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Behind a Steve Jobs Keynote

Posted by Zonk on from the go-talk-to-a-few-million-people-you'll-get-the-hang-of-it dept.

Shree writes "The Guardian has an article about what it takes to prepare that smooth Steve Jobs-style keynote. When Steve launches iPhoto and says 'here we have 5000 or so photos', he actually means here we have 5000 or so carefully picked photos ... " From the article: "Objectively, Apple Computer is a mid-sized company with a tiny share of its primary market. Apple Macintoshes are only rarely seen in corporate environments, and most software companies don't even offer Apple-compatible versions of their products. To put it another way, Apple is just bit larger than Cadbury-Schweppes and about the same size as Nike or Marks and Spencer in terms of annual sales. Such comparisons come up short in trying to describe Apple's place in the world of business, because they leave out a key factor: Steve Jobs."

5 of 424 comments (clear)

  1. Comparison with Nike and M&S is specious by Snamh+Da+Ean · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It is a strange comparison because, even though revenue may be in the same ballpark figure as these other companies, they are not growing as quickly as Apple has done since it launched the iPod, and while Apple may be medium sized now, it is steadily getting larger. It is also well known to anyone aged 16-30 - how many American readers know what product M&S sells, or what its famous for.

    I also don't understand why he appears to suggest that announcements made by the CEOs of other companies are scrutinised by brokers and other analysts. It was interesting to see all the work that goes into Jobs' presentations, but I think the author of the article was over-egging the importance of these presentations by attempting to diminish the size of Apple's importance and comparing the impact of the announcements to those made by other similarly sized companies. A bit dishonest I feel

  2. Showmanship and Attention to Detail by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 5, Interesting
    None of this scrupulous preparation should be a surprise, coming from Jobs. He's always had a flair for the dramatic, and he knows how to achieve it. Contrast it with the disastrous keynote given by Gil Amelio:

    There were bad omens from the beginning. Instead of having a speech laid out word for word, Amelio would speak from a detailed outline. According to Amelio, his writer (whose identity has yet to be revealed) was behind schedule and making excuses. Revisions continued to be made up until show time.

    To make matters worse, the TelePrompTer malfunctioned, garbling most of the text that had been loaded on it.

    The other presenters did not fare so well either. Nobody had told them where they would enter the stage or how to stand so the cameras could pick them up.

    Because of the malfunctioning TelePrompTer, Amelio had to ad lib the order of appearances and ended up inadvertently snubbing Muhammad Ali. What was scheduled to last for 1-1/2 hours droned on to 3 full hours, ruining the finale of Steve Wozniak appearing with Steve Jobs.

    Macworld San Francisco was a disaster, and Amelio was in the middle of it. The press had a field day with his poor performance, spawning a new term in Apple parlance, a droneathon. Amelio was embarrassed by his performance and took the blame for it. Only later was it revealed that he was largely a victim of the mistakes of others.


    Source: 500 Days at the Helm: The Rise and Fall of Gil Amelio by Tom Hormby
    --
    It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
  3. I know why he's famous.... by wandazulu · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...because if there is anyone in the industry who could be described as an oracle to what the future holds, he's it. But more than just predicting it, he directs the company to make it. The NeXT machine heralded the future back in 1988....Unix-based, security-focused OS with a great GUI and awesome development tools. Did he actually write any of it? No, but unlike another operating system (*cough* Linux) that has awesome tech but remains a bit ... unfocused ... and an operating system that seems focused on the wrong things (*cough* Windows) Steve Jobs had/has a clear vision of what he wanted, and where things should go. And frankly, whether you like him as a person or not, he seems to have been pretty much correct.

    Consider this example: The original iMac had no floppy drive and used USB ports instead of ADB. People *howled*, but time has proven him right...the iMac did more to jumpstart widespread adoption of USB than anything else (I had two PCs that had USB ports that went to the junkyard without ever having been used). On top of everything else, I'm sure companies did a good business for awhile selling ADB-to-USB converters and USB-based floppy drives.

    Jobs is the only guy who has the cajones to risk alienating everyone to push the tech world further, and the world always catches up. *That* is why he is deservedly famous.

    BTW, contrast this to Wozniak who is also decidely famous, but as the wizard who made it all work. It's too bad the two of them didn't collaborate on more things...maybe those warp drives wouldn't be so far off after all...

  4. Re:Not surprising. That's what Jobs does. by Peter+Cooper · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Who modded the parent post up? It's totally devoid of fact.

    Steve Jobs initially became famous over twenty years ago for leading the company who developed the, then, most successful microcomputer of its generation, the Apple II. He then pushed his boundaries of fame with the whole Macintosh / 1984 commercial thing and became seen as a visionary and leader of the industry. This was no accident or coincidence.

    He then bankrolled and managed (in the business sense, rather than creatively) Pixar for many years, eventually engineering a clever IPO and became a centimillionaire in the process (and now a billionaire).

    To compare Steve Jobs to Paris Hilton is ridiculous. Jobs has put in a lot of hard work, a lot of money, and run himself ragged on his route to success.. he was no overnight sensation.

  5. Welcome to the Corporate Meeting industry by cirby · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I do this sort of stuff for a living, and while most of the shows I do are more on the "hey gang, let's do a meeting" level, when someone's spending a couple of million bucks to fly in a few thousand folks, put them in hotels, and cram them into one ballroom, there's a very high level of expectation.

    Sure, a lot of companies have Really Dull Meetings, but some others are much like the "Jobs Model." Slick, professionally-produced presentations, lots of cool videos and music, light shows, several HDTV-level projection screens, 100 kilowatt sound systems, and expensive pro talent to help entertain the crowd between product demos.

    You also get stuff like Larry Ellison rappelling down from the ceiling of the ballroom, the head of a soft drink company crashing a golf cart through a frangible projection screen, rotating platforms for the audience (to turn them to different stages) for another soft drink company, or any of a hundred different Big Show stories.

    You also get the Big Disasters when they don't prepare right. Like the above-mentioned rotating platforms not turning when the weight of the crowd is actually on them, or a full-sized luxury car on a raft in a lake doing a quick 180 degree roll and ending up suspended under water...