the same extent as digital rivals such as Google, Amazon and Facebook.</p>
<p>As I argued in <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-apple-is-no-longer-a-byword-for-innovation-just-ask-the-markets-107529">an article</a> in The Conversation a few weeks ago, the decline in Apple stock in recent months, down 37% since August 2018, reflects a change in market perception about the company’s ability to grow. Apple is no longer seen as a growth stock, but rather a dividend-paying, profitable company whose value is less based on a bright future than what is currently being delivered to its shareholders. The new financials confirm this view. </p>
<p><strong>Apple share price, 2010-19</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252491/original/file-20190104-32154-1ibwei8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252491/original/file-20190104-32154-1ibwei8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252491/original/file-20190104-32154-1ibwei8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=257&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252491/original/file-20190104-32154-1ibwei8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=257&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252491/original/file-20190104-32154-1ibwei8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=257&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252491/original/file-20190104-32154-1ibwei8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252491/original/file-20190104-32154-1ibwei8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252491/original/file-20190104-32154-1ibwei8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/chart/AAPL#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">Yahoo Finance</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As Phil Rosenzweig explains in his book, Apple’s story is not a new one. Today we blame the current Apple management’s over-dependence on a single product for the problems with investors. Cook and his team will respond by diversifying through acquisitions, or betting more heavily on new territories, or even staying put with its current product offerings. </p>
<p>Whether this works or fails, the management’s style of leadership will probably be disproportionately praised or criticised. It is always easy for analysts to be wise in hindsight. But the reality is that even the world’s biggest businesses are more vulnerable to external forces than we like to think. However the leadership reacts and, whoever is at the helm, the effect is actually quite limited.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109377/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arturo Bris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some will point to Apple’s lost talisman as the reason for the company’s current woes. They needn’t bother.Arturo Bris, Professor of Finance, International Institute for Management Development (IMD)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1081532018-12-19T23:50:34Z2018-12-19T23:50:34ZBeyond Post-it notes: How to drive innovation in 2019<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251625/original/file-20181219-45408-h4is5u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Senior leaders need to move beyond design thinking as it’s often introduced in non-design-savvy settings, like business schools, and get to deep design thinking that inspires and ultimately produces results. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the era of disruption, it’s never been more important for organizations to imagine and take bold new paths. The public and private sectors, though, are rife with stories of struggles when it comes to staying ahead in the innovation race. According to <a href="https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/clay-christensens-milkshake-marketing">Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen</a>, of 30,000 new consumer products launched every year, approximately 95 per cent fail. </p>
<p>Good leaders understand the importance of trying new approaches to uncover opportunities and solve big problems. In their efforts to do so, many have been quick to adopt <a href="https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/design-thinking">“design thinking.”</a></p>
<p>At its most basic level, design thinking provides a structured and iterative approach to creative problem-solving, putting users and customers — instead of our own organizations or a new technology — at the centre of the problem-solving process. </p>
<p>Design thinking helped Steve Jobs identify a breakthrough way for interacting with technology: the <a href="https://www.ideo.com/case-study/creating-the-first-usable-mouse">computer mouse came about</a> when <a href="https://www.ideo.com/">he hired IDEO</a>, the company most famously associated with design thinking. Their iterative process began with cheap, low-fidelity versions of what would eventually become the first computer mouse, tested over and over with users to understand how they would react when navigating a computer. </p>
<p>More recently, design thinking helped GE Healthcare to <a href="http://newsroom.gehealthcare.com/from-terrifying-to-terrific-creative-journey-of-the-adventure-series/">transform the hospital experience</a> for children and their families during MRIs. </p>
<p>When visiting a hospital to marvel at the installation of their most recent machine, what they observed was terrified children and concerned parents. Inside of GE’s boardrooms, the machine was a technological breakthrough. To patients, it was awful: Sterile rooms, large warning stickers, shades of beige and scary sounds.</p>
<h2>Making MRIs fun for kids</h2>
<p>It was then that GE turned to a design-driven approach, engaging children in imagining what would ultimately be a pivotal reboot of the MRI experience. Instead of a diagnostic imaging test, each MRI would be framed as great adventure: Visiting a pirate island, going to summer camp, or diving deep below the ocean.</p>
<p>The walls and the machines were covered in colourful skins that matched their adventure theme. The result? Patient satisfaction soared, sedation rates plummeted and the number of patients who completed an MRI each day significantly increased. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nPlvBPtxEl4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">MRIs made fun by GE Healthcare.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These examples aren’t the only ones. A recent <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-design/our-insights/the-business-value-of-design">five-year study by McKinsey & Company</a> looked at 300 publicly listed companies in multiple countries across three industries and found that annual growth at the most design-focused organizations was 21 per cent, compared to the industry benchmark 12 to 16 per cent. </p>
<p>Despite this, the same study reported that more than 40 per cent of organizations still don’t talk to end users when designing products and services, and more than 50 per cent don’t have a way of assessing the success of the products created by their design teams. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251553/original/file-20181219-45400-7nhnnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251553/original/file-20181219-45400-7nhnnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251553/original/file-20181219-45400-7nhnnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251553/original/file-20181219-45400-7nhnnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251553/original/file-20181219-45400-7nhnnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251553/original/file-20181219-45400-7nhnnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251553/original/file-20181219-45400-7nhnnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251553/original/file-20181219-45400-7nhnnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The path to design thinking is littered with Post-it notes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Patrick Perkins/Unsplash</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Leaders are struggling to get beyond the 101 level of design thinking. They’ve read the books, run workshops and hired facilitators, but are left with uninspiring results and, worse, major setbacks in their missions to prove the value of design-led approaches to their companies’ executives. </p>
<p>The path to design thinking and innovation success, in fact, is littered with broken dreams and Post-it notes. </p>
<h2>When design thinking works</h2>
<p>For all these missteps, I’ve seen first-hand the power of design thinking when done right: when teams move beyond the Design Thinking 101 to deeply learn and embrace the skills that ultimately allow their organizations to get to new, viable, unexpected solutions that thwart disruption. </p>
<p>Senior leaders need to move beyond design thinking as it’s often introduced in non-design-savvy settings like business schools and get to deep design thinking that inspires and, ultimately, produces results. Here’s how:</p>
<h2>1. Identify creative problem-solving skills</h2>
<p>These skills go deeper and broader than many organizations are often willing to invest, but it’s important to recognize the nuance and mastery that’s required to actually produce creative and meaningful results. Based on research at <a href="https://www.ocadu.co/">OCAD U CO</a>, a new venture by the Ontario College of Art and Design University that helps fuel business innovation, these skills include:</p>
<p>• Foresight: the ability to sense possible futures and emerging opportunity. </p>
<p>• Systems: the ability to see that everything is connected to everything else.</p>
<p>• Empathy: a deep understanding of people and their needs to move beyond what people say and instead what they do, think and feel.</p>
<p>• Ideation and testing: the courage and freedom to fail and take creative risks early and often, to de-risk big ideas.</p>
<p>• Respectful and inclusive design: the ability to engage diverse groups of people in safe, inspiring and productive environments.</p>
<h2>2. Nurture and master these skills over time</h2>
<p>It’s one thing to name the skills. It’s another to master them over time. </p>
<p>As design thinking has risen in popularity, it’s become easy to consider a two-day training boot camp as sufficient. This “one-and-done” approach is leading to an expectations-competence gap. </p>
<p>Instead, the most sophisticated organizations recognize that these skills need to be nurtured and mastered over time as a craft. Building the skill sets is a long-term journey that needs to be supported by the organization.</p>
<h2>3. Create learning experiences</h2>
<p>Everyone’s been through corporate training that, quite frankly, is downright boring. If organizations are going to move the needle on skill-building in design thinking, they need to think beyond the traditional classroom and Powerpoint presentations. </p>
<p>Instead, organizations should reimagine the integration of doing and learning. That is, bringing real world opportunities into environments where employees can learn the tools and methods of creative problem-solving, but also practise them in real time without the constraints and risks of being in the office. </p>
<p>A group of senior leaders from one of Canada’s largest property development firms recently spent one week learning, doing and reflecting on new design competencies while developing breakthrough ideas for how to reinvent their organizations with new products and services. </p>
<p>If the executive sponsor at that organization had suggested that these leaders simply spend time in our studio learning the <em>theory</em> of design thinking, she might not have been as successful. </p>
<p>By pairing training experiences with real-world business challenges, though, she found the recipe for success in which training doesn’t have to mean taking attention away from the business. This learn-by-doing approach is one that other organizations can model in their own efforts to create truly transformational change. </p>
<p>Training is critical to help public and private sector organizations thrive amid uncertain change. </p>
<p>To be successful, though, organizations need to invest the time to develop and nurture creative problem-solving skills that will inspire and ignite the imagination. That’s how they’ll ultimately build the resilient and innovative organizations of the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108153/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Morris works for OCAD University. </span></em></p>Leaders in private and public organizations should seek creative problem-solving skills to better innovate. Design thinking may be the answer.Kevin Morris, Managing Director, OCAD U CO, OCAD UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1035902018-10-14T12:14:22Z2018-10-14T12:14:22ZTrue ‘innovation’ generates ideas, not wealth<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240147/original/file-20181010-72110-c88sjz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A street art mural representing the innovative scientist Marie Curie, by French graffiti mural artist C215 (Christian Guemy) in Vitry-sur-Seine, France, on 24 Dec 2015. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ancient innovators were poets, thinkers, artisans and scientists, not business owners. The classical Greek philosopher Socrates did not become famous for the massive dividends that he provided to his <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/wild_things/2014/08/21/poisonous_plants_socrates_drank_hemlock_tea_as_his_preferred_mode_of_execution.html">shareholders in the hemlock industry</a>.</p>
<p>We remember innovators for their ideas, not their wealth. Why then has innovation <a href="https://qspace.library.queensu.ca/handle/1974/24063">been co-opted largely by business interests</a>? </p>
<p>When most people think of innovation, they tend to think of <a href="https://www.ideatovalue.com/inno/nickskillicorn/2016/03/innovation-15-experts-share-innovation-definition/?15?experts?share?innovation?definition">people making money</a> from executing novel ideas. They think of today’s successful capitalists like Elon Musk, Bill Gates or Warren Buffett.</p>
<p>Business folk don’t exactly rush to correct them and I don’t blame them. That said, there is a danger to letting any one group completely dictate the societal narrative of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2016.04.073">what is “innovation” and who is “innovative</a>.”</p>
<h2>Money is not a requirement</h2>
<p>For my doctoral dissertation, I interviewed 30 Canadian innovators in a variety of settings about what motivates them to be innovative. I asked them, among other things, if an idea can be innovative even if it has zero potential to make back its investment. </p>
<p>Six of them were from business settings, 24 were not; all 30 of them said that making money was not a requirement for an idea to be innovative and that most great ideas are interdisciplinary. </p>
<p>When I did my survey of 500 Canadian innovators outside of business, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328203318_Title_The_price_of_admission_Examining_how_expectancies_and_values_can_overcome_innovation's_costs">none of them considered rewards like money to be strong positive motivators</a>. That’s the sound of money letting everyone down.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"971417698528907264"}"></div></p>
<p>The fact is that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/06/innovation-the-history-of-a-buzzword/277067/">innovation has only recently become about money and it has usually been interdisciplinary</a>. </p>
<p>That’s why we recognize the name of <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1903/marie-curie/biographical">Marie Curie</a>, who combined chemistry and physics in what would grow and develop into the new field of radiology and radiation medicine. We remember <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sunzi">Sun Tzu</a>, for he was among the first to blur the line between strategy, history, philosophy and military tactics. We know <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Michael-Faraday">Michael Faraday</a>, who would discover benzene and popularize the study of electricity — combining disparate ideas from math, physics, education and nature. </p>
<p>These innovators were all known for one field but drew inspiration from other fields, and didn’t strike it rich. </p>
<h2>Minority successes</h2>
<p>We’ve forgotten about the arts. Who were the great thinkers in the Renaissance? They were poets, painters, composers, philosophers and playwrights. They were engineers, authors, teachers and leaders. </p>
<p>We privilege innovators who made money. If we define innovation in this way, famous innovators tend to be white, male and mostly business-oriented. </p>
<p>That shouldn’t be the case. We didn’t start immortalizing capitalists until later. They definitely deserved it, but where did the other folks go? Consider instead the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2016.04.073">range of innovations that are social in nature</a>. Business is a valuable potential contributor to the creativity of humanity, but so are lots of other disciplines. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240149/original/file-20181010-72127-18h656z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240149/original/file-20181010-72127-18h656z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240149/original/file-20181010-72127-18h656z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240149/original/file-20181010-72127-18h656z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240149/original/file-20181010-72127-18h656z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240149/original/file-20181010-72127-18h656z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240149/original/file-20181010-72127-18h656z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mahatma Gandhi is featured on an Indian 500 rupee banknote. Gandhi’s nonviolent philosophy was not only instrumental in freeing India from British rule but it continues to influence international resistance movements to this day.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If we define innovation as <em>the novel execution of ideas that create value</em>, then logically the highest potential and least tapped resource is to apply knowledge and skills across disciplines so that you can creatively approach existing challenges.</p>
<p>Why then do we link innovation with monetary success? Short answer: business endeavours tend to get more exposure and can afford to buy more exposure through marketing. How much more exposure? My best guess, using webscraping software, is just over 21 times more economic exposure (255,648,990 visits) than social definition exposure (11,867,330 visits). </p>
<p>Despite the clear over-representation of business in innovation literature, media and therefore societal thought, <a href="http://www.oecd.org/canada/41558999.pdf">commissioned reports in Canada</a> and <a href="http://www2.itif.org/2016-demographics-of-innovation.pdf">the United States</a> show that an overwhelming majority of innovators come from outside of business and that cultural and ethnic minorities host the largest reservoir of novel ideas. </p>
<p>Consider the work of <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2006/yunus/biographical/">Muhammad Yunus</a>, who popularized micro-credit to support aspiring innovators in developing countries. Closer to home, Catherine Hernandez has <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/books/how-catherine-hernandez-opens-her-heart-to-find-the-stories-she-should-tell-1.4480705">brought brilliant voice to the diverse communities of Canada in her book “Scarborough” that tangibly brings diversity to life</a>. </p>
<p>Continuing with the trend of innovators doing social good, Afzal Habib has taken the savvy of business management to the not-for-profit sector with his <a href="https://www.kidogo.co/team/afzal-habib">Kidogo program</a> — which builds capacity abroad for affordable, high-quality educational day care in developing countries.</p>
<h2>We tamed fire to stay alive</h2>
<p>Lots of people exhibit innovative behaviour — they don’t all become famous. Every innovative thought, however, has the potential to contribute to humanity regardless of how little potential it has to generate money. </p>
<p>We’ve let capitalism have a stranglehold on defining innovation. It’s no wonder it’s linked to money. Innovation is common outside business if you look for it. I’m pretty sure we didn’t tame fire to get loaded and buy yachts. </p>
<p>We tamed fire to not freeze to death most of the time. Innovation occurs across areas of human endeavour where we confront challenges, not just where we get paid.</p>
<p>People confront challenges and make leaps in and between innumerable fields and it is about time we started loudly and proudly treating innovation as interdisciplinary and of value if it improves humanity without making a cent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103590/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eleftherios Soleas receives scholarship funding from Queen's University and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p>To become a successful innovator, follow Marie Curie, Mahatma Gandhi and today’s female social entrepreneurs – focus on ideas and social value, not money.Eleftherios Soleas, PhD Candidate in Education, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1000652018-07-17T14:09:43Z2018-07-17T14:09:43ZHappy 50th birthday Intel, you look a lot like the next Kodak<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228014/original/file-20180717-44088-1jd61wp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chipped china?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thedailyexposition/24646411287/in/photolist-DxVipD-5r7ZNB-KViyiE-6qg5GA-KgHu5S-KE19j9-dHGje7-9Ggp8b-7oie2b-iZdjeg-JLpgep-amZMq-9wQ6MM-eN14aW-iZe7r7-eegsDQ-aBDMuC-9ckAnv-6qg67s-8eHhPe-9D7M4y-bpwqhm-ygGej-6qbUwV-otaixG-5z3CoG-7yVudg-qKUSfG-4Wk6Kd-e81y6d-5yYjT4-6qbVmD-dKci48-oy6xAs-9GgyxA-4MoVB5-dKhN7N-7xbpVv-auVkQQ-e7UTJe-jTXHK-7FUuuR-5vooDy-e7UT9D-bjDbDH-27YYsG9-86DXrQ-bjDauR-yBe6U-5wuyjs">The Daily Exposition</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>I am easily a foot taller than Andy Grove. But whenever I was with him, I felt that he was the giant.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That’s what the bestselling Harvard business professor, Clayton Christensen, <a href="https://hbr.org/2016/03/clayton-christensen-what-ill-miss-about-andy-grove">wrote</a> about the former Intel chief executive when he passed away in 2017. Christensen, who <a href="http://www.claytonchristensen.com/books/the-innovators-dilemma/">coined the term</a> “disruptive technology”, said he would most miss Grove’s ability to understand how a complex organisation works, and to wield it to Intel’s advantage. </p>
<p>It allowed Grove, who started at the company the day it was incorporated on July 18, 1968, to famously re-orient the business in the 1980s. Intel shifted <a href="https://anthonysmoak.com/2016/03/27/andy-grove-and-intels-move-from-memory-to-microprocessors/">away from</a> memory chips for mainframe computers towards the microprocessor – the engine that spurs into motion when you turn on your computer. </p>
<p>Propelled by a deal with IBM to put Intel processors into all its personal computers, the company came to provide Silicon Valley with one of its most essential technologies. Intel Inside and the accompanying jingle became one of the most memorable advertising slogans of the modern era. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aEDpqFHTSVM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Even after five decades of dominance, no other company in the world can produce a better and faster microprocessor. Intel is at the pinnacle of an industry that manages to engineer miracles like no other. We tend to perceive innovation as something uncertain, particularly where it’s so reliant on scientists to drive it forward. Yet Intel is anything but ambiguous. It has released successive advances in processor engineering like clockwork. </p>
<p>In 1965, future co-founder Gordon Moore <a href="https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/silicon-innovations/moores-law-technology.html">made a bold prediction</a> about the exponential growth of computing power. He predicted that the number of microchip transistors etched into a fixed area of a computer microprocessor would double every two years – and so, therefore, would computing power. Intel has since delivered on this improbable promise, immortalising “Moore’s law”. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228011/original/file-20180717-44079-1ss2z7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228011/original/file-20180717-44079-1ss2z7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228011/original/file-20180717-44079-1ss2z7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228011/original/file-20180717-44079-1ss2z7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228011/original/file-20180717-44079-1ss2z7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228011/original/file-20180717-44079-1ss2z7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228011/original/file-20180717-44079-1ss2z7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228011/original/file-20180717-44079-1ss2z7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Intel’s Andy Grove, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, 1978.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/intelfreepress/8267616249">Intel Free Press</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s difficult for anyone to fathom the effects of exponential growth. But it is why a single iPhone today <a href="https://www.zmescience.com/research/technology/smartphone-power-compared-to-apollo-432/">possesses</a> many times more computing power than the entire spacecraft for the NASA Apollo moon mission of 1969. Without Moore’s law, there would be no Google, no Facebook, no Uber, no Airbnb. Silicon Valley would be like any other valley.</p>
<h2>The big miss</h2>
<p>And yet, the iPhone is also what Intel missed. Immediately after <a href="https://www.cultofmac.com/431760/today-in-apple-history-steve-jobs-announces-intel-powered-macs/">the company won</a> Apple’s Mac business in 2005, Steve Jobs <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/paul-otellinis-intel-can-the-company-that-built-the-future-survive-it/275825/">came asking</a> for another chip for his smartphone. Intel certainly wanted to dominate this emerging sector but the price Jobs was offering was below its forecasted cost and it misjudged the size of the iPhone market. The company passed. </p>
<p>Apple had <a href="https://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/19/how-intel-lost-the-mobile-chip-business-to-apples-ax-arm-application-processors">no choice but</a> to build its own chipsets by licensing technologies from <a href="https://www.arm.com">ARM</a>, a British-based company controlled by Japanese interests. If Apple and its iPhone had been the only competitors, Intel might have been able to gradually adapt. But Google came in soon after with Android, a free operating system that Samsung, Huawei and HTC all adopted. Qualcomm, Nvidia, and Texas Instruments, all licensed by ARM, became the phone makers’ go-to suppliers for energy-efficient, low-cost computing devices. </p>
<p>These American rivals are not trying to beat Intel. Qualcomm specialises in mobile phones and Nvidia specialises in graphics in video games. They all outsource production to third parties in Asia. But an Intel microprocessor sells for around US$100 while ARM-based chips sell for around US$10, and often less than a dollar. That’s how ARM-based designs are now found in more than 95% of the world’s smartphones. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228028/original/file-20180717-44088-1l0qwr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228028/original/file-20180717-44088-1l0qwr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228028/original/file-20180717-44088-1l0qwr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=693&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228028/original/file-20180717-44088-1l0qwr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=693&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228028/original/file-20180717-44088-1l0qwr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=693&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228028/original/file-20180717-44088-1l0qwr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228028/original/file-20180717-44088-1l0qwr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228028/original/file-20180717-44088-1l0qwr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harvard’s Clayton Christensen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Clayton_Christensen_World_Economic_Forum_2013.jpg#/media/File:Clayton_Christensen_World_Economic_Forum_2013.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In other words, Intel failed to compete in smartphones against those who have far less resources. It’s a great irony when you reflect that Grove once invited Christensen to the Intel HQ in Santa Clara, California, to explain his theory on disruption. Grove later <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/10/24/clay-christensen-explains-defends-disruptive-innovation/fmYOKIJXOSPPMquj8HQM1O/story.html">credited</a> the meeting as the main driver for Intel’s decision to launch the Celeron chip in 1998, a cheap product aimed at low-end PCs, which within a year captured 35% of the market. </p>
<h2>The new goldrush</h2>
<p>Now the big question is whether Intel is repeating its previous mistake with iPhones – this time in driverless cars. Last March it <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/business/dealbook/intel-mobileye-autonomous-cars-israel.html?ref=business">purchased</a> Mobileye, an Israeli company that makes digital vision technology, for US$15.3 billion. It was a big bet in a sector that has huge potential: as autonomous driving takes off, vehicles are becoming computers on wheels. They will require more and more microchips and Intel hopes to dominate. </p>
<p>Except for one glitch. Everything Intel has done in the last 50 years is geared towards general purpose, high-end chipsets. Its integrated model – where the company designs and manufactures its processors – means it absorbs an enormous amount of fixed cost, in research and design as well as manufacturing. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://newsroom.intel.com/editorials/krzanich-ai-day/">only way</a> to offset these burdens is to sell a high volume of devices at high margins. The result is that the company is obsessed with technological progress, but has a rigid business model which limits what it can and cannot do. There’s a monster inside Intel with a ferocious appetite. </p>
<p>But what if autonomous driving doesn’t actually require the computing power Intel is counting on? This is the competing vision of Huawei. When I recently visited Shenzhen, executives from the Chinese telecom giant explained to me that much of the city’s infrastructure will be digitalised and that Huawei will saturate it with <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-5g-the-next-generation-of-wireless-explained-96165">a 5G network</a>. This will drastically reduce any speed and latency problems for computers. </p>
<p>This means the computing inside cars can be mostly offloaded to the city’s infrastructure. It is a radical vision, but clearly a viable alternative. The implication is that a BMW or Toyota doesn’t need that many high-end chipsets after all. It’s smartphones all over again. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228001/original/file-20180717-44082-1ye7e0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228001/original/file-20180717-44082-1ye7e0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228001/original/file-20180717-44082-1ye7e0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228001/original/file-20180717-44082-1ye7e0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228001/original/file-20180717-44082-1ye7e0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228001/original/file-20180717-44082-1ye7e0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228001/original/file-20180717-44082-1ye7e0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228001/original/file-20180717-44082-1ye7e0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The future once.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/launceston-australiafebruary-2-2012-old-kodak-483403420?src=gO4387mUsXCGBcoqiimWhw-1-37">Steve Lovegrove</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Christensen’s insight was that successful companies die not because of complacency to change. <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2012/01/18/how-kodak-failed/">Kodak</a>, <a href="https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/what-was-polaroid-thinking">Polaroid</a>, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2014/09/05/a-look-back-at-why-blockbuster-really-failed-and-why-it-didnt-have-to/#1c3b6cfb1d64">Blockbuster</a> and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/2001/01/19/0915malone.html#53dbd1631f37">DEC</a> all understood the shifting landscape. </p>
<p>But in each case, their business model and the demands of existing shareholders formed an intractable nexus that even the most courageous executives found impossible to navigate. Grove once said, “only the paranoid survive”. Maybe he was right.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100065/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Howard Yu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Silicon Valley’s chip supplier de choix scored a massive own goal with smartphones. If it has got driverless cars wrong too, it could be goodnight Santa Clara.Howard Yu, Professor of Management and Innovation, International Institute for Management Development (IMD)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/819312017-08-11T00:58:31Z2017-08-11T00:58:31ZThe slippery slope of the oligarchy media model<p>On July 28, Apple heiress Laurene Powell Jobs <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/07/emerson-collective-atlantic-coalition/535215/">bought a majority stake in The Atlantic</a>. </p>
<p>It’s the latest media purchase by the billionaire class, a group that includes Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (the Washington Post), Boston Red Sox owner John Henry (the Boston Globe), billionaire Glen Taylor (the Minneapolis Star-Tribune) and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson (the Las Vegas Review-Journal). </p>
<p>Some have praised this growing trend, arguing that wealthy individuals are journalism’s last, best hope. And there are notable cases of rich philanthropists, like <a href="https://www.omidyar.com/news/%E2%80%98panama-papers%E2%80%99-group-among-initiatives-benefit-omidyar-network%E2%80%99s-100m-commitment-address-trust">Pierre Omidyar</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/13/business/media/3-philadelphia-publications-are-donated-to-a-nonprofit-journalism-institute.html?_r=1">Gerry Lenfest</a>, making significant donations toward public service journalism. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, potential hazards arise when news outlets increasingly rely on private capital and billionaires’ largess.</p>
<h2>The upside of privatizing the news</h2>
<p>Private ownership of news organizations is, of course, nothing new. </p>
<p>Since at least the late 19th century, most major U.S. magazines and newspapers have been owned or controlled by wealthy individuals or families. Often these owners distinguished themselves by their commitment to journalistic excellence: at The New York Times, the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/09/19/daily/092299tifft-book-review.html">Ochs-Sulzberger family</a>; at the Los Angeles Times, the <a href="http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/83enm6tn9780252069413.html">Chandlers</a>; and at the Washington Post, the <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/70346/personal--history-by-katharine-graham/9780375701047/">Grahams</a>. In the magazine world, Condé Nast, privately owned by the Newhouse family’s Advance Communications, continues to produce magazines highly regarded for their journalistic rigor, from the New Yorker to Wired. </p>
<p>Between the 1970s and early 2000s, however, media companies increasingly became publicly traded stock corporations that often expanded into large chains. Gannett, owner of USA Today and over 100 other daily newspapers, and Sinclair, proprietor of 173 television stations, are currently two of the largest publicly traded media companies. </p>
<p>In contrast to a private company – which can forgo profits if it chooses – a publicly traded company has obligations to maximize shareholder value. Emphasizing profitability often comes at the cost of professional excellence or civic commitment, even at media companies like the Washington Post, where the founders retained control of voting stock after <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/apps/g/page/national/washington-post-co-timeline/374/">going public in 1971</a>.</p>
<p>As Kathryn Weymouth, the last Graham family publisher of the Washington Post, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/washington-post-to-be-sold-to-jeff-bezos/2013/08/05/ca537c9e-fe0c-11e2-9711-3708310f6f4d_story.html?utm_term=.530b4eae4f83">remarked</a> when she passed the baton to Bezos: “If journalism is the mission, given the pressures to cut costs and make profits, maybe [a publicly traded company] is not the best place for the Post.” </p>
<p>So compared to Wall Street control, private ownership has many potential advantages. As Bezos has demonstrated, a private owner can absorb short-term losses in service of long-term gain. While most news organizations are still in austerity mode, the “new” Washington Post is <a href="http://www.politico.com/media/story/2016/12/the-profitable-washington-post-adding-more-than-five-dozen-journalists-004900">increasing staff and budgets</a>. Many believe it’s also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/business/washington-post-digital-news.html?_r=0">dramatically improving</a> its quality and impact. </p>
<h2>How benevolent is the billionaire model?</h2>
<p>But private ownership is no guarantee of either commercial or professional success. And not all private owners are the same. Today, one of the fastest-growing forms of private media ownership is the <a href="https://cislm.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Abernathy_full.pdf">investment company</a>, linked to hedge funds or other forms of private equity. </p>
<p>These companies are just as focused on profits as a publicly traded firm – and perhaps even more willing to close down a media outlet when its economic performance is sub-par. The largest investment groups include New Media/Gatehouse (125 daily newspapers, now larger than Gannett), Digital First Media (62 daily papers), and Tronc/Tribune (owner of the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and 17 other dailies). </p>
<p>Moreover, what might be called the “<a href="https://www.academia.edu/6229236/Finding_Journalisms_Future">benevolent billionaire model</a>” for supporting journalism begs the obvious point that not all <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/08/gawker-peter-thiel-news-media-fourth-estate/">billionaires are benevolent</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181680/original/file-20170810-12395-gge60d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181680/original/file-20170810-12395-gge60d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181680/original/file-20170810-12395-gge60d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181680/original/file-20170810-12395-gge60d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181680/original/file-20170810-12395-gge60d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181680/original/file-20170810-12395-gge60d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181680/original/file-20170810-12395-gge60d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181680/original/file-20170810-12395-gge60d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, pictured in 1935.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-United-States-WI-/27c5890162e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/10/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Exhibit A is <a href="http://www.politico.com/media/story/2016/02/sheldon-adelson-tightens-grip-on-review-journal-004384">Sheldon Adelson</a>, the casino mogul and conservative activist who bought the Las Vegas Review-Journal in 2015. He kept the purchase secret at first, and his representatives <a href="http://www.thewrap.com/sheldon-adelson-las-vegas-review-journal-warns-staffers-disloyalty-fired/">reportedly pressured</a> the newspaper’s staff to cover Adelson and his allies in a positive light. </p>
<p>Notorious press barons of yore such as William Randolph Hearst and Robert R. McCormick often used their papers to push far-right agendas, including <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/william-randolph-hearst-gave-america-first-its-nationalist-edge/481497/">admiration for Adolf Hitler</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/13/reviews/970713.kenn.html">advocating for strict isolationism</a>.</p>
<p>In more subtle ways, private ownership also raises concerns about partisan bias, self-dealing and lack of transparency. Donald Trump has exploited these vulnerabilities by posting tweets attacking the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/06/28/donald-trump-criticizes-washington-post-and-amazon-tweet/435068001/">“AmazonWashingtonPost”</a> and has threatened government anti-trust investigations of Amazon to try to intimidate Bezos. </p>
<p>Though Trump’s motives are suspect, the concern is valid: As Amazon gains market share in industry after industry, the potential for the Washington Post to have serious conflicts of interest increases exponentially. </p>
<p>Laurene Powell Jobs’ purchase of The Atlantic via her Emerson Collective (a nonprofit limited liability company) is comparable, in some ways, to the Poynter Institute’s ownership of the Tampa Bay Times. In both cases, nonprofit organizations are overseeing entirely commercial news outlets.</p>
<p>The difference between Poynter and Emerson lies in their missions. Whereas Poynter <a href="http://about.poynter.org/about-us/mission-history">is devoted to nonpartisan journalism education and research</a>, Emerson’s <a href="http://www.emersoncollective.com/about-us">self-proclaimed mandate</a> encompasses advocacy around education, immigration and the environment. Jobs has moved to the forefront of efforts to dramatically <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/10/laurene-powell-jobss-mission-to-disrupt-high-school.html">transform American education</a>. Will she see The Atlantic as another vehicle for her to promote these views? </p>
<p>Of course, The Atlantic isn’t a newspaper with any pretense of objectivity. It’s a magazine, both online and off, with a point of view that also provides space for other views. Like <a href="http://www.poynter.org/2016/the-washington-post-is-profitable-and-growing-publisher-says/442683/">the Washington Post</a>, it’s been profitable in recent years. With attention-grabbing journalism and skillful use of social media, The Atlantic <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-atlantic-is-most-vital-when-america-is-fractured-good-thing-it-soars-today/2017/07/21/11ce818e-6d46-11e7-96ab-5f38140b38cc_story.html?utm_term=.d8a4251230fa">is netting significant earnings online</a> without cannibalizing its print magazine, whose <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/07/emerson-collective-atlantic-coalition/535215/">circulation is growing as well</a>. Behind the scenes, The Atlantic also generates revenue from organizing <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/live/about/">corporate and government forums and special events</a>. </p>
<p>This model may be a formula for economic success, but is it an unalloyed boon for democracy? The Atlantic’s digital rise has been fueled by <a href="http://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/qa_victor_pickard.php">sponsored content</a> (now 60 to 75 percent of its total <a href="https://digiday.com/media/sponsored-content-drives-60-percent-atlantics-ad-revenue/">revenues</a>) – a type of advertising that tries to be persuasive by looking like news – while the magazine’s profitable <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/2009/07/the_david_bradley_effect.html">off-the-record salons</a> can, as one media columnist has argued, have a corrupting effect by driving “a measurable quantity of political discourse out of the public sphere and into the private.” </p>
<h2>What about the public interest?</h2>
<p>In fact, The Atlantic and the Washington Post are the bright and shiny faces of an increasingly oligarchic media system in the U.S. The oligarchs’ values and priorities, however, may not align with democratic objectives. Their business model – and definition of journalistic success – tends to exclude audiences or issues that cannot be monetized. High-end advertisers favor content that appeals to high-earning demographics, which can skew coverage away from concerns of the working class and poor.</p>
<p>So instead of reaching out to underserved readers, these billionaire-owned news organizations may exacerbate economic and racial divides <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-americas-public-media-cant-do-its-job-75044">by privileging views and voices more in line with higher socioeconomic groups</a>. We shouldn’t be surprised: The biggest beneficiaries of a highly stratified economic system are unlikely to take the lead in addressing inequality. </p>
<p>Under Bezos’ stewardship, the Washington Post was conspicuous for its <a href="https://harpers.org/archive/2016/11/swat-team-2/">harshly critical</a> coverage of Bernie Sanders’ inequality-focused candidacy. Powell Jobs is no doubt sincere in her reformist zeal, yet her single-minded push for <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/10/laurene-powell-jobss-mission-to-disrupt-high-school.html">educational “innovation”</a> conveniently shifts attention from the <a href="https://www.usnews.com/opinion/knowledge-bank/articles/2016-03-17/why-money-matters-for-low-income-schools">massive imbalance</a> in resources available to low-income versus high-income school districts. While the new media oligarchs might value profits less than their Wall Street compatriots, they may be more determined as “thought leaders” to shape – and limit – public policy debate. </p>
<p>Instead of being in thrall to these benefactors, it’s important to redouble efforts to truly democratize the ownership and funding of our media system. One way is to increase government support for U.S. public media, the <a href="http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/4779">worst-funded in the Western world</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.freepress.net/sites/default/files/stn-legacy/public-media-and-political-independence.pdf">Research shows</a> that public media tend to be more independent, ideologically diverse and critical of dominant policy positions compared to commercial news organizations. Furthermore, strong public media systems correlate with <a href="http://studysites.sagepub.com/mcquail6/Online%20readings/19a%20Curran%20et%20al.pdf">higher political knowledge</a> and <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=1107674603">democratic engagement</a>. Public media are also the best positioned to withstand various kinds of <a href="https://www.academia.edu/7240584/The_Great_Evasion_Confronting_Market_Failure_in_American_Media_Policy">market failure</a>, which will likely only <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-charity-save-journalism-from-market-failure-75833">worsen in the coming years</a>.</p>
<p>Numerous sources can help fund public options and foster structural diversity in our media system, ranging from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/28/opinion/an-auction-that-could-transform-local-media.html">spectrum auctions</a> generating revenue to <a href="https://www.newsvoices.org/new-jersey">support local journalism</a> to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/nov/08/make-google-and-facebook-pay-for-public-service-reporting">having Facebook and Google pay</a> into an investigative journalism trust. Tax incentives and policy protections can ensure a commitment to public service and bottom-up governance by citizens and journalists instead of absentee owners. Indeed, one possible silver lining to commercial journalism’s struggles is a renewed search for structural alternatives, especially <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/american-government-politics-and-policy/americas-battle-media-democracy-triumph-corporate-libertarianism-and-future-media-reform?format=PB">public and nonprofit models</a>. </p>
<p>These are obviously long-term solutions. In the meantime, a truly diverse media ecology could have public-spirited oligarchs playing a positive role. But when they become the dominant players – as is increasingly the case today – they may threaten, more than strengthen, our democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81931/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victor Pickard is a board member of the media reform organization Free Press.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rodney Benson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There are some benefits to the uptick in billionaire newspaper and magazine owners, who can weather short-term losses for the sake of long-term gains. But whose interests are really being served?Rodney Benson, Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, New York UniversityVictor Pickard, Associate Professor, University of PennsylvaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/614172016-07-06T03:37:11Z2016-07-06T03:37:11ZMaturity makes great leaders: the journey from dwarf to giant<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128276/original/image-20160627-28366-bzmyc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-world-needs-intelligent-leaders-and-what-it-takes-to-be-one-59277">pressing need</a> for intelligent leaders who are able to deal effectively with today’s challenges and demands – and those of the future. But intelligence alone is not sufficient. It is simply a “blunt” tool that enables leaders to get things done. Too often leaders are intelligence giants but maturity dwarfs. This has far reaching, detrimental consequences. </p>
<p>Leadership maturity is a leader’s ability to engage consistently with him or herself, others and the world by being: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Relevant – maturity is time, place and person dependent. It demands the ability to render wise judgments about what is appropriate in different settings. </p></li>
<li><p>Productive – constructive contributions are made, and something meaningful and value adding emerges. </p></li>
<li><p>Uplifting – interactions are positive, fulfilling and enriching. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Acquiring leadership maturity is a lifelong journey that comprises successive stages. At each stage, leaders will develop a corresponding identity. Depending on how they process life events and experiences, they may spiral upwards to greater maturity or downwards to lesser maturity. Or, they may get stuck for the rest of their life at one level.</p>
<h2>Leadership maturity: a life-long journey</h2>
<p>Physical and physiological maturity proceeds relatively automatically as one ages. But psychosocial-spiritual maturity is an arduous, open-ended and multifaceted journey of “ripening” holistically. It is fraught with unpredictability and ambiguity. </p>
<p>Five stages or thresholds can be distinguished in the process of maturation. A higher stage reframes a lower stage and successive stages may overlap. Each stage typically lasts for ten years. So, all other things being equal, leaders only reach full maturity in their late 40s or early 50s, if ever. </p>
<p>Migration to a new stage also depends on successfully resolving the challenges and issues unique to a stage. Unresolved challenges and issues are carried over into adult life as one ages, where they remain active as baggage because the leader has remained stuck at the stage. </p>
<p>Building <em>inter alia</em> on the views of <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01499023">Steinberg and Cauffman</a>, <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=gcVQOuyoJ7wC&lpg=PA79&ots=aGVPuUrO5K&dq=Maps%20for%20living%3A%20Ego%20development%20stages%20from%20symbiosis%20to%20conscious%20universal%20embeddedness&pg=PA79#v=onepage&q&f=false">Cook-Greuter</a>, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268416650_The_Testing_and_Validation_of_a_Model_for_Leadership_Maturity_Based_on_Jung's_Concept_of_Individuation">Du Toit</a>, <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/10913406?selectedversion=NBD747603">Loevinger</a>, and <a href="https://hbr.org/2005/04/seven-transformations-of-leadership">Rooke and Torbet</a>, here are the five successive maturity stages. </p>
<h2>The five stages of leadership maturity</h2>
<p><strong>Stage 1: Confident ability</strong></p>
<p>In this stage a prospective leader develops a positive, healthy self-image and self-confidence, along with a firm belief in a basic “I can” competence.</p>
<p>He explores and discovers what his abilities are and how to apply them; how to satisfy his needs constructively; how to handle his emotions appropriately; and what is right and wrong. He also builds the courage to take risks confidently. </p>
<p>At the end of this stage the leader has an “identity of self-worth”. </p>
<p>But if a person gets stuck at this stage, he will have the baggage of seeking constant approval from others because his self-worth has not been affirmed. He will lack confidence and will continuously be seeking security and predictability. He may also have an unclear sense of what is right and wrong. </p>
<p>One example of such “stuckness” is Alexander the Great, <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=ife1AQAAQBAJ&pg=PA33&lpg=PA33&dq=Alexander+the+Great+father%27s+approval&source=bl&ots=d5cYIFpTDV&sig=tPvV9RspciwqC6coOXxp1i38JL8&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Alexander%20the%20Great%20father's%20approval&f=false">who asked on his deathbed</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Did I meet with your approval, father?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another is American automobile executive Lee Iacocca who, according to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Success-Carol-Dweck/dp/0345472322">psychologist Carol Dweck</a>, sought the ongoing approval of Henry Ford III while at Ford Motor Company in his burning desire to emulate Ford. </p>
<p><strong>Stage 2: Egocentric satisfaction</strong></p>
<p>Here the prospective leader gains the insight that she is embedded in relations with others and the world. She realises that she must fend for herself, but that she needs others to satisfy her interests and needs. But she is only driven in reaching out to others to satisfy her own, immediate needs. She is in competition with others in a win-lose equation of “me first” at all times. </p>
<p>Because she is driving her own agenda, the prospective leader questions all rules and authority that may prevent her from achieving her ends. Though she acts manipulatively and opportunistically to get her own way, she may also ostensibly conform if this will serve her self-interests. </p>
<p>At the end of this stage the leader has an “identity of consumption”. A leader stuck at this stage will have the baggage of always single-mindedly striving to satisfy her personal needs and interests, regardless of costs and circumstances.</p>
<p>Examples of “stuckness” here are the greedy Wall Street bankers who caused the 2008/09 global recession, aptly illustrated by the “Wolf of Wall Street”, <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/jordan-belfort-21329985">Jordan Belfort</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Stage 3: Personal differentiation</strong></p>
<p>Here the leader realises that, to get anywhere, he must stand out in his interactions with others and the world. He seeks to find his own voice and to distinguish himself as unique, with invaluable, rare talents and abilities. </p>
<p>He believes and claims that others and the world must be overjoyed that he honours them with his invaluable contribution. Everyone and everything is measured against his set of personalised standards. </p>
<p>At the end of this stage the leader has an “identity of uniqueness”.</p>
<p>The leader stuck at this stage will have baggage of proclaiming <em>ad nauseam</em> that he is the indispensable saviour of the world. Examples include Albert Dunlop, the US “chain saw” <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/1996-12-01/who-is-the-real-chainsaw-al">turnaround specialist</a>, who repeatedly stated “I’m a superstar,” and Kenneth Lary and Jeffrey Skilling <a href="http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1903155_1903156_1903186,00.html">at Enron</a>. </p>
<p><strong>Stage 4: Communality</strong></p>
<p>Here the leader realises that she cannot make her unique contribution without the help of others if objectives, dreams and legacies greater than herself are to be pursued and achieved. She realises she must move from placing “me” at the centre of everything, to placing “us” centrally. </p>
<p>This is about finding win-win ways in which everyone’s abilities and contributions count equally. It is about the pursuit of a shared future for herself and others. There must be shared accountability for everything and everyone. </p>
<p>At the end of this stage the leader has an “identity of envisioning”. The leader stuck here would carry the baggage of pushing for the parochial realisation of organisation-specific dreams, while ignoring the bigger context and dreams of other organisations, communities and greater society.</p>
<p>Examples in this case would be business leaders who have built massive empires with the attitude of “business is for business”, like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com.au/jack-welch-leadership-insights-2015-9">Jack Welch</a> of General Electric, <a href="http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ho-Jo/Jobs-Steve.html">Steve Jobs</a> of Apple, and <a href="http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3209.html">Lou Gerstner</a> of IBM. </p>
<p><strong>Stage 5: A higher calling</strong></p>
<p>In this stage the leader moves beyond shared but narrow, organisation-specific objectives to higher purposes and meanings. He searches for what lies behind shared objectives, dreams and legacies. It is about finding the final “why” and “whereto” to be served by the shared pursuit. </p>
<p>He has a growing transcendental consciousness infused by truth, beauty and righteousness. It is, for him, about the common good for all humanity. It is about timeless, multifaceted, meaningful answers instead of one-dimensional, time-restricted, pragmatic solutions. </p>
<p>Posing the right questions comes first, followed by finding the right answers. In his pursuit no assumptions, beliefs and values are sacred. Paradoxes and dilemmas are accepted, or integrated at higher and deeper levels of being or becoming. </p>
<p>At the end of this stage the leader has an “identity of meaningfulness”. This is the highest form of leadership authenticity and maturity.</p>
<p>Examples of leaders functioning at this stage, past and present, are <a href="http://www.gatesfoundation.org">Bill Gates</a> through his global humanitarian foundation, as well as political leaders <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/biography">Nelson Mandela</a>, <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/mahatma-gandhi-9305898">Mahatma Ghandi</a> and <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/martin-luther-king-jr-9365086">Martin Luther King</a>. </p>
<p>There’s no doubt that humanity needs intelligent and mature leaders with the identity of meaningfulness inspired by a higher calling if we are to secure a desirable, sustainable future for all. Our continued survival is at stake.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61417/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Theo Veldsman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Society needs intelligent and mature leaders. Acquiring such skills is a lifelong process.Theo Veldsman, Professor and Head, Department of Industrial Psychology and People Management, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/506722015-11-17T16:00:21Z2015-11-17T16:00:21ZOn a clear day you can see Apple Corp (in fact, that’s pretty much all you can see)<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101814/original/image-20151113-10407-1rsthre.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">World's biggest company ... and still growing.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Apple Inc.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ladies and gentlemen we are fast approaching peak Apple. In recent days we’ve seen the Steve Jobs <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2080374/%20">biopic</a> starring Michael Fassbender released, heard the current CEO, Tim Cook, tell <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/11984806/Apples-Tim-Cook-declares-the-end-of-the-PC-and-hints-at-new-medical-product.html">the Daily Telegraph</a> that the government’s plans for increased surveillance powers could have “very dire consequences” and been informed that the company is to create a 1,000 new jobs in <a href="http://www.independent.ie/business/technology/apple-to-create-up-to-1000-jobs-as-part-of-irish-expansion-34189877.html">Cork, Ireland</a>.</p>
<p>Then there was also the extremely unedifying video <a href="http://twww.theguardian.com/australia-news/video/2015/nov/12/melbourne-apple-store-accused-of-racism-after-asking-black-students-to-leave-video">posted online</a> in which a member of staff in the Apple store in Melbourne, Australia, asked a group of black students to leave because security was “just worried” that they might steal something. That’s different all right.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lR2PX97itSs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Perhaps this bit of bad PR won’t unduly worry Cook, because in October <a href="http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/10/27Apple-Reports-Record-Fourth-Quarter-Results.html%20">he announced</a> that (the fiscal year) 2015 had been the company’s most successful ever, during which revenue grew 28% to nearly US$234 billion.</p>
<h2>How do you like them Apples?</h2>
<p>To put Apple’s profits in context, according to the Telegraph this is the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/11959016/Apple-reports-biggest-annual-profit-in-history.html">biggest annual profit in corporate history</a>, surpassing the US$45.2bn made by ExxonMobil in 2008. </p>
<p>Many analysts have reported Apple is the world’s most valuable company and this is before, as forecast, China overtakes the US to become its biggest market. Quoting World Bank statistics, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/27/apple-2015-revenue-iphone-sales%20">Rupert Neate</a> wrote in the Guardian that Apple now has more money in the bank than the Czech Republic, Peru and New Zealand make in gross domestic product (GDP) a year.</p>
<h2>Strength to say ‘no’</h2>
<p>There <a href="http://www.jomec.co.uk/blog/wp-admin/%20https:/www.quora.com/What-are-the-key-reasons-for-Apples-success-Are-Apple-product-so-successful-because-of-the-brand-status-and-premium-pricing">are some</a> who attribute Apple’s success to their commitment to a relatively small range of products. Before Apple TVs, there were phones, pads, pods, watches and Macs – that was pretty much it. Compared to the sprawling range of goods offered by Samsung that’s a relatively small range and it means that the company’s designers and promoters can better channel their resources into areas they are familiar with. </p>
<p>The sayings and aphorisms of Jobs have gained almost Confucian gravitas since his death, but perhaps one of his most famous utterances is relevant here. In an <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/stories/2004-10-11/the-seed-of-apples-innovation">interview with Business Week</a> in 2004 he said that innovation comes from:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That said, Apple is now at the forefront of what <a href="http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-10/21/apple-news-launched-what-is-apple-news">James Temperton</a> calls the “battle for control of people’s online reading habits”. In October it also launched Apple News, a service for iPhones and iPads which in the words of <a href="http://www.apple.com/uk/news/">Apple’s own publicity</a>: “Collects all the stories you want to read, from top news sources, based on topics you’re most interested in – so you no longer need to move from app to app to stay informed.”</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102171/original/image-20151117-21590-1sav4k3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102171/original/image-20151117-21590-1sav4k3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102171/original/image-20151117-21590-1sav4k3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102171/original/image-20151117-21590-1sav4k3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102171/original/image-20151117-21590-1sav4k3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102171/original/image-20151117-21590-1sav4k3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102171/original/image-20151117-21590-1sav4k3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102171/original/image-20151117-21590-1sav4k3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Remember the first Macintosh? No? Us neither.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kevin chen2003 via Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course, Apple is not going to be a content provider. Already signed up to do that are TIME, CNN, The Atlantic, The New York Times, Quartz, Vanity Fair and WIRED in the US and, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/22/apple-news-uk-newspapers-ios-91">in the UK</a>: BBC, Sky news, the Sun, the Financial Times and the Telegraph, among others.</p>
<p>Apple Pay, the new contactless payment system for iPhones and iWatches, also looks set to make a splash, while the new Apple TV has broadcasters such as the BBC racing to develop apps to suit. Apple, Apple, everywhere. </p>
<h2>Monopoly of influence</h2>
<p>Which is all well and good, but the consequences of such monopolies of influence have long concerned political economists and cultural theorists. <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/greening-the-media/201505/worries-about-the-apple-watch-and-the-internet-things">Richard Maxwell and Toby Miller</a> argue that the digital environment of wearable computers is a place where things relate only to other things. We might imagine otherwise, they say, but we relinquish a little more digital freedom each time we click on “I Agree”. </p>
<p>It’s a world where human agency and compassion become subsumed beneath a desire to own and consume – but of course this depends on those who sweat to make our electric dreams come true. In Apple’s autumn of profit and launch, the <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/apple-supplier-factory-shanghai-rife-labor-abuses-report-2152722">International Business Times</a> reported on life at a major Apple supplier factory in Shanghai where workers toil “in excess of the tech giant’s self-imposed 60-hour limit per week, putting in 12-hour shifts six days a week”.</p>
<p>There is also the damage to the ecosystem that goes hand-in-hand with our reliance on electronic goods. As Maxwell and Miller point out, around US$1 trillion a year is spent on electronics. There are more than 14 billion network-enabled electronic devices needing electricity today at a rate equal to 15% of total global residential energy use. Without any changes to this trend, Maxwell and Miller reason, the residential electricity needed to power our digital conveniences will rise to 30% of global consumption by 2022, and 45% by 2030. This includes billions of dollars worth of electricity wasted while these network devices are on standby.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102172/original/image-20151117-16026-1wfrtzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102172/original/image-20151117-16026-1wfrtzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102172/original/image-20151117-16026-1wfrtzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102172/original/image-20151117-16026-1wfrtzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102172/original/image-20151117-16026-1wfrtzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102172/original/image-20151117-16026-1wfrtzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102172/original/image-20151117-16026-1wfrtzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People waiting to buy the new iPhone in New York, 2007.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Padraic Ryan via Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And that’s before we get on to Apple’s record of tax minimisation which reportedly enabled the multinational to pay <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3149056/Apple-pays-just-12m-UK-tax-2bn-profit-Miserly-bill-400million-short-figure-tech-giant-paid.html">just £11.8m in British corporation tax</a> last year on profits estimated at almost £2 billion.</p>
<p>The presence of Apple products in our lives continues apace and shows no signs of slowing. And with the company’s <a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/10/28/apple-spent-record-17b-on-research-development-last-quarter-6b-in-fiscal-2014">spending on research and development</a> growing by 35% to more than US$6 billion in 2014, we can be relatively sure that the <a href="http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/132763-apple-car-what-s-the-story-so-far-on-project-titan">Apple car</a> is not too far away.</p>
<p>On reflection, then – peak Apple is nowhere near.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50672/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Apple is already the biggest company in the world and looks set to grow even faster in the future. Is that necessarily a good thing?John Jewell, Director of Undergraduate Studies, School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/502752015-11-09T05:06:07Z2015-11-09T05:06:07ZSteve Jobs film: a welcome re-imagining of the iconic Apple leader<p>Black turtleneck, Levi’s 501 jeans and white New Balance trainers. The way that Steve Jobs presented himself – in service of promoting the Apple brand – became so iconic that we now associate those clothes with him. Jobs and the company he co-founded have provided ample material for Hollywood, which has produced two films about the former CEO in as many years.</p>
<p>The latest, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2080374/">Steve Jobs</a>, by director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin does not shy away from showing the darker sides of Jobs’ character and the cult of leadership that surrounded him. Focusing almost entirely on the product launches that defined his leadership persona, the film makes much of Jobs’ attention to detail. But his mastery of the choreographed presentations contrasts starkly with the messiness of the back stage preparations, where Jobs’ human failings as a colleague and father are relentlessly exposed.</p>
<p>Certainly, Jobs was a skilled corporate operator. The film accurately presents him at product launches before an adoring audience whose response is more akin to that of teenage fans at a pop concert than sceptical journalists and consumers at a corporate sales pitch. It is <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956522109001262">well-established</a> that performance based on the skillful use of rhetoric is central to contemporary corporate leadership, and Jobs is recognised as a master <a href="http://lea.sagepub.com/content/7/1/3">of the persuasive use of language</a>. This extended beyond language, of course, to his trademark uniform – all part of displaying the authenticity that he saw as <a href="http://bit.ly/1RBr69Z">crucial for cultivating a following</a>.</p>
<p>Despite Jobs’ high profile and popularity during his lifetime, few were prepared for the scenes of public mourning that followed the announcement of his death in 2011. Most striking were the spontaneous shrines of candles, flowers, half-eaten apples, and post-it notes – an emblem of Jobs’ creativity – which appeared outside Apple stores across the world. Never before had there been such a display of vernacular mourning <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283451250_Vernacular_Mourning_and_Corporate_Memorialization_Vernacular_Mourning_and_Corporate_Memorialisation_in_Framing_the_Death_of_Steve_Jobs">for a corporate leader</a>. </p>
<h2>Cult of leadership</h2>
<p>Yet Jobs also had a reputation among some for viciously autocratic leadership and was widely represented, including <a href="http://books.simonandschuster.com/Steve-Jobs/Walter-Isaacson/9781501127625">in his authorised biography</a>, as a bully who made impossible demands on his colleagues and took credit for their ideas. It is a side of Jobs that the film makes evident – <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/19/aaron-sorkin-steve-jobs-accuracy-london-film-festival">to the criticism of family and corporate executives</a>.</p>
<p>So how does the CEO of a technology company with a reputation for autocratic leadership become a global icon of public worship and devotion? <a href="http://gulnurtumbat.com/GulnurTumbat/Research_files/The%20Cult%20of%20Mac.pdf">Research has shown</a> that the Apple brand is built on encouraging consumers to see its products as sacred. The company sold Macintosh computers in the 1980s through “corporate evangelizing”, a technique developed by the company’s <a href="http://guykawasaki.com/guy-kawasaki/">“chief evangelist”</a>, marketer Guy Kawasaki. He encouraged Mac users to adopt techniques similar to those used by evangelical Christians to persuade others to convert to the brand. </p>
<p>A salvation narrative was key to this, promoting the idea that Apple technology enabled transcendence from the constraints of <a href="http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/content/62/2/243.abstract">mundane physical life</a>. The peak of this promotion came in Apple’s famous 1984 TV advertisement, which drew on the Orwellian notion of Big Brother and called on consumers to revolt against the boring, grey conformity of the rest of the tech world. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2zfqw8nhUwA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The contemporary Apple brand is still based on this belief system. Jobs was framed within it as a prophetic figure, or <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheiGod">“iGod”</a>. He certainly brought a religious intensity to his work and can be seen in the film justifying vile behaviour toward a colleague by saying: “God sent his only son on a suicide mission but we like him anyway.” The problem with any cult-like approach to leadership, however, is that it inculcates dependency on the leader and <a href="http://hum.sagepub.com/content/55/2/147.short">denies the possibility of dissent</a>.</p>
<p>Still, the cult of Steve Jobs seems set to endure. Since his death, a string of feature films, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4425064/">documentaries</a> and major <a href="http://becomingstevejobs.com/">biographies</a> have helped maintain the myth that Jobs had magical powers. His dubious leadership practices have been put to one side as unfortunate manifestations <a href="https://hbr.org/2012/04/the-real-leadership-lessons-of-steve-jobs">of his alleged genius</a>. This ongoing worship may be an attempt to deny death by keeping the myth of his charismatic leadership alive, to assuage our own anxieties <a href="http://hum.sagepub.com/content/45/2/113.abstract">and fears about mortality</a>. </p>
<p>The response to Jobs’ death, and the films and books about his life that followed, expose our collective fascination with charismatic business leaders. We are quick to celebrate (and mourn) Jobs for his role in building Apple. But slow to criticise the part he played in developing a global business model that some have questioned for its <a href="http://www.cresc.ac.uk/medialibrary/workingpapers/wp111.pdf">environmental and social</a> impact – in particular with relation to supply and manufacturing. </p>
<p>As social theorist Judith Butler <a href="http://www.versobooks.com/books/112-precarious-life">explains</a>, how different people are grieved says a lot about who and what we value in society. Deifying Steve Jobs and forgetting his flaws as a leader is a worrying reflection of the value we place on certain kinds of leadership. Thankfully, the latest representation of Jobs’ life shows the messy reality of life as a corporate leader, and that he was no more or less human than anyone else.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50275/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The latest Steve Jobs film does not shy away from showing the darker sides of his character and the cult of leadership that surrounded him.Scott Taylor, Reader in Leadership & Organization Studies, University of BirminghamEmma Bell, Professor of Management and Organization Studies, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/492152015-10-27T19:17:56Z2015-10-27T19:17:56ZFatal error: why we don’t fully trust technology<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99768/original/image-20151027-18424-68ky03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=392%2C23%2C2730%2C1786&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The dreaded blue screen of death has become so ubiquitous it's now fodder for comedy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tony Webster/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We’ve all been there. The presenter is about to begin, but then disaster strikes: the computer technology fails. Perhaps the computer has fallen asleep, the data projector is using the wrong input, or the mouse clicker has run out of juice. </p>
<p>This is why wise presenters always have a backup plan. After all, our trust of computer technology is not high. But why is trust of certain technologies low and of others comparatively high? </p>
<p>For instance, when we take a flight, we don’t normally have a backup flight plan, nor do we feel the need to keep a washboard on hand in case our washing machine fails. But for some reason, some technologies occupy a special place, where trust is dangerous and fear arises more naturally.</p>
<h2>Adversarial relationship</h2>
<p>We seem to have an adversarial relationship with some technology. The clip below shows a memorable instance where then Microsoft CEO Bill Gates was confronted with the dreaded windows blue screen error message during an important presentation about a new release of Windows. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IW7Rqwwth84?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In its day, the Windows “Blue Screen Of Death” (<a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/blue-screen-of-death-bsod">BSOD</a>) was infamous for letting hapless users know in no uncertain terms that Windows had just crashed and needed to be restarted. It was a presenter’s worst nightmare! </p>
<p>But the BSOD was also famous for displaying a screen full of memory dump data in which, presumably, the answer to the problem was magically embedded. To be fair, the screen included good advice, like checking that any new hardware or software had been properly installed. </p>
<p>But for the average computer user, the net effect was to increase the mystery of the almighty computer. After all, the user didn’t notice a problem and decide to shut down the computer. The <em>computer</em> noticed a problem the user didn’t even know could exist and shut itself down “to prevent damage” to itself. </p>
<p>The clip with Bill Gates gives one clue about why we don’t trust these machines: they are too smart. The apparent intelligence of devices like computers sets them apart from less interactive technologies, such as washing machines or refrigerators. There is a lot of latitude for things to go wrong with computers.</p>
<p>At times people may exclaim “but I don’t know what it just did” or “what if I break it?” in reference to a computer. Most users don’t understand how the computer works, or what could go wrong, and this makes the machine difficult to trust. </p>
<p>Even at Microsoft, technology failure can be mysterious, leading to Bill Gates’ <a href="http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/geekend/video-bill-gates-meet-the-blue-screen-of-death/">spontaneous remark</a> in reaction to the above video: “That must be why we’re not shipping Windows 98 yet.”</p>
<p>This is in contrast to other types of machines we do trust, such as the washing machine. When the washing machine spin cycle is interrupted, you guess that the drum has become unbalanced and you need to redistribute the clothes and restart it. We think we understand how the machine works so we trust it much more. It never gives us a BSOD style message that proves how little we know.</p>
<p>Think about it, how often have you heard somebody say “I don’t know what it just did” in reference to a washing machine?</p>
<h2>Tech support from children</h2>
<p>If you talk about cars to enthusiasts born in the 1950s, they may regale you with stories about working on the transmission, or changing the exhaust pipe, or tuning the engine. They enthusiastically demonstrate that they knew exactly how their cars worked and how to fix them.</p>
<p>Today, it’s not so clear-cut. Ordinary car owners would not be comfortable working on the adaptive cruise control, the assisted parking system, or the emergency brake assist. Ask drivers how these work and the best answer is likely to be “the computer does it”. </p>
<p>Yet arguably, there exists a high degree of trust in cars despite the extensive computerisation. In their hearts, the enthusiast still knows how the car works.</p>
<p>Just as Baby Boomers grew up with cars, today’s children grew up with computers in their everyday lives. Children today (i.e. “Millennials”) have had more exposure to computers as a percentage of their life experiences than any previous generation. </p>
<p>For them, much of the mystery of computers is absent. Because just like granddad working on the cars, our kids know more – or think they do – about how their gadgets work. This engenders trust and a lack of fear of clever technology. </p>
<p>So, next time you get frustrated with your computer, find a Millennial and remember that even the experts sometimes get flustered. Even Steve Jobs, famous for his flawless presentations of cool technology, wasn’t immune. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1-oIL9cLHDc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Which does make us wonder: if Steve Jobs and Bill Gates can’t trust their own technology, maybe there is good reason why the rest of us do not!</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Michael and Kenneth will be on hand for an Author Q&A between 11am and noon AEDT on Thursday, October 29, 2015. Post your questions in the comments section below.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49215/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What is it about modern digital technology that inspires suspicion rather than trust?Michael Cowling, Senior Lecturer & Discipline Leader, Mobile Computing & Applications, CQUniversity AustraliaKenneth Howah, Lecturer, CQUniversity AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/407702015-05-06T12:41:13Z2015-05-06T12:41:13ZThe end of industry barriers means it’s time to poke your nose into anyone’s business<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80539/original/image-20150505-933-5skskz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Violators will be rewarded.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/chiropractic/6777615402/in/photolist-bjV3VY-48RTZu-4ttdcn-4YPqqU-9PYxJh-ftZ1hL-dqyeUE-532DE-84YCqg-rf5Yk1-8Yjaj3-5WbRAP-chg68s-4KDN1M-4KDMWF-6YsUyh-4RTTjd-m1zThD-dzESFD-p6DYnY-dhfVkP-5MfWjA-8nxBiZ-54uLmy-KfDRK-bv1Pv-oChdLk-pL3X8t-dhfUPn-cEkCFY-czjXiE-oj2KUM-c16MV-72dTxS-g4Yky4-kK9YR-5HJvrX-8aovPQ-bwB8c-gFzTXk-7zd9iF-7Q6fPS-5YMy1X-oj2K4i-6qpGkR-6fMu1v-fiaCEs-cCQpR3-dhfNNi-2gzEc">Michael Dorausch</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There was a time when businesses knew where they stood. If you were a company boss, you would have a clear notion of what it was that you did, and at its most basic, of what industry you were in, to which trade association you paid your dues, and which customers you counted as yours. Thirteen years ago, <a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/222070995_The_concept_of_industry_and_the_case_of_radical_technological_change">I wrote about</a> how this notion of “industry” served managers well in stable times but came unstuck during periods of rapid technological change. Now, I believe that industry boundaries have become irrelevant – no matter how calm or turbulent the backdrop.</p>
<p>Back in 2002, I used some data from the digital imaging industry to make my case. I pointed out how Kodak’s “difficulties” (<a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/failed-strategies-and-the-death-of-kodak-2012-08-24">far worse was yet to come, of course</a>) were in part due to the company’s inability to imagine itself outside the “photographic” industry. This was a sector largely of Kodak’s creation, but it was fast being transformed by digital cameras. Kodak was unable to forget the world of chemicals, celluloid and paper, stuck to what it knew for far too long and paid the price.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80525/original/image-20150505-951-1u61wot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80525/original/image-20150505-951-1u61wot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80525/original/image-20150505-951-1u61wot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80525/original/image-20150505-951-1u61wot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80525/original/image-20150505-951-1u61wot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80525/original/image-20150505-951-1u61wot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80525/original/image-20150505-951-1u61wot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80525/original/image-20150505-951-1u61wot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kodak.Snapped.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/coleccionandocamaras/5569525400/in/photolist-9uagS1-jAskPz-jsPWDR-r5bbgr-61EHni-jKhxRe-8vb2v2-8vwKEE-nu6Pq9-riHrJK-jes7o3-jfQ6xx-4z5rpy-4JysGJ-8TVR5e-9vws3B-3pMYKP-4mHfXn-od4iDr-dYVdKP-mbscrE-s9vz7X-4QwUuy-fW4D2g-9QqQTt-8ve4r">Coleccionando Camaras</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is not just Kodak who might think like this. I often ask managers to list their top competitors, and most jot down names of firms that make the same or similar products or provide similar services. That is, bankers write down names of other banks (forgetting about the huge rise in peer-to-peer lending, “alternative finance” and financing through completely different models) and manufacturers only list competitors who make the same product (ignoring new models or products that make their products irrelevant).</p>
<h2>Skill sets</h2>
<p>That the concept of “industry” has completed a process of obsolescence should not come as news to anyone who has watched the hit American television series, House of Cards. This series was not produced by HBO or any other traditional TV studio known for programme-making skills, but by a firm in the business of renting films. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/netflix">Netflix</a>, scoffed many, had no business poking its nose into content production, nor did it have any capabilities in this field. And yet, it just went ahead and did it, blazing a trail for others. Netflix may once have been in a different “industry” with different “expertise” from content development, but luckily for them (and its millions of subscribers), Netflix treated those terms exactly as they need to be treated: labels created to misguide managers. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80529/original/image-20150505-948-1k2gjtr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80529/original/image-20150505-948-1k2gjtr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80529/original/image-20150505-948-1k2gjtr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80529/original/image-20150505-948-1k2gjtr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80529/original/image-20150505-948-1k2gjtr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80529/original/image-20150505-948-1k2gjtr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=221&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80529/original/image-20150505-948-1k2gjtr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=221&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80529/original/image-20150505-948-1k2gjtr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=221&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shaking up an industry, one app at a time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/blakespot/3030107334/in/photolist-5BL6kU-9LJ6TB-7kLzuf-8BMfhv-daDb82-6hVRkc-8WHXba-dfPa28-fgD4hN-96WqVn-cjT3YC-hshYuc-4GymiK-4GynW8-4HowsE-4HjjSV-229ehn-qtJcTj-asZWmk-8DnWZa-d3VzcU-oXsJkY-pU42CD-c7MU4S-oX24JC-d3uCVf-4tnmsi-7q7ZRA-nzwcRA-6XR8gh-7oQvr4-9SpCY6-6hVRR2-8oZgfP-ovViPB-9wzDjY-36vQXg-pYxaSA-24JZWb-bZ4Nj7-D3oXV-ncoE4A-d6rqQf-awtCzT-nz7dVg-diVtJt-6i11dQ-332kow-6BZdGS-5BAnHR">Blake Patterson</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2007, I stood in front of a group of executives with the front page of the Financial Times in my hands on which Steve Jobs was shown launching the iPhone. I asked the group how many thought it would be a success. Only 30% raised their hands. The rest were unanimous: <a href="http://digimind.com/blog/smmnews/apple-should-pull-the-plug-on-the-iphone-and-other-bad-corporate-predictions/">Apple, they said, had no chance</a> because Apple knows nothing about phones, and whatever Apple can do, Nokia can do better. I wonder how many of those executives use Nokia phones these days?</p>
<p>The recorded music industry has had a similar unhappy experience with Apple and other disrupters. Apple refused to confine itself to its core business, which was computers, and quickly wrested control of digital music from record companies, selling single-tune downloads to consumers who had long realised that expensive albums flogged by record companies usually had at best a few good songs padded with duds.</p>
<p>The newspaper industry has met with a similar fate. There was a time that I would buy a quality paper and read everything from it: news, analysis, sports, classifieds, you name it. Now I go to a different source for each of these things. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/death-of-newspapers/">Newspapers for too long</a> thought that only their traditional competition, other newspapers, had the capability to meet their customers’ needs. When their consumers turned into their competitors (as bloggers, for instance), they were caught unprepared.</p>
<h2>Barriers to entry</h2>
<p>All this has enormous implications for managers. First, anyone who still thinks in terms of “industry” and traditional “expertise” is doomed. It is an illusion, nothing more. Take it from me, stop going to your industry conferences: they will only convince you that things are not going to change, or that they are going to change for everyone in the same manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. Discard this identity that your industry has bestowed on you. Liberate yourself and think only about what business model you can craft – regardless of what you currently do and what you already know.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80660/original/image-20150506-22642-lpvhxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80660/original/image-20150506-22642-lpvhxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80660/original/image-20150506-22642-lpvhxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80660/original/image-20150506-22642-lpvhxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80660/original/image-20150506-22642-lpvhxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80660/original/image-20150506-22642-lpvhxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80660/original/image-20150506-22642-lpvhxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80660/original/image-20150506-22642-lpvhxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Freedom. Take the leap.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ekigyuu/6933700113/">Noodles and Beef</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The implications are also significant for business schools, which need to stop telling students about “banking”, “manufacturing” or “high tech” and start preaching a world that has no boundaries. Specialisation hurts, it confines. Students who pursue banking need to know as much about high tech, and vice versa. Everybody needs to be learning about industries and capabilities other than their own.</p>
<p>The time has truly come to blast out of your comfort zone and start poking your nose in other people’s businesses. It really is your business to do so.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40770/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kamal A Munir does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An extraordinary decade of change has ensured there is now no clear blue water around any business sector.Kamal A Munir, Associate Professor of Strategy and Policy, Cambridge Judge Business SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/352922015-01-20T06:18:35Z2015-01-20T06:18:35ZHow deadly cancer may actually be spread by survival mechanism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68845/original/image-20150113-28455-zxfu0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The actions of cells underpin new thinking about pancreatic cancer, which took the life of Apple's Steve Jobs. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesmitchell/2565317822/sizes/o/in/photolist-4UFVBC-PQryd-PR3Bk-atUU1b-atmFQG-njDWVF-N9vns-b2Cbsk-b2Cbgt-b2CbdH-fCyLS1-atTMKv-aX3Nvk-atgskP-atnkuR-atqeSe-atJjxP-7ouSZj-atEwVT-atHcSG-atjecF-atm5vZ-7N9gtP-c4TiBy-atjpuM-83QwWp-fmspcP-9uQfFD-atsvzj-att4Rf-5fnMQj-83TDFL-85tiYG-atLZvu-atJj8x-atgMz6-baSZsK-x9aCj-fEKA4t-aAKFAs-avHR5C-7M6Jvx-aPZCei-aPZCFt-cSzo3W-ec3ZF-oX54Xh-av9vEA-atXjhg-c3NbHb-avRq5s/">James Mitchell</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Pancreatic cancer is a devastating disease. With a <a href="http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/cancerstats">ten-year survival rate of just 1%</a>, it has the poorest prognosis of all solid tumours. The main reason for this is that tumours of the pancreas largely develop without symptoms. Therefore, by the time many patients are diagnosed, the disease has advanced to a metastatic and incurable stage.</p>
<p>Metastasis, which describes when cancer cells leave (or disseminate from) the primary tumour and spread (or invade) to other organs in the body to form secondary tumours, is the main cause of cancer-related death. Hope for improved prognoses for many cancer patients lie in the ability to detect and diagnose the disease before it reaches this deadly stage.</p>
<p>Currently, there are no programmes available anywhere in the world <a href="http://www.pancreaticcancer.org.uk">to screen for pancreatic cancer</a> in the general population. The main reason for this is that we lack the suitable screening and diagnostic tools to detect at-risk individuals. In order to develop new methods to detect and diagnose this disease earlier, we need basic research to increase our knowledge and understanding of how this disease starts.</p>
<p>In recent years our knowledge of the genetics and pathology of pancreatic cancer has improved considerably. Genetic profiling of human disease has allowed researchers to estimate the timing of the development of the various stages of the disease and revealed that, on average, a primary tumour expands and <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v467/n7319/abs/nature09515.html">grows within the pancreas for a decade</a> before spreading to other organs.</p>
<p>This suggests that there is a broad window of opportunity to detect and diagnose the cancer early – providing we have the right tools. However, we still do not know enough about how this disease begins and develops at a cellular level.</p>
<h2>A clear progression</h2>
<p>Under normal, healthy conditions cells <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-self-destructing-cells-may-hold-key-to-cancer-cure-31707">undergo a programme of cell death</a>, which causes them to self-destruct when their use is over. Over a cell’s life span, mutations can occur in specific genes, which transform the cell to become abnormal. Transformation of a cell disrupts this vital process of self-destruction and the cell continues to grow and divide without control. Therefore, transformation of cells is the first step in cancer development.</p>
<p>Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, or PDAC, is the most common form of pancreatic cancer, which begins with non-invasive precursor lesions. These microscopic lesions develop primarily from the epithelial cells that line the ducts in the exocrine pancreas that become transformed when a specific cancer-causing gene (or oncogene) called KRas becomes mutated. KRas mutations are detected <a>in around 90% of all human PDACs</a>) and are known as the founder mutation in PDAC.</p>
<h2>Genetic profiling</h2>
<p>It is generally considered that PDAC develops from grade I precursor lesions to grade III and then to metastatic disease. Researchers have generated genetic “maps” of a sample of human tumours, <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v467/n7319/abs/nature09515.html">and found</a> that PDAC genetically evolves over time. Metastatic or secondary stage tumours are genetically similar to the initial pre-invasive tumour. This suggests that founder mutations such the KRas mutation, are required for all stages of the disease’s progression. However, cells within a primary tumour must acquire additional genetic mutations to become metastatic or invasive.</p>
<p>However, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22265420">a more recent study</a> suggests that our understanding of how this disease starts requires a new perspective. Using cutting-edge genetic and imaging tools, researchers have tracked transformed pancreatic epithelial cells in real time. This revealed that transformed cells (expressing KRas mutations) were detected in the bloodstream and had spread to the liver before a primary tumour was detected in the pancreas. In fact, KRas-transformed cells escaped from early grade precursor lesions.</p>
<p>It is possible that although these mutant cells spread out of the pancreas at very early stages of the disease, once seeded in secondary sites they become dormant or grow at a slower rate and are not detected until years later. What remains unclear is the process by which KRas-transformed cells leave the pancreas to enter the bloodstream and metastasise to other organs.</p>
<h2>Out of the frying pan, into the fire</h2>
<p>At the <a href="http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/research/cancer-stem-cell">European Cancer Stem Cell Research Institute</a>(ECSCRI) at Cardiff University, the primary focus of our research is to gain a better understanding of early pancreatic cancer. In particular, how precursor lesions start and develop once a normal cell becomes transformed. To further our research into pancreatic cancer, we study epithelial cell biology; how epithelial cells interact and communicate with each other within a tissue.</p>
<p>Along with muscle, nervous and connective tissue, epithelium – made up of epithelial cells – is one of the four major tissue types in the human body. The main function of an epithelium is to act as a tight barrier that protects our organs from potential harm in the external environment. Under normal conditions, epithelial cells tightly bind to each other to form this protective barrier. In addition to providing a physical structure to the tissue, each epithelial cell receives and communicates multiple networks of signals through cell-to-cell connections and these give cells instructions on position within a tissue as well as function.</p>
<p>So what happens to this communication network when epithelial cells become transformed but remain in direct contact with their normal neighbours? Working as a postdoctoral researcher in Yasu Fujita’s lab, then at UCL, London, I showed that <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19287376">normal cells detect and eliminate Ras-transformed cells</a>, which may act as an anti-cancer strategy. On the other hand, the signal to remove a mutant cell may act as a trigger to escape and therefore may promote the early spread of the mutant cells to other tissues.</p>
<p>At ECSCRI, and with the support of our collaborator, Owen Sansom and his team at the Beatson Institute in Glasgow, we are exploring both of these scenarios in pancreatic cancer. A big question is how normal cells detect the mutant cells – and we are currently investigating a specific cell-to-cell communication signal that could trigger this process.</p>
<p>One of the major risk factors for PDAC is pancreatitis, an inflammatory disease of the pancreas usually caused by alcohol misuse, which can significantly damage the tissue. With Ole Petersen’s team at Cardiff University – experts in pancreatitis – we are exploring whether and how pancreatitis alters cell-to-cell communication between normal and KRas-transformed cells.</p>
<p>We hope that our research will add knowledge to our understanding of how pancreatic cancer starts and develops from the earliest stages. An increased understanding will bring about the development of new screening, detection and diagnostic tools sooner, and may help increase the number of people living longer with this deadly disease.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35292/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Hogan receives funding from European Cancer Stem Cell Research Institute, Pancreatic Cancer UK, CRUK Development Fund, Royal Society Research grant, Medical Research Council, Amser Justin Time</span></em></p>Pancreatic cancer is a devastating disease. With a ten-year survival rate of just 1%, it has the poorest prognosis of all solid tumours. The main reason for this is that tumours of the pancreas largely…Catherine Hogan, Research Fellow, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/258672014-04-29T20:29:47Z2014-04-29T20:29:47ZChannelling Steve Jobs in Apple’s ‘Haunted Empire’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/47271/original/kd64n5bz-1398754844.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Apple chief Tim Cook has dismissed 'Haunted Empire' as "nonsense".</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mike Deerkoski/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The American <a href="http://time.com/31009/haunted-empire-a-bad-book-about-apple-after-steve-jobs/">reviews</a> of Yukari Iwatani Kane’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Haunted-Empire-Apple-After-Steve-ebook/dp/B00EA8BW6E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398731839&sr=8-1&keywords=haunted+empire">book</a> Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs have not been kind. Having covered Apple for three years as a journalist at the Wall Street Journal, Kane would have been forewarned about the difficulties of writing about Apple. Stirring the hornet’s nest even further, she called the company out for its greatest of sins, the failure to “wow” us with a new gadget.</p>
<p>Undeterred by the inevitable opprobrium, Kane detailed in her book, at times excessively, the characters of old and new CEOs, Steve Jobs and Tim Cook and the significant events of Apple’s recent history. These events served to illustrate the bullying, uninnovative, megalith that Apple had become under a dispassionate, colourless and ruthless leader, Tim Cook. </p>
<p>The book lays bare Cook’s calculating blandness in a succession of chapters on Foxconn, Apple’s trial with Samsung, the eBook price-rigging investigations, and the debacles that were Apple maps, the iPhone 4 antenna and the introduction of Siri. </p>
<p>Most of these events won’t be new to readers of the book, but what most won’t be aware of is the role that Cook and other Apple staff played in them. And of course throughout it all, there is that question of “what would Steve Jobs have done?”. Something that Jobs explicitly hoped people would not ask after he was gone.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/47274/original/9zj867xn-1398756994.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/47274/original/9zj867xn-1398756994.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47274/original/9zj867xn-1398756994.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47274/original/9zj867xn-1398756994.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47274/original/9zj867xn-1398756994.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47274/original/9zj867xn-1398756994.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47274/original/9zj867xn-1398756994.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Harper Collins</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All of the challenges that Apple has faced in recent years are brought together to lend weight to the question of whether Steve Jobs’ absence will be the catalyst for Apple’s slow and inevitable decline. The author also considers Apple to be a victim of the “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator's_Dilemma">Innovator’s Dilemma</a>” proposed by Clayton Christensen, whereby dominant companies are superceded by more nimble companies undercutting their market or changing the market to make the dominant company’s product irrelevant. Put simply, Steve Jobs would have been able to save Apple from that fate; Tim Cook won’t.</p>
<p>The criticism of the book from reviewers has really centred around disagreement with that argument and the fact that nothing new is presented to back the argument up. <a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/apple-after-jobs-pretty-much-the-same-as-ever/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0">They</a> have also made the case that Apple’s continued growth in sales, profits and share price since Jobs’ death is evidence of a company that is actually doing very well. Certainly it is in no danger of becoming the next BlackBerry. </p>
<p>Farhad Manjoo from the New York Times also makes the point that because of Apple’s secrecy, it is very hard to know if it has the next paradigm shifting gadget waiting in the wings. If you had considered Apple at any time prior to the release of products like the iPhone or iPad you may have been able to level the same accusation of lack of innovation that it is being accused of now.</p>
<p>Needless to say, Tim Cook has <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/101488949">dismissed</a> the book as “nonsense”, conveniently providing reviewers with a way of summing up their thoughts on the book. It is not clear whether Tim Cook actually read the book. Given his working habits he is unlikely to have had the time and so I suspect this was a task relegated to someone in Apple’s communications department.</p>
<p>I don’t think the book is nonsense however because the truth is, we really don’t know if Kane is right or not. The view into Apple is so constrained by its secrecy and the threat of retribution to employees that cross that line, that drawing conclusions about a company based on financial results and even extensive interviews is always going to be impossible. </p>
<p>The other thing is that the idea of “wowing” the public with each product launch is grossly overstated, as Apple’s sales figures have shown. Apple’s products have always really been about evolution of their own and other’s design and function. The iPad when it came out was dismissed as being simply a bigger iPhone, which in essence it was. It now seems Apple’s tablet sales are the thing most under <a href="http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/android-tablet-market-share-65-percent-ipad-sales-report-222693.html">threat</a>, with cheaper Android tablets cutting significantly into the iPad’s market share. Larger screened phones are also serving increasingly as a replacement for tablets, especially in Asia.</p>
<p>For anyone interested in Apple but also the background to the ongoing corporate battles between Apple, Google and Samsung, it is worth reading the book. There is detail that many people would not have come across and even if you have, its packaging into the book provides a good overall view of what has happened in courtrooms and factories across the world. </p>
<p>As for the conclusions arrived at in the book regarding Apple’s future and Cook’s role in it, as with many things currently in Apple’s lifeline, the jury is still out.</p>
<p><em>Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs by Yukari Iwatani Kane published by HarperCollins Publishers, 384 pages.</em></p>
<p><em>Average rating on Amazon ⅗ stars.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25867/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Glance does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The American reviews of Yukari Iwatani Kane’s book Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs have not been kind. Having covered Apple for three years as a journalist at the Wall Street Journal, Kane would…David Glance, Director of Innovation, Faculty of Arts, Director of Centre for Software Practice, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/65442012-04-20T01:22:59Z2012-04-20T01:22:59ZEau de MacBook Pro takes ‘unboxing porn’ to a new level<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9795/original/7gf63hcn-1334882486.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fetishes come in many forms, and often in small packages.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">MildlyDiverting</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’re reading this, <a href="http://www.apple.com/">Apple</a> thanks you. So does the <a href="http://www.air-aroma.com/">Air Aroma</a> scent marketing company and the Australian artist collective <a href="http://www.greatesthitswebsite.com/">Greatest Hits</a>. </p>
<p>They’re thanking you for the free advertising supplied by this article, and around 7,500 like it, reporting on Air Aroma’s replication of the fragrance of an Apple MacBook Pro for <a href="http://westspace.org.au/calendar/event/de-facto-standard/">an exhibition</a> by Melbourne artists Greatest Hits, opening today.</p>
<p>The artists <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/18/scent_of_new_macbook/">sent a new MacBook Pro to Air Aroma</a> who went to work creating a fragrance reminiscent of plastics, paint, paper and aluminium.</p>
<h2>The sweet smell of earned media</h2>
<p>At its core, the story represents the sweet smell of a highly successful viral <a href="http://blogs.forrester.com/interactive_marketing/2009/12/defining-earned-owned-and-paid-media.html">earned media</a> campaign, in which free media attention is drawn to a promotional stunt (as opposed to paying for advertising).</p>
<p>It combines the built-in fanboy/girl audience for an Apple story – <em>any</em> Apple story – with the potential for a more general audience because it’s also a feel-good story about technology and art: we can all chuckle at those kooky modern artists. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9794/original/k2frd83s-1334881984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9794/original/k2frd83s-1334881984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9794/original/k2frd83s-1334881984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9794/original/k2frd83s-1334881984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9794/original/k2frd83s-1334881984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9794/original/k2frd83s-1334881984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9794/original/k2frd83s-1334881984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">hochit</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.air-aroma.com/blog/the-scent-of-a-apple-product-sourcing-the-macbook-pro-fragrance">Air Aroma’s blog post explaining the stunt</a> was all the Apple blogs needed to send the story viral in social media, after which it was noticed by the mainstream media. Greatest Hits, the West Space gallery and Air Aroma scored direct attention, and Apple scored indirect attention. That being said, why should this particular smell garner such attention?</p>
<p><a href="http://westspace.org.au/calendar/event/de-facto-standard/">Greatest Hits’ De Facto Standard exhibition</a> is an artistic statement about technology and consumer culture. The smell of a just-opened MacBook Pro represents an interesting de facto standard.</p>
<p>Many Apple products are de facto standards in their class – think iPads, iPhones and iPods – but <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/steve-jobs">Steve Jobs</a> was famous for demanding that the design for both products and packaging be beautiful and iconic. Not just de facto standard, then, but also the gold standard.</p>
<p>The combination of the famous cultishness of Apple users with this notion of gold standard iconic design at all levels has led Apple products to be among the most popular for the uniquely geeky practice of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unboxing">“unboxing”</a>.</p>
<h2>Unboxing porn: self-perpetuating earned media</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/unboxing-the-new-geek-porn-1333955.html">Unboxing is geek porn</a>. Video or picture sets are taken of a packaging striptease, from a sealed box, through each petticoat of plastic and garter of twist-tie, to the virginal-yet-nubile gadget itself. For an outsider, it’s an excruciatingly slow process. </p>
<p>For geeks, it’s a study of form meeting function. Videos on sites such as <a href="http://unboxing.gearlive.com/">unboxing.com</a> are typically three minutes long, but can be a long as half an hour, as was the case for a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=xaOyJ5FUjSw">10-year-old, sealed 20th anniversary Mac</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/31XS1WrC5_0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Unboxing a MacBook Pro 15’‘. Parental supervision is advised.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These videos are a particularly potent form of earned media, because they are self-perpetuating. As long as a company continues to produce interesting devices in interesting packaging, the videos reinforce attention to the company. </p>
<p>Further, since the unboxing phenomenon is not limited to the products of one company, companies that aim to compete for iconic status must produce packaging worthy of the fetish. But even failures reinforce the general sense of excitement of the unboxing ritual, the particular brand and brand competition.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9788/original/rncgz5pv-1334879409.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9788/original/rncgz5pv-1334879409.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9788/original/rncgz5pv-1334879409.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9788/original/rncgz5pv-1334879409.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9788/original/rncgz5pv-1334879409.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9788/original/rncgz5pv-1334879409.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9788/original/rncgz5pv-1334879409.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9788/original/rncgz5pv-1334879409.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eugene Phoen</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unboxing is not limited to gadgets. Software, new books (especially those in series such as Harry Potter and Twilight) or really any consumer good can become an item of worship with an accompanying revelatory event.</p>
<p>And, of course, media outlets will report on such events if they are large, widespread, or, as in this case, kooky.</p>
<p>The “new Mac” smell is prized among Apple users, and especially unboxing afficionados. It is common to all unboxings and it clearly has cultural links to the “new car” smell that gets many people’s motors’ racing. As such, the “Eau de MacBook” episode is a textbook case of leveraging the base desires of Apple fans to create media attention. </p>
<p>Of the groups involved, only Apple could afford to pay for such attention, but it doesn’t have to – it just needs to keep bringing sexy back.</p>
<p><em>Acknowledgment: the concepts of self-perpetuating earned media and media event worship were developed in consultation with <a href="http://emsah.uq.edu.au/index.html?page=17843&pid=0">Dr Susan McKay</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/6544/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sean Rintel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If you’re reading this, Apple thanks you. So does the Air Aroma scent marketing company and the Australian artist collective Greatest Hits. They’re thanking you for the free advertising supplied by this…Sean Rintel, Lecturer in Strategic Communication, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/59392012-03-20T03:46:08Z2012-03-20T03:46:08ZHow to spend $100 billion: Apple announces dividend, buyback plans<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/8780/original/c67pmsdv-1332213613.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C12%2C981%2C638&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Apple will pay a dividend to shareholders for the first time since 1995, as it considers how to spend its amassed warchest.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Apple today announced it would pay its first shareholder dividends in almost 20 years, marking a distinct break from the late Steve Jobs’ “no dividends” policy.</p>
<p>The world’s biggest corporation by market capitalization – now worth $US560 billion – will spend $US45 billion of its enormous $US100 billion cash stockpile, paying $US2.65 per share, commencing in Apple’s fiscal fourth quarter (September 2012). Apple will also engage in a share buy-back scheme, totalling $US10 billion.</p>
<p>To a certain extent, Apple has caved to shareholder pressure; investors have long urged the company to deliver dividends back to shareholders. Former CEO Steve Jobs always resisted dividend pay outs, arguing Apple needed “rainy day” money in case the computer maker needed to burn cash during a downturn.</p>
<p>To pacify shareholders, Jobs delivered stock splits instead, increasing the value of existing portfolios, while encouraging new investors to buy new, cheaper Apple shares.</p>
<p>The Cupertino, California company will be forced to use its domestic cash to implement the dividends and buy-back schemes. The bulk of Apple’s treasure chest is held offshore in cash and short-term investments. Like Microsoft and Google, Apple is refusing to repatriate billions of dollars, unless it receives a tax holiday.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/8781/original/hfbgjprp-1332214049.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/8781/original/hfbgjprp-1332214049.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=694&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8781/original/hfbgjprp-1332214049.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=694&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8781/original/hfbgjprp-1332214049.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=694&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8781/original/hfbgjprp-1332214049.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8781/original/hfbgjprp-1332214049.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8781/original/hfbgjprp-1332214049.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tim Cook is reversing Steve Jobs’ no dividend policy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During an presidential election year, when corporate taxes remain a controversial domestic issue, Apple and other tech behemoths have powerful friends in US Congress who argue that up to $US1 trillion could be invested in US jobs, if the Obama administration relaxed tax rules, even temporarily.</p>
<p>Multinational tech firms like Apple and Google generate tremendous profits from their global revenues, particularly in markets such as Europe, Japan and China. However, their cash stockpiles are double-edged swords, as they cannot repatriate their cash without facing substantial tax bills in the US.</p>
<p>However, critics argue that when tax holidays are granted, they do not make substantial contributions to jobs growth. Under the provisions of the US Homeland Investment Act (2004), passed by a Republican-majority Congress, US firms repatriated over $US350 billion. However, subsequent studies have demonstrated that corporations employed the cash largely to engage in shareholder payouts, rather than new investment in plant or R&D.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, it’s not as if shareholders don’t spend, save or invest at least some of their earnings in the US. Consequently, it’s scarcely surprising US lawmakers want American corporate cash repatriated, rather than sitting in a bank in Brussels.</p>
<p>Apple will use a significant part of its $45 billion to pay for current and future executive stock options and employee share purchase options. In January this year, CEO Timothy Cook was granted $US376 million in stock options, worth even more since Apple’s share price surpassed $US600. </p>
<p>At the end of 2010, CEO Steve Jobs held over 5.5 million in Apple shares in a trust, valued at almost $US1.8 billion, although he never realised the value of them prior to his death in October 2011. Conversely, CEO Cook, former Chief Financial Officer Fred Anderson and dozens of other Apple executives have realised tens of millions of dollars after exercising share options over the past 10 years, without ever delivering dividends to shareholders.</p>
<p>Investing in Apple just became much more attractive to mutual funds, as well as individual shareholders, and AAPL has risen $15.53 (2.65%) in the few hours since the dividend was announced. Under Jobs, Apple delivered innovation, growth, revenue and astounding stock price growth; under Cook, shareholders may get some value.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/5939/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Remy Davison owns one share in Apple.</span></em></p>Apple today announced it would pay its first shareholder dividends in almost 20 years, marking a distinct break from the late Steve Jobs’ “no dividends” policy. The world’s biggest corporation by market…Remy Davison, Jean Monnet Chair in Politics and Economics, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/41202011-11-02T03:38:26Z2011-11-02T03:38:26ZSteve Jobs, John McCarthy, Dennis Ritchie: three of a kind, and don’t forget it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/5099/original/jobsmccarthyritchie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Left to right: Steve Jobs, John McCarthy and Dennis Ritchie</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Yonhap News Agency, pepihasenfuss, hyoga (composite image) </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last month saw the passing of three pioneers of the information age – an age we more or less take for granted now. These luminaries were [John McCarthy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCarthy_(computer_scientist), <a href="http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/index.html">Dennis Ritchie</a> and, of course, <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/steve-jobs">Steve Jobs</a>. </p>
<p>Of the three in this cluster, only the latter’s demise registered as a zeitgeist moment worthy of the death of JFK or Princess Diana. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/8842737/Steve-Jobs-Bill-Gates-unimaginative.html">Gossip-laden reminiscences</a> are still percolating through the press in the wake of the Apple co-founder’s demise: What did Jobs think of Bill Gates and vice-versa? </p>
<p>That in itself is a metric of the spirit of our times, an era when the “geek chic” of gadget culture has become a badge of fashion, rather than the subject of derision. </p>
<p>Why has the public mourning for Jobs been so evident and sustained in comparison to the quiet exits of McCarthy, who died last week at the age of 84, and Ritchie, who was 70 when he <a href="http://theconversation.com/dennis-ritchie-father-of-modern-computer-programming-dies-3855">died last month</a>? </p>
<p>I teach elements of computing history in a variety of IT courses at tertiary level and all three are heroic figures in the annals of technology. </p>
<h2>John McCarthy: pioneer of Artificial Intelligence</h2>
<p>Computer scientist John McCarthy <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203911804576653530510986612.html">coined the term</a> “Artificial Intelligence” in the late 1950s and through his work speculated that one day machines would mimic or even surpass feats of human intelligence. </p>
<p>A decade into the 21st century, McCarthy’s visions of intelligent computers are still in the realm of science fiction, so A.I. as an acronym was fast consigned to the curio bin to be replaced by more conservative terms such as “intelligent agents”. </p>
<p>If computers could act today as they do in the movies, such as HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, McCarthy would have been lauded as an intellectual hero in the Einstein mould.</p>
<p>(Amazing fact of the day: in the 1960s John McCarthy advanced the concept of computing time-sharing, which with a few tweaks here and there has been re-imagined in this day and age as the somewhat over-hyped “<a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/cloud-computing">cloud computing</a>”.)</p>
<h2>Dennis Ritchie: father of programming</h2>
<p>Dennis Ritchie was supposed to be solving the problems of the US telephone networks during his long tenure as a research scientist at the late, lamented <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs">Bell Labs</a>, but instead he created the <a href="http://www.howstuffworks.com/c.htm">C programming language</a>, arguably the first dialect written in the future present.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/5098/original/freeasinfreedom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/5098/original/freeasinfreedom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/5098/original/freeasinfreedom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/5098/original/freeasinfreedom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/5098/original/freeasinfreedom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/5098/original/freeasinfreedom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/5098/original/freeasinfreedom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">freeasinfreedom</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Along with colleague <a href="http://www.linfo.org/thompson.html">Ken Thompson</a>, Ritchie wrote the <a href="http://www.bell-labs.com/history/unix/tutorial.html">UNIX operating system</a> using his beloved C language, and the rest is history. </p>
<p>In the proverbial sense, a computer without an adequate operating system is about as useful as a rubber razor blade and UNIX proved to be the seed that generated the <a href="http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/%7El38613dw/readings/OpenSourceOverview.html">open source movement</a> in the guise of <a href="https://www.linux.com/learn/resource-center/376-linux-is-everywhere-an-overview-of-the-linux-operating-system">LINUX</a>. </p>
<p>Both C and UNIX are 70s icons that resonate in much of the technology we use today. For these achievements Dennis Ritchie received the <a href="http://www.uspto.gov/about/nmti/recipients/1998.jsp">National Medal of Technology</a> from Bill Clinton, but I suspect his real satisfaction was in being able to work in a corporate environment that allowed him to creatively tinker (and have fun) with ideas that may have been at times counter to core business. </p>
<p>Google’s success in the 21st century is partly due to the fact that it too allows its innovators to function akin to Renaissance thinkers in the spirit of Ritchie and his peers. </p>
<h2>Steve Jobs: da Vinci of our times</h2>
<p>Steve Jobs, too, was a modern, entrepreneurial version of Leonardo da Vinci. He was a latent polymath with idiosyncratic tastes. </p>
<p>Apple’s rise as the world’s dominant “cool” brand of information technology is due in part to its reawakening of the bygone notion that beauty coupled with engineering design can guide a richer user experience, one that’s driven through emotion as well as necessity. </p>
<p>Jobs taught us it was hip to love technology. But McCarthy and Ritchie gave us, in their own ways, technology we could really love.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/4120/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Lenarcic does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Last month saw the passing of three pioneers of the information age – an age we more or less take for granted now. These luminaries were [John McCarthy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCarthy_(computer_scientist…John Lenarcic, Lecturer in Business IT & Logistics, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/40362011-11-01T19:39:42Z2011-11-01T19:39:42ZThe power of biography: Why Steve Jobs’ legend will live on<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/5053/original/Jobs_pic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Steve Jobs' desire for an enduring memory of his work led him to engage a biographer. The book has become his obituary.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Britta Pedersen</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Steve Jobs’ <a href="http://books.simonandschuster.com/Steve-Jobs/Walter-Isaacson/9781451648539">“official” biography</a> was always going to be a bestseller, with its promise of a candid examination of the inner workings of the world’s most successful salesman and the company he twice built. </p>
<p>And <a href="http://theconversation.com/rip-steve-jobs-the-ceo-we-felt-we-knew-3733">his death</a> shortly before the book’s release has fuelled the public’s desire for his life story. Many readers are approaching the biography as a 656-page obituary. </p>
<p>But why did Jobs choose a biographer to narrate his life rather than pen his own story?</p>
<h2>Unveiling the secrets</h2>
<p>On the day of his death, tributes permeated the web at 10,000 tweets per second, or faster than you can say genius. Pre-orders for Isaacson’s biography soared. </p>
<p>The next day Isaacson’s publishers, Simon & Schuster, brought forward the release date of the biography by nearly a month. </p>
<p>While the well-worn trope of the rags-to-riches American success story has proven appeal, part of the allure of an “official” biography of Jobs (Isaacson’s is not the first biography, nor will it be the last) is the expectation of getting the inside story on <a href="http://www.apple.com/au/">Apple</a>. </p>
<p>Jobs made secrecy an integral part of the company’s marketing strategies and manufacturing policies, as a plethora of rumours sites such as <a href="http://www.macrumors.com">MacRumors</a>, <a href="http://www.appleinsider.com">AppleInsider</a> and <a href="http://www.stupidapplerumors.com">Stupid Apple Rumors</a> attests. </p>
<p>The culture of secrecy that was cultivated by Jobs and continues to be enforced throughout the organisation is severe. </p>
<p>The public, while not usually interested in the development and manufacture of most products, is hungry for the truth behind Jobs’ keynotes.</p>
<h2>Biography or autobiography?</h2>
<p>One would have thought that for a megalomaniac such as Jobs, an autobiography would have been more fitting. </p>
<p>But by allowing a biographer to take control, Jobs gains the historical, cultural and literary capital of biography and avoids the reader’s assumption of spin doctoring. </p>
<p>All technological products are ephemeral: Jobs undoubtedly wanted something more enduring.</p>
<h2>The designated biographer</h2>
<p>In the last interview Jobs gave to Isaacson he explained that his motivation for putting his life on the page was for his children to “know” him. </p>
<p>While this may be true, there is a danger in relying too much on the subject, especially one as savvy as Jobs. </p>
<p>This is where biographical marketing terms such as “official” or “authorised” should be treated with some scepticism. </p>
<p>To be clear, Isaacson does not use either term in the title of his book. Instead he is what Deirdre Bair describes as the “<a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?id=GLvM8dkUyToC&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=deirdre+bair+designated+biographer&source=bl&ots=Weevp9Fmz_&sig=V89Y2u0tqjvv29KFBkaSrWP-_dE&hl=en&ei=vzyuTqXxL8SviQeE6sW6Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=deirdre%20bair%20designated%20biographer&f=false">designated biographer</a>”. That is, the biography is written with the cooperation of the subject yet is not censored by the individual or the estate. </p>
<p>As Jobs’ wife, Laurene Powell, told Isaacson, “He’s good at spin, but he also has a remarkable story, and I’d like to see that it’s all told truthfully.” </p>
<p>Isaacson leaves it to the reader to assess whether he succeeded in his “mission” or not.</p>
<h2>The power of posterity</h2>
<p>Unlike a CEO or a marketing executive, biographers make lousy spin doctors. </p>
<p>They are often better suited to tearing their subjects apart than celebrating them. </p>
<p>As Oscar Wilde <a href="http://classiclit.about.com/cs/profileswriters/p/aa_oscarwilde.htm">wrote</a>, “Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes the biography.” </p>
<p>While the subject of biographies is considered to be of the greatest importance (almost all bookstores arrange the biography section by subject rather than by the biographer’s surname) it is easy to overlook how biographers portray or market their subjects for better or for worse. </p>
<p>In the seventeenth century, artist biographers <a href="http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/baglioneg.htm">Giovanni Baglione</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gian_Pietro_Bellori">Gian Pietro Bellori</a> used biography to trash <a href="http://caravaggio.com/preview/home.php?r=0">Caravaggio</a>, which resulted in a devaluing of his art for more than two centuries. </p>
<p>More people read James Boswell’s <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1564">Life of Johnson</a> than any of Dr Johnson’s many and varied works. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.blakearchive.org/blake/">William Blake</a> was singlehandedly resurrected by an 1863 biography by Alexander Gilchrist titled <a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/Life_of_William_Blake_Pictor_ignotus.html?id=JDgpAAAAYAAJ">The Life of William Blake, “Pictor Ignotus”</a> [Unknown Artist]. </p>
<p>Biography has the power to re-create, sustain, redeem or resurrect its subjects. </p>
<p>While memoir abounds with minor lives, biography remains an elitist genre. For more than 2,000 years it has been dedicated to the successful, the powerful and the famous. </p>
<p>Herein lies the power and possible abuse of biography. </p>
<p>Jobs’ intended gain from choosing Isaacson to record his life story was not financial but for posterity, which is perhaps his final keynote of all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/4036/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Vuillermin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Steve Jobs’ “official” biography was always going to be a bestseller, with its promise of a candid examination of the inner workings of the world’s most successful salesman and the company he twice built…Daniel Vuillermin, Research Associate, Research School of Humanities and the Arts, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/37372011-10-06T19:49:10Z2011-10-06T19:49:10ZHow Steve taught us to love our Jobs too much<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/4182/original/jobsmagic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died on Thursday, played a major role in romanticising middle-class occupations.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a <a href="http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html">commencement address</a> delivered at Stanford University in 2005, a speech that many are reading again this week, Steve Jobs told assembled graduates he was lucky to have found what he loved to do early in life. </p>
<p>Sharing the tips that led to his phenomenal rise out of the garage and into major market success on the back of the Apple brand, his talk had a clear message:</p>
<p>“… the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”</p>
<p>Even as Jobs went on to describe the challenge of being sidelined by the company he founded at age 30, the language of love captured his sensibility: “I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.” </p>
<p>Jobs’s Stanford speech, one of scores he would deliver during his remarkable career, remains characteristic of his energy and enthusiasm. The belief that kept him going during his period in the wilderness “was that I loved what I did”.</p>
<p>With the passing of Jobs this week, we are also mourning a man who defined a new kind of worker. </p>
<p>The Jobs world-view consecrates the sacrifices of an ambitious, dedicated, and committed professional class that seeks recognition and passion in creative work. </p>
<p>The language of love and intimacy is central to this career project. </p>
<p>Over the past two decades, IT hardware manufacturers have made fortunes selling products through an association with the fantasy of satisfying, challenging work. </p>
<p>By 2010, BlackBerry’s ad campaign took Jobs’s lessons literally with the slogan, “Love what you do”. Creative workers featured in the campaign were seen conquering their dreams with the assistance of mobile technology. </p>
<p>Yet this fantasy is – in the classic sense of love – a romantic vision of the contemporary workplace.</p>
<p><figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/4186/original/jobsphone.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/4186/original/jobsphone.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/4186/original/jobsphone.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/4186/original/jobsphone.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/4186/original/jobsphone.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/4186/original/jobsphone.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/4186/original/jobsphone.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Smartphones have blurred the line between our personal and working lives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure> </p>
<p>It neatly avoids acknowledgment of the large majority in a global knowledge economy for whom the prospect of fulfilling work remains, in the words of philosopher Andre Gorz, “a bad joke”. </p>
<p>When iPads and smartphones function as the signifiers of what it means to live the good life, freedom no longer entails liberation from labour. </p>
<p>It is instead to be found in the release of personal productivity, in an ever-growing number of locations, with technology as conduit. </p>
<p>As images of mobile devices continue to invade public spaces and airwaves, their middle-class address should not go unnoticed. </p>
<p>As author <a href="http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/">Barbara Ehrenreich</a> warns, “the cultural ubiquity of the professional middle class” poses a challenge for critical analysis.</p>
<p>“Nameless, and camouflaged by a culture in which it both stars and writes the scripts,” she writes, the middle class sets the terms for mainstream culture, and appraisals of taste and merit. </p>
<p>In our efforts to understand today’s global knowledge economy, however, we must recognise that the expectations and desires that glamorous technologies harbour are far from equally distributed. </p>
<p>Professionals enjoying the benefits of IT design and innovation benefit from an already substantial digital divide in a world that increasingly pivots on the distinction between what theorist Jack Qiu describes as information “haves” and “have-less.” </p>
<p>The choice to pursue long hours of volunteer labour in rewarding and enjoyable jobs stands in stark contrast to the forms of coercion and surveillance suffered by many of the world’s poorest workers. </p>
<p>These include the legions of employees whose job it is to assemble the devices that deliver flexibility to the wealthy workers of the West. </p>
<p>Worker suicides, self-harm and industrial unrest in the factories of Taiwan and southern China indicate the growing dissatisfaction among second- and third-generation migrant workers in high-tech assembly plants, including those for Apple products. </p>
<p>In this context, labour politics can be effectively understood by drawing on Jobs’s analogy, as the conflicting constraints, freedoms, and opportunities of the “lovers” as opposed to the “love-less”. </p>
<p>Classic definitions of love see the beloved as the only important thing in life, compared to which “everything else seems trivial.” </p>
<p>Melbourne-based philosopher <a href="http://theconversation.com/profiles/john-armstrong-730">John Armstrong</a>’s book, Conditions of Love: The Philosophy of Intimacy, notes the combination of longing and rapture that accompanies “the romantic vision”, which leads to “the sense that one is in touch with the source of all value”. </p>
<p>It is this language that best describes the current flood of tributes to Jobs’s work ethic, as head of a company that transformed the work and home lives of millions of consumers.</p>
<p>But let us hope that it serves as a reminder of the labours of thousands of workers who build the devices so deified by our culture and who continue to remain nameless.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/3737/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melissa Gregg received funding from the Australian Research Council for her Discovery Project 2007-9, Working From Home: New media technology, workplace culture and the changing nature of domesticity. Part of this article is an edited extract from her recent book, Work's Intimacy, published by Polity.</span></em></p>In a commencement address delivered at Stanford University in 2005, a speech that many are reading again this week, Steve Jobs told assembled graduates he was lucky to have found what he loved to do early…Melissa Gregg, Senior Lecturer, Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/37352011-10-06T03:48:29Z2011-10-06T03:48:29ZSteve Jobs transformed our lives: now he’s dead this changes everything<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/4177/original/aapone-20111006000348788952-us-it-internet-telecom-apple-jobs-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jobs's influence on the "iGeneration" has been profound.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kimiro Hoshino/AFP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>More than one commentator has noted the poignant irony of learning today of the death of Steve Jobs on a product the founder and former CEO of Apple created. </p>
<p>Millions of people around the world, writing and reading news stories, blog posts, tweets and Facebook updates will do so using an iPhone, iPod or MacBook. </p>
<p>Even if they’re not using an Apple product, they will be arguably using one that was heavily “influenced” by Apple and, ultimately, by Steve Jobs.</p>
<p>In his 2005 address to commencing students at Stanford University (see below), Jobs talked about a passion for design that started with a passion for calligraphy and typographical fonts. </p>
<p>This passion for design, more than anything about Steve Jobs, permeated everything else he did.</p>
<p>But there is more to the products that Apple has created than simple and beautiful design. They have arguably redefined how people interact with technology to the extent that the phone, mp3 player and computer have become extensions of who most of us are and how we interact with the world around us. </p>
<p>It’s not that Apple necessarily invented these technologies, but it recreated them in a way that made them a pleasure to use, and this consequently made them universal in their reach.</p>
<p>It’s always interesting to consider the influence of a single person on a company. How much of what Apple has done really came down to Steve Jobs and how will his death now impact Apple? </p>
<p>It’s clear the psychological impact of <a href="http://www.apple.com/stevejobs/">today’s announcement</a> on Apple and its employees will be great. While he had already handed over control of the company to <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/24/apples-coo-tim-cook-replaces-steve-jobs-as-ceo/">Tim Cook, the current CEO</a>, Apple employees would have still held on to the expectation Jobs would have exerted some influence through his position on Apple’s Board. </p>
<p>They are now truly on their own. </p>
<p>In the many types of CEO, there are those that truly lead and become the embodiment of the ideas and vision of a company. </p>
<p>Jobs played a hands-on role in decisions that shaped Apple’s products and the way they worked. </p>
<p>This was reflected in his almost pathological <a href="http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/A_History_of_Steve_Jobs_War_on_Buttons/">dislike for buttons</a>. The irony of this is that the buttons Apple did create, including the power button of their computers, are now one of the most popular items of jewellery sold by <a href="https://www.adafruit.com/products/440">Adafruit Industries</a>.</p>
<figure><div style="text-align:center;">
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UF8uR6Z6KLc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
</div></figure>
<p>Not everything Steve Jobs did was successful. But even here, the early attempts of products and ideas were often the foundation of things that did eventually succeed. </p>
<p>After Jobs’s departure from Apple in 1985, he went on to found <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT_Computer">NeXT Computer</a> in 1988. At the time, the interface of the first NeXT computer was visually beautiful but this came at the cost of performance. The slowness of the computer contributed to its lack of success. </p>
<p>At the time, the choice of the computer language it was written in (Objective-C) was also an unpopular choice. But the NeXTSTEP operating system was sold back to Apple and brought Steve Jobs back into the company to become CEO once more in 1996. </p>
<p>NeXTSTEP went on to become the Mac OSX operating system and Objective-C is now one of the world’s most <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/objective-c-c-d-language-winners-in-programming-popularity-172587">popular programming languages</a>.</p>
<p>Of course, it was not only in computing that Steve Jobs succeeded. The animation film company Pixar <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs">he bought in 1986</a> brought computer animation to an entirely new level with <a href="http://www.pixar.com/featurefilms/ts/">Toy Story</a>. </p>
<p>It was a lack of success in Pixar’s original ambitions of seeling a graphics computer (the (Pixar Image Computer)[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixar_Image_Computer]) that led to a change in tactics to producing film.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/4176/original/aapone-20111006000348798282-china_apple_steve_jobs-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/4176/original/aapone-20111006000348798282-china_apple_steve_jobs-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/4176/original/aapone-20111006000348798282-china_apple_steve_jobs-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/4176/original/aapone-20111006000348798282-china_apple_steve_jobs-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/4176/original/aapone-20111006000348798282-china_apple_steve_jobs-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/4176/original/aapone-20111006000348798282-china_apple_steve_jobs-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/4176/original/aapone-20111006000348798282-china_apple_steve_jobs-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Adrian Bradshaw/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A curious anomaly with Jobs was his attitude to philanthropy. On his return to Apple in 1997, he <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/02/news/companies/elkind_jobs.fortune/index4.htm">terminated</a> all of Apple’s corporate philanthropy programs. </p>
<p>Unlike Microsoft’s Bill Gates, who has decided to give away most of his fortune through the <a href="http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Pages/home.aspx">Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation</a>, Jobs – and Apple – shied away from any involvement in public causes. This is coupled with Apple’s ongoing controversial use of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn">factories in China</a> with poor employee health and safety records. </p>
<p>In 2000, Jobs <a href="http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/01/05/macworld.keynote/index.html">famously announced</a> he had become Apple’s “iCEO” – a move from his interim position to being the official CEO. </p>
<p>The letter “i” in product names is now synonymous with Apple and has even been used to designate the “iGeneration” – those of us who have had the good fortune to live through these radically changing times. Many of these changes, of course, have been heavily influenced by Jobs.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-114/Connecting-the-Dots-Steve-Jobs.html">Jobs’s words</a>: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. </p>
<p>"So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”</p>
<p>And in ours.
<br>
<strong>Related article: <a href="http://theconversation.com/rip-steve-jobs-the-ceo-we-felt-we-knew-3733">RiP Steve Jobs – the CEO we felt we knew</a></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/3735/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Glance does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>More than one commentator has noted the poignant irony of learning today of the death of Steve Jobs on a product the founder and former CEO of Apple created. Millions of people around the world, writing…David Glance, Director, Centre for Software Practice, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.