Apple founder Steve Jobs helped create an entire culture around the products his company produces. What would it be like if leaders created a culture around the manner in which he lead his companies.
The Cinnamon Girl once told me that the average American family owned something like $2000 worth of Apple products and, before I could even begin to debate her – never a good idea, debating The Cinnamon Girl – my mind began to catalog the devices in our home and in our hands: computers, iPhones, iPads, Apple TV, etc. The numbers added up very quickly.
Too quickly.
Apple makes quality products. There is no doubt of that. Apple delivers quality service. The is, likewise, little debate here. It seems to me that Apple is the only company that could make me even consider spending money on a watch (4.24.15 is coming, right?).
All that said, I do not consider myself a part of “The Apple Culture.” Perhaps this is a delusion, but I maintain it vigorously. Apple Stores drive me crazy. I bristle at Apple’s media saturation. I resist the pull of eating the fruit of the garden.
Obviously, I am not always successful in that resistance.
But I recognize there is something different and special about the company. That quality seems to come, at least in part, from the late Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder.
Image from Time Magazine – John Sullivan, Getty Images.
There’s nothing insightful in stating that. Jobs was an outside-the-box, premise challenging, pain-in-the-ass type thinker who seemed both uncomfortable in any status quo situation and unable to sit quietly within one. He did things differently and it’s no surprise that Apple and, later, Pixar – another company Jobs had a hand in founding, would adopt his way of proceeding.
Time Magazine published a piece this week on how Jobs ran meetings and it’s worth a read for anyone – any leader – who has ever had to convene a gathering and chair it. You can read the whole article (which includes video of a young Jobs) HERE but the highlights are:
Show Your Passion
Focus on Creating value
Challenge Your Team
Keep Everyone on Course
Define the Right Priorities
Know When to Interrupt
Learn from the Past but Don’t Let It Own You
Focus on the Positive
Sounds just like every meeting you’ve ever been in, right? Worse yet, it sounds just like every meeting you’ve ever run, correct?
As leaders, we could all learn a thing or two from Jobs. Our constituents might appreciate it if we did.
Time Magazine has published a pretty solid essay on the 20 most commonly misused words which are poorly applied in work settings.
Think you know how to correctly use anticipate, arbitrate, behalf, bottleneck, can, collusion, defective, germane, invariably, irregardless, libel, literally, majority, new, obsolete, percent, successfully, total and waiver?
So did I… and I was misusing a few. You can read this great essay HERE.
There are big things going on in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. Very. Big. Things.
We know they are big things because the director is Christopher Nolan and, even when he’s making movies about Batman, they are really about Big. Things.
We also know that Interstellar is a Big Movie by a Big Director because it’s referred to as “Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar.”
One much wonder, then, if the movie deserves the hype and the Time Magazine cover story and the, mainly, positive reviews. Does Interstellar earn all of these things? Simply put. Yes.
Interstellar is an audacious movie. It’s a spectacle in the biggest, brightest and best sense of the word. While I loved last year’s Gravity (you can read my review HERE), Interstellar has something that film, upon reflection, lacked, which is to say it is full of heart. Interstellar has many messages and interlocking themes – remember it’s about Very. Big. Things. but, at the center of those messages and themes is heart. If that concept doesn’t resonate for you, if you don’t enjoy films that suggest that love is a powerful force in the universe – perhaps the most powerful – then Interstellar might not be for you.
As I mentioned after seeing the movie (in a piece you can read HERE), Interstellar is very “science-y.” This is a good thing. I am not going to pretend for a second that I understand the theoretical science at work here (though I have read that what is on the screen – all of it – has basis in science fact), but I will say that it all feels very real, like these things could happen. To me, that’s good science fiction or, at least, good speculative fiction.
I actually understand relativity better now, after watching Interstellar, than I ever have before. The manner in which the movie handles relativity is very cool and very high stakes and made me care about science more than I have since I was being graded in the class in college. This is clearly one of Nolan’s goals with Interstellar. He wants people to care about science and, more specifically, to care, again, about space travel. Interstellar can be read as an ode to space flight. Quite an ode it is.
Matthew McConaughey, continuing his string of really great performances, stars as Cooper, once a pilot who has had to trade his dreams of flight for the dry dust of a barely functioning farm. McConaughey is terrific in the role of a father torn between parental duty and, potentially, saving the world. That his character arc speaks entirely about destiny is a concept we’ll come back to in a minute.
Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain are on hand as well. Hathaway is very good as Brand, a scientist/astronaut who works with Cooper. That she may be influenced by forces other than those strictly scientific plays into the overall theme of the movie and Hathaway makes the audience care about her struggles. Chastain is wonderful in her role as well. I won’t say much more about who she plays (though I believe her role can be divined by even a cursory viewing of the trailers for the film), but I will say that her performance is key to the movie and her character’s story is most affecting. I do like, very much, that two of the leads in the movie are strong, smart women whose intelligence outstrips the men with whom they interact. That’s nice to see.
What’s most remarkable to me about Interstellar (and there are a great many things in the movie on which to remark) is that, at a very definite point in the film, the story moves from the science to the spirit. If that point works for you, you’ll love the movie. You may not cry as much as I did, but you’ll love it, nonetheless. If that turn doesn’t work for you, you may feel you’ve spent 3 hours of your life on a film that looks really cool but leaves you unfulfilled.
I am not sure there is a middle ground.
it is possible that Interstellarmay not always hold together plot-wise. I think it probably does, but there are simply pieces of the story that are beyond my ken. However, it’s no Inception following which I was – weeks later – thinking “what the hell was that?” No, as I said initially, Interstellar is unapologetically about Big. Things.
I wish more movies were.
INTERSTELLAR receives FIVE DOTS AND DASHES out of a possible FIVE.
P.S. After watching Interstellar, I am CERTAIN about one thing in Inception: Cobb is awake at the end of the movie. The top stops spinning…
I make no apologies for the fact that I am a lover of all kinds of media and I consider “media” a big-tent-term: books, movies, television, theater, comic books, news, I consider it all “media and I love it. All of it.
To close out the year (my first year blogging, by-the-way), I present my personal Top Ten Media Moments of the past twelve months. They are presented in 10 – 1 (1 being my Top Moment) with a few particular rules:
I had to see/experience them (sorry, Breaking Bad, I know you’re great… I just didn’t catch on – I am sure I will some day).
They didn’t have to begin this year (check my Turn off the Dark entry).
They could be from any of the categories mentioned above.
TOP TEN MEDIA MOMENTS – 2013
10. Todd Helton Retires
I’ve followed Helton’s career since he came to the Colorado Rockies and supplanted Andres Galarraga at first base. There have mainly been “ups” for the so-called “Greatest Rockie of All Time” and I was pleased to watch him go out with such class, pleased to see one of the last games of the last home stand in which he played and pleased to see the Denver Broncos give him a great ceremony at Sports Authority Field in the fall. Thanks for the memories, Todd.
Photo from The Denver Post
9. These Are the Voyages
Marc Cushman’s tell-all about the first season of Star Trek was so engrossing, I didn’t want to put it down and I didn’t want it to end. I am something of a Star Trek expert in-my-own-right (something of which I am actually proud) and thought I knew just about everything about the original series. Boy, was I wrong. Marc Cushman wrote an amazing book. I eagerly await the next two volumes.
Photo from Amazon.com
8. Twitter Celebs
I got into Twitter this year! I really found it a lot of fun. I really sound like I am one hundred years old! I was a bit star-struck, twice, when comic book celebrities responded to my tweets. First, Scott Snyder, writer of Batman and Superman Unchained and The Wake for DC Comics commented on a tweet concerning personal comic creator power rankings compiled with my good friend The Junior Senator.We’d ranked Snyder number six, tweeted the rankings to him (and others) to which he responded “I really like the guy at six.” Goosebumps. Then, for Halloween, I tweeted the picture below to the writer and artist of Daredevil. The artist, Chris Samnee, responded “awesome!” That is just how I felt.
I shaved my goatee to be blind lawyer Matt Murdock (Daredevil’s alter ego) for this photo. TOTALLY worth it.
7. Binge Television
The Cinnamon Girlbinged on shows both old and new… Sherlock, Downton Abbey, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and, my favorite The Newsroom. We watched seven episodes of the latter all in one night!
Photo from HBO.com
6. My Comic Books Go Digital
I spent the year weaning myself from newsprint. It was harder than I imagined it would be. However, I read some great books! Batman, Hawkeye, Daredevil, The Superior Spider-Man, Justice League and Forever Evil really kept feeding my comic addiction. There’s something about pressing “Download New Titles” on a Wednesday morning that is very, very cool.
Photo from DCComics.com
5. Peyton Manning, All Things Peyton Manning
The year may have started rocky with the Denver Broncos (the less said about last January, the better) but it’s ended in brilliant fashion. Stretchsuggested it was a privilege to watch Manning play this year. He’s right. Magical and fun. Peyton Manning has been truly remarkable.
Did you see Gatorade’s tribute “51 and Counting”? Take a look:
4. Superman’s 75th Anniversary
The first and greatest hero had a remarkable year. The comic stories might have not always been terrific (though the year finished very well with the aforementioned Mr. Snyder taking on Superman Unchained) but the character had the media presence he deserved thanks to Man of Steel which was a colossal hit. The sequel Batman/Superman is on the way and I, for one, am glad to see the character who started it all so relevant this year. Spoiler alert: Batman’s 75th is 2014… I bet DC Comics has big things planned…
logo from DCComics.com
3. Pope Francis
Restoring faith. Defining mission. Bringing hope.
I am in awe.
Time Magazine’s Man of the Year
2. “My name is Khan.”
My favorite movie moment of the year came in my favorite movie of the year: Star Trek Into Darkness. Though I felt the reveal of Benedict Cumberbatch as famous Trek villain Khan Noonien Singh was coming, I wasn’t sure until he said the words… and, when he did, shivers went down many spines, mine included. I loved the film and even now, with months between my initial reaction and now, I still think it’s one of the best Star Trek films ever made. Maybe, just maybe, the best.
1. Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark/Song of Spider-Man
The Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark is closing. I’ve seen it. Twice. This summer, the family and I went to New York and saw the show on Broadway. What a fun night. It’s not a great show, though the music is mighty good – thanks U2 and Reeve Carney (the star of the show). What’s amazing (pun intended) about it is that it is spectacular (pun intended). Really spectacular. Spider-men swinging over the stage, jumping from balconies, flying through the air. I loved, loved, loved sharing this with The Cinnamon Girl, HJ jr, Stretchand Sous Chef.
Oh, and the book Song of Spider-Man by Glen Berger that The Cinnamon Girlgave me for my birthday about the writing of the show was just as terrific. I read it in two nights. what a story!
It was suggested via Twitter last night from a source no less than Jesuit celebrity James Martin that the Pope might have pulled a Henry V and gone out in disguise to meet the homeless.
Denied! Fr. Lombardi has denied the story from “Il Messagero” that the Pope dressed as a priest to meet the homeless. But maybe one day….
Though the story was later proven inaccurate, I am left with this inescapable conclusion: I believe this Pope would do it. I believe he would disguise himself to walk among the poor and the lowly.
And There Came a Day... 