Apple

Yes­ter­day Apple ignited a firestorm of debate on the sub­ject of dig­i­tal books, and the future of the pub­lish­ing indus­try, book dis­tri­b­u­tion, and likely con­sumer con­sump­tion pat­terns. They announced their goal of fol­low­ing through on Steve Jobs’ man­date to trans­form text­book pub­lish­ing. I believe that what they’re doing is spark­ing the emer­gence of a whole new medium, one that takes aim at text­books first. Here’s why…

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Peo­ple buy­ing hol­i­day gifts from the Apple Store can be con­fi­dent those gifts will reflect Steve Jobs’ unique approach. But what about next year? What impact will Steve’s legacy have on future prod­ucts and services?

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Revised on November 29, 2011

Pre­orders for Apple’s new iPhone 4S sur­passed a mil­lion units in the first 24 hours, more than 40% higher than Apple’s pre­vi­ous single-day record. This early buy­ing frenzy stands in stark con­trast to ana­lysts’ luke­warm response to the intro­duc­tion of Apple’s lat­est iPhone model. Mean­while online Apple fan clubs and LinkedIn net­works of for­mer Apple employees […]

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Remembering Steve

October 6, 2011

Like most for­mer Apple employ­ees I’ve been mourn­ing the pass­ing of Steve Jobs, and reflect­ing on his last­ing impact. The many and pro­found ways in which he shaped employ­ees’ val­ues, behav­iors, crit­i­cal think­ing skills, and approach to inno­va­tion. His impact on the world, inspir­ing prod­ucts and ser­vices that would be embraced (and widely imi­tated) for […]

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Revised on October 7, 2011

Image via Wikipedia   Apple is the mas­ter at craft­ing the buyer expe­ri­ence: whip­ping con­sumers into a frenzy of antic­i­pa­tion and then, delight­ing the new owner with all that hap­pens start­ing with the out-of-box expe­ri­ence. The recent iPad 2 launch appears to be fol­low­ing the usual Apple play­book:  months of prod­uct spec­u­la­tion in the techno-geek […]

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I love brands that place an endur­ing value on cus­tomer delight, espe­cially when they aim to do so across all touch points, and invest accord­ingly. The con­trast between brands that aim for cus­tomer delight ver­sus those that are, at best, trans­ac­tional can be really stark. Two con­trast­ing cus­tomer care expe­ri­ences illus­trate my point (B2C exam­ples). Here’s how a busi­ness strate­gist assesses these dif­fer­ing approaches.

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Revised on March 27, 2011

When you’re com­pet­ing for atten­tion, pro­duc­tion qual­ity mat­ters; it can help your con­tent stand out in an over-crowded media envi­ron­ment. Of course, you can’t for­get the basics: your story must be inter­est­ing and well crafted; your mes­sage should have intrin­sic appeal for its intended audi­ence. With­out that, why “put lip­stick on a pig?” Although the notion […]

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Like other Mac users eagerly await­ing 4G LTE ser­vice in the US, I was angry to learn that Verizon’s ini­tial 4G modems will sup­port Win­dows only. There’s no offi­cial word when the ser­vice will be extended to Mac and iPad users… Ini­tial Reac­tions from a Long-time Mac User How could that be pos­si­ble, I fumed: Mac and […]

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Revised on January 13, 2011

As a girl, I shiv­ered one night in the base­ment where our TV had been ban­ished, and thrilled to the Bea­t­les’ Amer­i­can debut. Not all my shiv­ers were from the cold of that unheated room… I’d fallen in love. A land­mark event in 20th cen­tury music, the 1964 Ed Sul­li­van Show ignited the out­break of Beatlemania […]

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Clients often ask me, as a for­mer Apple employee, for insights into Apple’s amaz­ing suc­cess. I’ve pro­vided some answers in prior blog posts — but Apple’s strate­gies are hard to emu­late, because the secret sauce is in the com­bi­na­tion of ingre­di­ents. Hav­ing said that, there’s a lot busi­nesses can learn from their approach. So here’s […]

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