We are back from tromping through the rain and mist with some friends in what is the closest that most of our children will get to participating in a true harvest festival--the "trick or treat" tradition of Halloween. My son's goodie bag is sufficiently loaded with loot that it will probably take him a week or more to eat it all or to decide to dispose of it.
So the weather wasn't the most cooperative this year, since it was rainy and cold tonight. Something that did warm my heart, though, was the Doodle that Google displayed on its home page today.
Google had a time-lapse video of some staff carving GIGANTIC (I think they were half-ton) pumpkins into what eventually became a Google logo. But in between carving, various other staff came and hung out, sometimes in costume. You can watch the video below:
It is a cute, creative, and original tribute to this autumnal holiday, and one that you can enjoy without any calories, which is rare this time of year. It also adds to the impression that it must be a real kick to work at Google (for more on that, see this post).
For even more fun, you can watch this video in which the pumpkin artists explain their process and what it is like to carve a half-ton pumpkin:
Happy Halloween 2011 to all!
Monday, October 31, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
The Rising Costs of College
For your Halloween-eve enjoyment/terror, I've got something scarier than any ghost, zombie, monster, or masked killer...OK, maybe not the masked killer, but still pretty scary...
Here is a chart by the Freakonomics guys about the rising cost of college tuition between 1978 and 2008:
The chart only shows private colleges, but I believe the figures are pretty much the same for public ones as well. And to take away your last hopes, although this chart only goes to 2008, it hasn't gotten any better in the last few years, particularly with all the cuts to state budgets. According to Freakonomics, here are the figures for college tuitions in 2011-2012:
One silver lining to note, however, is that these figures are the PUBLISHED tuition and fees. In recent years, many, if not the majority, of students are actually paying substantially less than the published rate, at least for state and nonprofit four-year colleges, due to grants and scholarships and such. The Obama administration is now requiring colleges to post a calculator on their websites so families can input their income information and such, and get a better idea of the real costs they will be expected to pay. This at least allows students to better compare colleges on what their real, ultimate costs will be, not just to dismiss certain colleges on their published fees when they would probably be required to pay less.
But I don't think anyone has any good ideas about how to reign in these soaring increases in college costs.
Here is a chart by the Freakonomics guys about the rising cost of college tuition between 1978 and 2008:
 |
| © 2011 Freakonomics, LLC |
The chart only shows private colleges, but I believe the figures are pretty much the same for public ones as well. And to take away your last hopes, although this chart only goes to 2008, it hasn't gotten any better in the last few years, particularly with all the cuts to state budgets. According to Freakonomics, here are the figures for college tuitions in 2011-2012:
The question nobody seems to be able to answer definitely is WHY college tuition is rising at three times the cost of living, higher even than our sky rocketing health care costs.
- The average published in-state tuition and fees at public four-year institutions was $8,244 in 2011-12, which is 8.3%, or $631, higher than in 2010-11. Average total for tuition, fees, room and board, were $17,131, up 6.0 percent.
- For out-of-state tuition and fees at public four-year colleges and universities, the published average was $20,770, which is 5.7%, or $1,122, higher than in 2010-11. Average total charges were up 5.2% to $29,657.
- The percentage increase was smaller, but the totals are still higher at private nonprofit four-year colleges and universities. The published tuition and fees averaged $28,500 in 2011-12, which was 4.5%, or $1,235, higher than in 2010-11. The total average charges were up 4.4% to $38,589.
- The average increase in published in-state tuition and fees at public two-year colleges was even higher. They totaled $2,963, which is 8.7%, or $236, higher than in 2010-11.The average increase in published in-state tuition and fees at public two-year colleges was even higher. They totaled $2,963, which is 8.7%, or $236, higher than in 2010-11.
- Holding the line at a mere 3.2% increase were the average published tuition and fees, which were estimated at $14,487 in 2011-12.
One silver lining to note, however, is that these figures are the PUBLISHED tuition and fees. In recent years, many, if not the majority, of students are actually paying substantially less than the published rate, at least for state and nonprofit four-year colleges, due to grants and scholarships and such. The Obama administration is now requiring colleges to post a calculator on their websites so families can input their income information and such, and get a better idea of the real costs they will be expected to pay. This at least allows students to better compare colleges on what their real, ultimate costs will be, not just to dismiss certain colleges on their published fees when they would probably be required to pay less.
But I don't think anyone has any good ideas about how to reign in these soaring increases in college costs.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
A Howling Halloween in Downtown Cary
The Town of Cary, NC, where we live, has a major push on to re-invigorate the old downtown area, which is walking distance from our house. One of the components in this campaign were some brand-new activities for children to celebrate Halloween. They took place this evening, so my son and I walked down to check them out.
The fun started at the Herb Young Community Center, where they had pumpkin painting crafts in one room, and the entire gym area covered with games and bouncy houses for younger children.
They were also running a hayride from the Community Center up Academy Street to the new Cary Arts Center, about which I have written before.
Note to the Town of Cary: I think the hayride is a much better idea than the horse-drawn carriages you have been running at Christmas. The Christmas idea is great, but the carriages are so small that they only hold a few families at a time, and the waiting time just gets to be too long. The hayride can hold a lot more people, so the lines aren't too bad.
One brand-new feature this year was that some of the merchants in the downtown area stayed open for Trick and Treating--plus, many handed out special discount coupons as an incentive for the adults to buy something in the shops.
Note to the merchants: A lot of children these days have nuts and peanut allergies. So it is not a good idea to have a candy selection in which everything has nuts, which was the case in a couple of the places we went.
Chambers Arts really got into the spirit of the holiday, and Klara's Czechoslovakian restaurant had an appropriate outfit on its candy dispenser:
After stopping off at Ashworth's Village (where the downtown merchants are), the hayride continued up to the Cary Arts Center, which had all sorts of things going on.
There were classes where families carved clay pumpkins, blue grass music, scary (or not) Halloween stories, and even a Haunted House!
All in all, it was a fun evening of Halloween activities in Old Cary. To be honest, most of them were geared to the younger-than-middle-school crowd. The stuff at the Art Center was more for all ages, though, and it was nice, crisp evening to be walking around and enjoying the sights and the great holiday energy.
The fun started at the Herb Young Community Center, where they had pumpkin painting crafts in one room, and the entire gym area covered with games and bouncy houses for younger children.
They were also running a hayride from the Community Center up Academy Street to the new Cary Arts Center, about which I have written before.
 |
| The horses were beautiful, but this picture doesn't do them justice. |
Note to the Town of Cary: I think the hayride is a much better idea than the horse-drawn carriages you have been running at Christmas. The Christmas idea is great, but the carriages are so small that they only hold a few families at a time, and the waiting time just gets to be too long. The hayride can hold a lot more people, so the lines aren't too bad.
One brand-new feature this year was that some of the merchants in the downtown area stayed open for Trick and Treating--plus, many handed out special discount coupons as an incentive for the adults to buy something in the shops.
Note to the merchants: A lot of children these days have nuts and peanut allergies. So it is not a good idea to have a candy selection in which everything has nuts, which was the case in a couple of the places we went.
This was the day after Final Friday, so half of the studios didn't participate, which was a shame, because the owners all know my son and we wanted to show them his costume. But the most happening place in the whole downtown shopping area was Chambers Art, a multi-faceted artistic facility that not only gave away candy, but had a wonderful Halloween village display and was even running a craft activity for children to do:
Chambers Arts really got into the spirit of the holiday, and Klara's Czechoslovakian restaurant had an appropriate outfit on its candy dispenser:
After stopping off at Ashworth's Village (where the downtown merchants are), the hayride continued up to the Cary Arts Center, which had all sorts of things going on.
There were classes where families carved clay pumpkins, blue grass music, scary (or not) Halloween stories, and even a Haunted House!
All in all, it was a fun evening of Halloween activities in Old Cary. To be honest, most of them were geared to the younger-than-middle-school crowd. The stuff at the Art Center was more for all ages, though, and it was nice, crisp evening to be walking around and enjoying the sights and the great holiday energy.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Curriculum Resource: Art, Science, Math, Art
We were having a discussion during our homeschool coop this week about our belief that one of the great benefits of homeschooling is our ability to study things in an interdisciplinary way. Whereas in schools, usually what you are studying in English has no connection with what you are doing in History or Science, we can spend our time in Language Arts reading literature of the era that we are doing in History, plus we can supplement with Art History/Art projects and Music History and sometimes History of Science, etc.
When I stumbled upon the Fong Qi Wei's website for Exploded Flowers, it immediately made me think of this multidisciplinary approach to life. Qi Wei is a photographer, apparently living in Singapore. In the Exploded Flowers series, he carefully takes apart a flower and photographs it with all its stems, petals, pistons, and other components spread apart. Here are some examples of his work:
So, so lovely and interesting! And so we go from art to nature, and then from nature to art. This makes me really want to go get some flowers and try re-creating some of our favorite paintings in petal form. And thus these pictures extend into Art History, and even Social Studies, as we consider the difference between Asian art and Western art....
When I stumbled upon the Fong Qi Wei's website for Exploded Flowers, it immediately made me think of this multidisciplinary approach to life. Qi Wei is a photographer, apparently living in Singapore. In the Exploded Flowers series, he carefully takes apart a flower and photographs it with all its stems, petals, pistons, and other components spread apart. Here are some examples of his work:
 |
| Copyright © 2011 Fong Qi Wei |
 |
| Copyright © 2011 Fong Qi Wei |
 |
| Copyright © 2011 Fong Qi Wei |
 |
| Copyright © 2011 Fong Qi Wei |
 |
| Copyright © 2011 Fong Qi Wei |
For all of these beautiful photos, or to buy a print or card of one, visit his website here.
I love these, because they are obviously beautiful art. But they also help us learn about science, particularly what exactly goes into a flower. I think it could help us explain to our students the components of the flowers and what pieces perform what functions in the whole plant reproduction process.
However, it also lead to me to math, and the patterns of the petals and other parts. I've written a number of posts about Fibonacci numbers, and my son and I have spent quite a bit of time looking for those Fibonacci sequences in nature. But in real life, it is often hard to tell exactly how many petals there are in a flower, or segments in a pine cone, and such (believe me, we've tried). So actually taking it apart and counting that way--that might be one way to solve the problem. I have to admit, though, that I counted many of the petals in the photographs, and I didn't find too many examples of Fibonacci numbers. But there were lots of interesting patterns to consider, once it was separated enough that you can definitely count different items.
But it doesn't just stop there. Eventually, it occurred to Qi Wei that all those individual petals were similar to individual brush strokes in a painting. So he created several of what he calls "floral paintings" out of petals. For example, consider this one, which was inspired by a woodcut print called The Great Wave off Kanagawa, one of the most famous pieces of Japanese art:
 |
| Veronicas, Hyacinths, Pom Poms, 2011, All Rights Reserved Qi Wei |
I think that is incredible. But I have to admit that my favorite of this series, which mostly reflects Asian art, is one inspired by a Western artist, Van Gogh:
 |
| Van Gogh Sunflower Remix, All Rights Reserved Qi Wei |
So, so lovely and interesting! And so we go from art to nature, and then from nature to art. This makes me really want to go get some flowers and try re-creating some of our favorite paintings in petal form. And thus these pictures extend into Art History, and even Social Studies, as we consider the difference between Asian art and Western art....
That how I think life really is--one topic and/or subject flows into another, which suggests another. I'm just really glad that we can run with that in homeschooling in a way that traditional educational classes can't. But even if your children attend a traditional school, this could be a fantastic project to do with them at home!
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Curriculum Resource: Greg Tang Math Puzzles
Yesterday, Maria Droujkova of Natural Math had a web seminar with Greg Tang, the author of math poetry/puzzle books such as The Grapes of Math, Math-terpieces: The Art of Problem Solving, and other similar books. His books are really geared towards elementary students, mostly the 6-10 year old crowd, I believe. So while my son had enjoyed reading his books when he was younger, I hadn't really thought about Greg Tang for several years now.
But I tuned into the webinar, and discovered that Tang now has a website with some resources that I think are appropriate for middle schoolers. It appears that lately Tang has spent less time writing and more time programming some of the games and puzzles into interactive exercises on his website (which is apparently about to be taken over by Scholastic, which is also the publisher of his books).
The games on there, so far, at least, still focus on mastering basic mathematical computational skills. However, I know my son can still use some work on recalling those math facts quickly and accurately. But they are fun games, even though they based on simple mathematics. Some of them are kind of like Sudoku, where you have to figure out the right selections of numbers, but you have to add, subtract, multiply, or divide to choose the right one. I found them kind of fun and interesting to do as an adult, but my son enjoyed doing them as well.
Our favorite was a game called Kakooma, in which you are given a series of hexagons with six numbers in them, and you have to figure out which number can be created by adding, subtracting, or multiplying two of the other numbers in the hexagon. So it doesn't require a math savant, but you are racing against the clock and other players, a bunch of whom have figured out all seven problems in a set in less than 10 SECONDS! Unbelievable!
Anyway, if you buy a subscription, all the games have a bunch of different levels to make the game harder or easier, but there is a free version of each game that has been challenging enough for us so far.
So if your family likes math puzzles, or if you are just looking for a fun way to practice some basic computational skills, check out GregTangMath.com.
If you are interesting in finding out more about how Greg Tang develops the math books, games, and other materials he creates, you can access a recording of the entire webinar at:
http://mathfuture.wikispaces.com/GregTangMath .
But I tuned into the webinar, and discovered that Tang now has a website with some resources that I think are appropriate for middle schoolers. It appears that lately Tang has spent less time writing and more time programming some of the games and puzzles into interactive exercises on his website (which is apparently about to be taken over by Scholastic, which is also the publisher of his books).
The games on there, so far, at least, still focus on mastering basic mathematical computational skills. However, I know my son can still use some work on recalling those math facts quickly and accurately. But they are fun games, even though they based on simple mathematics. Some of them are kind of like Sudoku, where you have to figure out the right selections of numbers, but you have to add, subtract, multiply, or divide to choose the right one. I found them kind of fun and interesting to do as an adult, but my son enjoyed doing them as well.
Our favorite was a game called Kakooma, in which you are given a series of hexagons with six numbers in them, and you have to figure out which number can be created by adding, subtracting, or multiplying two of the other numbers in the hexagon. So it doesn't require a math savant, but you are racing against the clock and other players, a bunch of whom have figured out all seven problems in a set in less than 10 SECONDS! Unbelievable!
Anyway, if you buy a subscription, all the games have a bunch of different levels to make the game harder or easier, but there is a free version of each game that has been challenging enough for us so far.
So if your family likes math puzzles, or if you are just looking for a fun way to practice some basic computational skills, check out GregTangMath.com.
If you are interesting in finding out more about how Greg Tang develops the math books, games, and other materials he creates, you can access a recording of the entire webinar at:
http://mathfuture.wikispaces.com/GregTangMath .
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Lesson Plan: Celebrating Diwali
Happy Diwali to all! Diwali actually lasts for five days, but it is the third day that is supposed to be the most special. That is the day that Hindus light candles and lamps throughout their house in order to attract Lashmi, the goddess of prosperity and good fortune, to come visit. If she does, the coming year is supposed to be abundant and lucky.
So for our latest World Religions class, where we are studying Hinduism, the students made Diwali diyas, or ceramic candle holders, in preparation for the big event. I don't know about everyone else, but we lit my son's for dinner tonight, as we ate some homemade chicken tikka masala on basmati brown rice with stir fried vegetables to celebrate.
I forget sometimes how much middle school students still like creating things with clay. Every time we have a clay project, it is always a big hit.
See below for some of the students' creations:
So for our latest World Religions class, where we are studying Hinduism, the students made Diwali diyas, or ceramic candle holders, in preparation for the big event. I don't know about everyone else, but we lit my son's for dinner tonight, as we ate some homemade chicken tikka masala on basmati brown rice with stir fried vegetables to celebrate.
I forget sometimes how much middle school students still like creating things with clay. Every time we have a clay project, it is always a big hit.
See below for some of the students' creations:
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Steve Jobs as Revolutionary
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post on Steve Jobs as a great model for our middle schoolers to use to learn about living life with vision and passion. But lately, I have been thinking about Steve Jobs as a model for revolutionary change, prompted by two very different events: reading a blog post by my friend Maria Droujkova of Natural Math, and spending an hour in the Apple Store yesterday.
The post that started me down this road Sunday night was entitled How I imagine change. You should read the entire thing here, because my interpretation doesn't do it justice, but Maria sees radical change as taking two steps:
Step 1: Disengage from the old way/system
Step 2: Build the new way/system
Then yesterday, I ended up in Jobs' living legacy, the Apple Store. My tale of woe: last week, when my son was working on some school work on my big Mac computer, the screen got wonky and the program froze. I advised him to reboot and try again, but the computer wouldn't come up again. So I scheduled an appointment with the Apple Store self-proclaimed "Genius Bar"--the technical experts who help you resolve issues with your Apple technology (computers, iPhones, iPads, etc.). Because it is so big and bulky, so it is hard for me to handle, plus the fact that my son and I had classes all day, my husband took it in and returned with the sad news that the hard drive was gone and had to be replaced. But in only a few hours, the work was done, so I had the computer back that night. Luckily, I did have a back-up drive, and spent the weekend trying to transfer my backup to the new hard drive using Apple's built-in no-brainer backup software, Time Machine.
Unfortunately, it wasn't working. So it was back to the Apple Store for another appointment at the Genius Bar. The guy working on my computer turned out to be Gabriel, which I took to be a good sign--what could be better than having not only a Genius, but an Arch Angel working on your computer? And work on it he did, while I sat there watching him and eves dropping about the other poor souls coming to the Genius Bar for a fix to their technical problems. The bottom line ended up being that my backup hard drive had problems as well. So while Gabriel couldn't do a full restore either, what he could do--that I couldn't--was to transfer my document files off the backup to the new computer hard drive. I would have to reinstall the software at home.....which is a pain, but not nearly as painful as losing all the lesson plans, documents, photographs, music, movies, and other things that I had created and stored on my previous hard drive.
So once again, after having spent an hour trouble shooting and deciding this was the best solution, we left the computer in Gabriel's capable hands, went home, and returned that evening to find a computer with the operating software reinstalled, all my document files transferred, and all of the Apple iLife and iWorks software loaded on (which, frankly, are the packages I use 90% of the time). And the fee for the probably two hours that Gabriel spent working on my computer? Nothing. I got all that service for free, even though the issue was really an external disc drive that failed that was not Apple hardware. I have a problem with my Mac, I take it to the Genius Bar, and it gets fixed, usually that day, for no charge (other than fees for equipment, like buying the replacement hard drive).
So if you look at that transaction from the typical business viewpoint, it makes no sense. Here this highly skilled technician spends two hours of time dealing with a problem that wasn't even Apple hardware for no money. Who can make a business model like that work?
Only a revolutionary....the kind of multi-millionaire corporate CEO who would say, "Why join the Navy ...if you can be a pirate?" (and that was even before Johnny Depp had made pirates cool again).
Because as I understand the man, Steve Jobs (and the company he founded) was never about the money, and was never even about the product. Steve Jobs and Apple Computer were about empowering people to create things they never imagined they could do by using technology (Pixar is also all about that, but the focus was on giving great artists great tools to create great movies). Steve Jobs and Apple Computer were about transformation, not market share. Steve Jobs and Apple Computer were about revolution.
And look how Jobs followed Maria's two steps. When Apple came on the market, the big competition was which operating system--Microsoft's DOS or Intel's CP/M--was going to be chosen by IBM for their personal computers and, by extension, dominate the market. But Jobs and Apple didn't try to get into that game. Instead, they just did their own thing, building a computer that seemed to eschew any pretense of corporate acceptability--what business executive at the time was going to put in an order for a computer that was called an Apple? As Jean Louis Gassee, who replaced Jobs as head of the Macintosh development team when Jobs left the company, said about the famous original Apple logo (an Apple with a bite missing and filled with stripes of different colors):
Lust, knowledge, hope, and anarchy....you almost couldn't pick better words to describe a revolutionary. Or here are some quotes from Jobs in the early years, in which he makes clear that he wasn't going to play the game by IBM or Microsoft or typical business rules--he was making up his own rules as he went along. Plus, his game was so much bigger than just money:
But the revolutionary genius of Jobs and/or Apple was realizing that simply building amazing products also wasn't enough. To transform people's experience with, and willingness to use computer-based products, particularly among the baby boomer generation of which Jobs was a part, you needed to build support structures to help people adapt to an entirely new way of doing things. For example, this was Jobs' explanation about why the iPod basically wiped out all competition from other MP3 music players:
And that is the beauty of the Apple Stores, with their Genius Bar to fix your technical problems, their free classes to educate you about the products' capabilities, and their One to One service, where for $100 a year, someone will sit down with you once a week and work with you individually on whatever project you need help with. The stores and their services are Apple's promise to their clients that when you buy their products, they won't abandon you. You take the leap of faith to go with the non-dominant computer, and they will be your partners in making it work for you. Your hardware isn't working; we'll fix it. You don't know how to use the software; we'll teach you. You can't figure out how to get the music from Garageband to match up with the right pictures in iMovie; we'll work it out with you.
In short, Apple has built not only the computers and other devices they sell, but the infrastructure necessary to help the non-computer generation get control over the computer's more creative capabilities than simply using it as a fancy typewriter. And that is how you create a technological revolution.
So, once again, Jobs has a lot to teach us about how to make fundamental changes in society. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Apple will continue to keep its revolutionary outlook going now that its pirate captain has sailed on to other waters.
The post that started me down this road Sunday night was entitled How I imagine change. You should read the entire thing here, because my interpretation doesn't do it justice, but Maria sees radical change as taking two steps:
Step 1: Disengage from the old way/system
Step 2: Build the new way/system
Then yesterday, I ended up in Jobs' living legacy, the Apple Store. My tale of woe: last week, when my son was working on some school work on my big Mac computer, the screen got wonky and the program froze. I advised him to reboot and try again, but the computer wouldn't come up again. So I scheduled an appointment with the Apple Store self-proclaimed "Genius Bar"--the technical experts who help you resolve issues with your Apple technology (computers, iPhones, iPads, etc.). Because it is so big and bulky, so it is hard for me to handle, plus the fact that my son and I had classes all day, my husband took it in and returned with the sad news that the hard drive was gone and had to be replaced. But in only a few hours, the work was done, so I had the computer back that night. Luckily, I did have a back-up drive, and spent the weekend trying to transfer my backup to the new hard drive using Apple's built-in no-brainer backup software, Time Machine.
Unfortunately, it wasn't working. So it was back to the Apple Store for another appointment at the Genius Bar. The guy working on my computer turned out to be Gabriel, which I took to be a good sign--what could be better than having not only a Genius, but an Arch Angel working on your computer? And work on it he did, while I sat there watching him and eves dropping about the other poor souls coming to the Genius Bar for a fix to their technical problems. The bottom line ended up being that my backup hard drive had problems as well. So while Gabriel couldn't do a full restore either, what he could do--that I couldn't--was to transfer my document files off the backup to the new computer hard drive. I would have to reinstall the software at home.....which is a pain, but not nearly as painful as losing all the lesson plans, documents, photographs, music, movies, and other things that I had created and stored on my previous hard drive.
So once again, after having spent an hour trouble shooting and deciding this was the best solution, we left the computer in Gabriel's capable hands, went home, and returned that evening to find a computer with the operating software reinstalled, all my document files transferred, and all of the Apple iLife and iWorks software loaded on (which, frankly, are the packages I use 90% of the time). And the fee for the probably two hours that Gabriel spent working on my computer? Nothing. I got all that service for free, even though the issue was really an external disc drive that failed that was not Apple hardware. I have a problem with my Mac, I take it to the Genius Bar, and it gets fixed, usually that day, for no charge (other than fees for equipment, like buying the replacement hard drive).
So if you look at that transaction from the typical business viewpoint, it makes no sense. Here this highly skilled technician spends two hours of time dealing with a problem that wasn't even Apple hardware for no money. Who can make a business model like that work?
Only a revolutionary....the kind of multi-millionaire corporate CEO who would say, "Why join the Navy ...if you can be a pirate?" (and that was even before Johnny Depp had made pirates cool again).
Because as I understand the man, Steve Jobs (and the company he founded) was never about the money, and was never even about the product. Steve Jobs and Apple Computer were about empowering people to create things they never imagined they could do by using technology (Pixar is also all about that, but the focus was on giving great artists great tools to create great movies). Steve Jobs and Apple Computer were about transformation, not market share. Steve Jobs and Apple Computer were about revolution.
And look how Jobs followed Maria's two steps. When Apple came on the market, the big competition was which operating system--Microsoft's DOS or Intel's CP/M--was going to be chosen by IBM for their personal computers and, by extension, dominate the market. But Jobs and Apple didn't try to get into that game. Instead, they just did their own thing, building a computer that seemed to eschew any pretense of corporate acceptability--what business executive at the time was going to put in an order for a computer that was called an Apple? As Jean Louis Gassee, who replaced Jobs as head of the Macintosh development team when Jobs left the company, said about the famous original Apple logo (an Apple with a bite missing and filled with stripes of different colors):
One of the deep mysteries to me is our logo, the symbol of lust and knowledge, bitten into, all crossed with the colors of the rainbow in the wrong order. You couldn't dream of a more appropriate logo: lust, knowledge, hope, and anarchy.
Lust, knowledge, hope, and anarchy....you almost couldn't pick better words to describe a revolutionary. Or here are some quotes from Jobs in the early years, in which he makes clear that he wasn't going to play the game by IBM or Microsoft or typical business rules--he was making up his own rules as he went along. Plus, his game was so much bigger than just money:
We're gambling on our vision, and we would rather do that than make "me too" products. Let some other companies do that. For us, it's always the next dream. (1984)
Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me ... Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me. (1993)
I was worth about over a million dollars when I was twenty-three and over ten million dollars when I was twenty-four, and over a hundred million dollars when I was twenty-five and it wasn't that important because I never did it for the money. (1996)
What a computer is to me is the most remarkable tool that we have ever come up with. It's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds. (1991)So after turning his back on what the rest of the computer industry was doing, Jobs had to come through with Step 2: he had to deliver the goods. There was a long-time saying at Apple Computer that was attributed to Jobs (although I haven't been able to find an official citation), which was "Real artists ship." And there is no doubt that Apple Computer has shipped some of the finest consumer technology products of the 20th and 21st Century.
But the revolutionary genius of Jobs and/or Apple was realizing that simply building amazing products also wasn't enough. To transform people's experience with, and willingness to use computer-based products, particularly among the baby boomer generation of which Jobs was a part, you needed to build support structures to help people adapt to an entirely new way of doing things. For example, this was Jobs' explanation about why the iPod basically wiped out all competition from other MP3 music players:
We had the hardware expertise, the industrial design expertise and the software expertise, including iTunes. One of the biggest insights we have was that we decided not to try to manage your music library on the iPod, but to manage it in iTunes. Other companies tried to do everything on the device itself and made it so complicated that it was useless. (2006)In short, the iPod took over the market not just because it was a beautiful and functional machine, but because Apple created the entire iTunes music delivery system that simplified the process to the point that even grandparents could find and download the music they wanted.
And that is the beauty of the Apple Stores, with their Genius Bar to fix your technical problems, their free classes to educate you about the products' capabilities, and their One to One service, where for $100 a year, someone will sit down with you once a week and work with you individually on whatever project you need help with. The stores and their services are Apple's promise to their clients that when you buy their products, they won't abandon you. You take the leap of faith to go with the non-dominant computer, and they will be your partners in making it work for you. Your hardware isn't working; we'll fix it. You don't know how to use the software; we'll teach you. You can't figure out how to get the music from Garageband to match up with the right pictures in iMovie; we'll work it out with you.
In short, Apple has built not only the computers and other devices they sell, but the infrastructure necessary to help the non-computer generation get control over the computer's more creative capabilities than simply using it as a fancy typewriter. And that is how you create a technological revolution.
So, once again, Jobs has a lot to teach us about how to make fundamental changes in society. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Apple will continue to keep its revolutionary outlook going now that its pirate captain has sailed on to other waters.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)