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FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Apple angel investor and second CEO of Apple Computer Inc, Mike Markkula, credited for providing critical early funding and managerial support to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak when they were looking for funding to manufacture the Apple II personal computer, served as a mentor to Jobs during the early days of Apple. Mike always championed three principles, the first two were empathy and focus and the third was impute. Not a word one would expect but it soon became one of Jobs' key doctrines.
Jobs was well aware that people usually formed an opinion about a product or company on the basis of how it is packaged and presented. Mike taught him that people do indeed judge a book by its cover.
Packaging can be theatre; it can create a story.
- Steve Jobs
In 1984, while getting ready to ship the Macintosh, Jobs relentlessly obsessed over the colours and design of the box. So was the case when it came to the packaging of the iPod and iPhone. Jobs personally spent time designing and redesigning the jewel like boxes and deservedly listed himself on the patents for them. He and Ive, believed that unpacking was a ritual, like theatre, and heralded the glory of the product. “When you open the the box of an iPhone or iPad, we want that
tactile experience to set the tone for how you perceive the product,” Jobs said.
Imputing desired qualities is what they did. During the design process for the iMac. Jobs was shown a design with a nestled handle in the top of the computer. Not that the handle was actually that useful as it was a desktop computer, people were hardly going to be walking around carrying it. But what the handle did was make the computer appear more friendly and differential. The handle signalled approval that it was ok to touch the device. Although the manufacturing team was against the extra cost of inclusion of the handle, without an explanation, Jobs simply announced, “No we're doing this.”
Contributed by Oye Jolaoso Source: Harvard Business Review
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