Jobs remembered being impressed by his father’s focus on craftsmanship. “I thought my dad’s sense of design was pretty good,” he said, “because he knew how to build anything. If we needed a cabinet, he would build it. When he built our fence, he gave me a hammer so I could work with him.” Pg. 6

It’s interesting that at the beginning of Job’s life, we see that one of his biggest influences is not some distant, technical wizard of his time, but rather his own father, his attention to detail, and the fact that he intentionally included Steve in his own projects.

Personally, I have only been a father for just over 2 years now, but I am regularly amazed (and too many times alarmed) at how much influence I have on my kids, for both good and bad.

I hope that fifty years from now my children will also be able to tell, with joy, of the values they learned from me, through both word and deed.

For my children will most definitely learn something from me. The question is, will it be apathy or passion, precision or carelessness, love or hate?

After receiving the book from Amazon (that story here), I was first suprised by the shear size of the book. This things a monstor, by today’s literary work’s standards. Close to 3″ tall, and it’s not even large print. Isaacson has surely done his homework, not to leave any stone unturned. Which leads me to this post.

I am only a small bit into the book, but I am already enthralled, if you can’t tell, ha. So when I saw that PBS would be airing an hour documentary special on Steve’s live, I thought it would be interesting to compare the two works.

While somewhat informative on a very very high level, I was really suprised how much detail and backstory was left out, compared to the book. Granted, this is to be expected wthen comparing an hour long video production versus an exhaustive literary work, but I was still suprised by just how much was skimmed over.

So as I make my way throught this mountain of a book, I wanted to share my thoughts along the way, in smaller snippets here on my blog.

I will try and keep the post relatively short and to the point, starting with a quote or section from the book. And as always, I would love to see the discussion grow with your own observations.

I am only 23 pages into the work, but my mind is already racing with new insights and observations Walter Isaacson has dug up, to the benefit of us all.

Here’s to the crazy ones.

by alex bogusky and john windsor

If advertising is not your chosen profession in life, why the heck would you want to read a book written by two of the top leaders in the advertising world? (alex bogusky, @bogusky , longtime creative director at crispin porter + bogusky; and John Winsor, @jtwinsor , former head of product innovation & cognitive research at cp+b)

Because I believe the authors are on to something. And it’s not advertising. I want to say it’s way past advertising, but it’s actually pre advertsing.

What?? Sound confusing? Let’s jump into the meat of the book.

Though I passionately disagree with both authors on the value and practice of crowdsourcing, here are a few of their points from @bakedin that stuck with me:

+ Let’s cut the crap of lying and false promises about products, and instead design a useful & beautiful product / experience that meets the users exact needs & wants.

+ Stop spending 3,4, or 8 years in r & d, and instead prototype and test early, and revise what works and throw away the rest.

+ Listen to and know your audience, and make a product that fits, instead making a mediocre product and then trying to advertise the crap out of it.

+ Incrementally changing a mediocre product each year to be (slightly) new & improved is a flawed business plan. Let’s innovate! Let’s create something new! Let’s create something beautiful! Let’s create something useful!!

So if you have any interest in providing a useful / beautiful / wow product or service, do your future self a favor and pick this book up!

Also, a big thanks to @jtwinsor for sending me a copy of the book to review!