| The 2007 Jobs Macworld Keynote: Lessons in Change Management | | Date Created: 20 Jan, 2007, 07:54 PM |
 Twelve days later, and I finally feel I can peek out from under the covers and see how things are doing in the land of Apple.
If there's one thing I noticed after the Expo Keynote last week, it's the huge number of blogs and online magazines I never knew existed, all with something to say.
Right now, most are engaging in revisionist theory, finding all manner of ways to describe the prototype iPhone as a loser. I'll write more about this new device some other time, perhaps closer to its US release date (although I am curious how it was used to make a phone call on the cellular network to Starbucks before it was licensed to do so. Is there some limited access allowed developers before final FCC approval? And if so wouldn't Apple have needed to inform the FCC of its iPhone's experimental status, and how would that have been kept a secret? Most curious).
Anyway, in between mulling over the iPhone's impact and contemplating blogging the new Keynote 4 features (of which there were a few I hadn't described in a previous blog entry), something else struck me that I've not seen explicitly described so far. And that is the Keynote itself.
Sure we had lots of comments comparing Jobs' masterful presentation skills with the usual punching bags like Bill Gates, but that's really an old story now. I'm more interested in the process of the Keynote, rather than its explicit content.
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I think it reasonable to say this was a Keynote like no other. It broke so many tacit rules Mac followers and the tech industry carry around in their heads that this is worth commenting on alone.
This was a Keynote about Change Management.
About how Apple does not stand still waiting for others to show the way, but how it takes bleeding edge technologies (e.g. multitouch) and brings them to the market place so the average user can access them for improved productivity and enjoyment.
This was a lesson on how to manage change that any MBA school could adopt as a case study. |
Do you remember how Jobs commenced his Keynote? In presentations past, we have become used to retail updates getting the show on the road, whether it be how many iPods were sold the last quarter, how many iTunes songs or movies were downloaded, or how many new Apple stores were opened.
We got there eventually (although it was a little too early to crow about sales at the Keynote while final figures were still being tallied. We now know what they were, don't we?)
No, Jobs started with one of the biggest changes he has overseen at Apple: the transition to Intel CPUs in all Apple hardware. |
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In fact the first hint of acknowledgement of change occurred before Jobs even walked out on stage. If you go to the Keynote stream in Quicktime, listen for the intro. music as the usual broadcast copyright template is shown. It's James Brown's "Feel Good" , acknowledging the singer's passing the week before. As if to say, change is inevitable.
And because we've seen it so many times before, it's easy to overlook one small phrase the template contains: |
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So before Jobs is even on stage, if we look and listen close enough, the concept of change is brought before us.
How long after he takes the stage is the next hint that the Keynote is about change offered us? One minute into the Quicktime stream, Jobs mentions the switch to Intel, and describes how the change went: "It was the smoothest transition....", and discussed how Rosetta helped with PowerPC applications, and the rollout of a new Intel Macs on a monthly basis since 2006's Keynote. So much so that the transition occurred within seven months.
At 4 minutes into the Keynote, having shown us another Mac vs PC ad., Jobs says that's all he's going to talk about the Mac, and Apple will be rolling out more products late in the year. That's it. We're moving on.
What's interesting is the lack of audible recognition from the audience when four minutes into what has been publicised to be a two hour Keynote, Jobs says they'll be no more mention of the Mac.
He's telling the audience: "Things are going to be different this keynote. Are you ready for a change?"
Of course in the weeks leading up to this Keynote, we'd all been expecting certainties to take place, just like thay have in the past: Upgrades to iLife and iWork, and something new in the Macsphere. But Jobs was having none of it. |
 Update: I'm inserting a new section here, not so much because it's an after thought, but I had overlooked its inclusion in the first place, being a little under the weather when I wrote, but not conceived this entry.
I've looked at the Quicktime stream a few times now. The first time I watched it, the same day as the keynote, I did so without any forewarning of what had been said hours before Apple posted the stream. For me, it was as if I had watched it live. Fortunately, I must have watched it before news of its availability was out because it streamed flawlessly.
What I remember most were two actions and expressions by Jobs. One, which came second in temporal order, was his asking the audience, "Do you get it" as he twirled the three icons - iPod, phone, communicator - for the third time, waiting for the penny to drop for the audience, whom he's misled initially by stating Apple was releasing three breakthrough products: "Do you get that we've combined the three into one revolutionary product?" |
The first is the one I want to look at more closely. It comes as Jobs makes the segue between the AppleTV and the iPhone. Leaving the AppleTV slide on the screen, he slowly walks over to his desk, takes a sip of water, and then in measured steps, comes back to stage centre. There, he methodically advances the next slide, revealing the 2001: A Space Odyssey-styled Apple logo, lit from behind. The same logo we saw on the Apple homepage the week before the keynote. (You can watch it at 26m into the stream)
The he pauses... and pauses....
And the body language and silence conveys to us he's about to drop something important. Something that links the past thirty years of Apple's development to the next thirty years.
Now you might be excused for thinking that's Jobs milking the audience - the RDF in action again. Or perhaps even he is profoundly aware of the changes he is about to unleash into people's lives. It's one thing to release a new Mac, another to release a new iPod, but here we're talking about Apple entering a domain where few people - even those in impoverished countries - will not be affected by what he is about to release. Forgot the fact they will not be able to afford it on its release in June 2007 or sometime in 2008. In some year soon, the technology Apple is releasing the day of the keynote is something that will affect billions of people in the years to come.
That sort of impact would cause most people to pause.
But there is a third possibility for the long pause and momentary introspection. Jobs eventually says he's been waiting two and a half years for this day, the day of the iPhone release. That's when Apple and Cingular, as we learnt, began working together on the iPhone.
About the same time, he was diagnosed with his rare form of pancreatic cancer for which he underwent surgery in August, 2004. Meaning, he had envisioned entering the cellphone marketplace before that, yet had been told by his physicians that his cancer was likely fatal and he should get his affairs in order.
His vision of an iPhone-enabled world might never see the light of day. And so, after surviving and recovering, he continues to work and we see the fruits of his labour, vision and resilience. I'm guessing a number of these ideas were passing through his mind as he paused, knowing what he was about to announce. |
What we learnt later, when the iPhone was introduced, was that Jobs saw it as the next logical progression in the changes to the technology landscape Apple has brought.
Notice how it's introduced:
"Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything".
And Jobs reminds us of Apple's place in changing things. With how the original 1984 Macintosh changed the way we engaged with personal computing; then onto how the iPod changed the music business. Both of these products were dissed on their introductions: too specialised, too expensive, aesthetics unnecessary, not serious technology. |
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Notice too that in the days after the iPhone's release, it's now copping the same criticisms.
And then, to inform us how the iPhone is not just another smartphone, Jobs tells us about the changes to the input methods Apple has pioneered: the mouse, the scroll wheel, and now the touchscreen with its built-in "inertia". |
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And as the keynote rolls along, and the iPhone demo rolls into its second hour, we are left to wonder what the traditional "one more thing" will be.
I blogged weeks ago that I wanted to see the Beatles iPod released, and we certainly had lots of misdirection from Jobs that it could occur. We heard and saw Beatles album cover and music, and it just fitted, didn't it, that the Beatles iPod would conclude the keynote. But Jobs stuck to his script.
And that script was to say Jobs revels in change. From OS9 to OSX, PowerPC to Intel, and now from being seen as a computer company to a consumer entertainment company, as the name change to Apple Inc. is announced. Perhaps that gives even more of an indication that a deal has been done with Apple Corps in the UK.
Mind you, if you locate the original iPod release video of October, 2001, you'll note that Jobs actually demoed the 5GB iPod using a Beatles track, "I should have known better". And on the screen behind him during this special presentation are Abbey Road and A Hard Days Night album covers. |
In the end, we didn't get the traditional one more thing, and in the days that followed, there was much commentary about the lack of news about Leopard, or new Macs, or new software.
No, this Keynote was about change, and how important it is for Apple to make its own rules. With new products like the iPhone which is still to be properly labelled because it doesn't fit the mold. Yes, other phones can do some of what the iPhone can do, but all those who witnessed the Keynote knew when all was said and done, that when Jobs said "we're making history today" he was right.
Those who saw beyond the physical product with its limitations could sense that the technologies it incorporated meant there was no turning back. The gauntlet was being thrown down at the incumbents like Nokia, and LG and Sony-Ericsson.
Jobs was revelling in his capacity to manage and institute change. Not just because of the products he released (and isn't that an incredible change that the one product that did ship that day was an unannounced product, the revamped Airport Express), but because in totally focussing on Apple as a consumer-oriented company, he was throwing it back at all those who continue to write off Apple as a 2% market share company.
By focussing on music and video, Apple is now the 60+% market share company. And while he is only going after 1% of the total cellphone market worldwide, I doubt once Apple gets there in 2008, people will use that 1% as evidence of Apple's poor showing in the marketplace.
Nope, a 1% share will be acknowledged as huge in the phone context. When iPhone variations are released that 1% will move upwards, and calling Apple the 2% market share company will take on new meaning.
Especially when the financial results are evaluated at the beginning of 2009, after a full year of iPhone sales.
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So as much as some might bleat that this really wasn't a Macworld but more an Apple Expo, or that the iPhone doesn't match the capacities of the 3G smartphones, this Keynote was all about Apple changing, and what changes Apple is bringing to the marketplace.
That marketplace is the consumer marketplace, not the enterprise. Here is where the iPhone will prove to be a lust-object, and I'm betting the under-25s are already saving for its purchase. This is the age cohort that has grown up with the iPod, who spend hundreds of dollars a month making phone calls or spending hours on Instant Messenger apps. This is the primary group who will be that 1% Jobs is after.
Enterprise users of Blackberries and similar need not worry. Your email and Office attachments are safe as you pursue your warped work/life ratio. One small example of this: As I was leaving an outdoor cafe with pet Shrek the other day (pre-Keynote), two 25yo male and female each had their own Blackberries out on the table. So I threw a comment at them:
"You guys must really like your gadgets, or your company has issued you with these devices."
They nodded and said they were company-issued, but were so downbeat about it, they quickly conveyed how irritated they were to be permanently tethered to their mothership.
Makes you wonder how they will feel when they see their friends sporting iPhones in a year's time. |
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