Thinking Different - What it means to the world

On hearing of the death of Steve Jobs, I asked myself what his legacy meant to me. It's not the Mac, or the iPod, or iTunes or Pixar or the iPhone, though most of those products have greatly influenced and enhanced both my business and personal life. It was, after all, on a Macintosh that I met Tara Zucker, who became my wife.

For me, his greatest legacy has been to inspire critical thinking. As his (or Chiat/Day's creative director Ken Segall and art director Craig Tanimoto) put it...Think Different. Use your brain to expand the horizons of reality. Dream of what could be and finding a way to execute it...beyond and despite what anyone tells you. Create a new path and look at the world from a different point of view. It's not following trends or trying to be trendy. It's thinking long term and taking risks. Make a positive difference not only in your own life, but in someone else's.
Steve Jobs was not a man without fault. None of us are. He made many mistakes and created a few technical dogs, but he moved pass them and kept going.  As far as I know he was not overtly political, nor was he of mind that, at least in his lifetime, charity or philanthropy was a mission of his company. From what I've read, he could be tough to work for and a bit brash. Others describe those traits as extremely passionate and perfectionist. Some of Apple's factories in Asia are accused of exploiting their workers. As I said, none of us are perfect and there is always room for improvement.

So what does Think Different really  mean? How can we implement it in our own lives, in the attitudes of our government, business, educational, medical, technological, creative and social leaders? Why should we even bother? After all, it's much easier, safer and usually more profitable to think short term. Think Same is often the course taken by most of us. "The ad worked for them, it should work for us". "If removing one government regulation created some jobs, removing a whole bunch will create more jobs". "Social Security and Medicare should be there for everyone we can't change it" "If I read the same book or follow the same leader, or take the same pill the result will be the same". "If you work hard, you will find wealth". "It worked for me, so it must work the same for everybody" That's same think.

Real life or real innovation just does not happen that way. There are too many variables. The old saying, "you can't judge a book by it's cover" is still a wise one. You have to open it up and explore it's depths. Take a look under the hood and tinker a bit. There just might be some hidden gems in there.

At the age of 56, I'm being inspired to think different. Technological and demographic changes have forced me to morph my career a few times in my life and it's happening again. At this stage in the game, starting a new career once again was seeming like a very uphill challenge and one that I really was not all that gung ho about pursuing. I'm thinking different now.

Currently I'm taking some classes at UCLA Extension. I have a great instructor named Freddy Nager who has a marketing strategy company called Atomic Tango. Marketing is something that I've never really been interested in. I actually had somewhat of a visceral aversion to it. Marketing always seemed like having to listen to a used car salesman give me a pitch. Marketing has actually sort of creeped me out. Then, I took a look under the hood, ignored the guy in the plaid pants and found that marketing could be real, honest, ethical and even inspiring fun. It's  definitely something that keeps the wheels of commerce oiled. My instructor Freddy has managed to open my eyes to all sorts of possibilities and just how prevalent marketing is in our lives. It gets people to donate to public radio and other non-profit organizations and causes. It helps individuals get jobs..after all, your resume is marketing. And yes, it is also used to sell glitter lipstick to tweens and weapons to world despots. What you choose to market is up to you. He has stressed that if we get nothing else out of his class, it's to always question how, why and so what in addition to being creative.



Luckily, with the help of an encouraging wife, family and an inspirational teacher, I'm enjoying the road. I don't know where my new schooling may lead me. It may be that I'm not becoming a marketer of somebody else's dream, but of my own. Who knows. I may just make a difference in someone else's world. We should all strive to Think Different.

RIP Mr. Jobs.