Reform is a Fighting Word
Filed under: Education, Policy Communications, Politics | Tags: Chicago teachers strike, communications, Education Nation, education policy, education reform, school improvement, word choice
Leave a Comment re·form: noun 1. the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc.
In the wake of the Chicago teachers strike, many of us who follow education policy are wondering what the implications are for efforts to improve America’s public schools. American Prospect ran a thoughtful analysis of one of the few published public opinion polls, noting the disconnect between the perceptions of white professional parents and minority working-class parents. In addition to the points they make around historical relationships with unions, I think there may be another factor working against those would like to build consensus around what needs to change in our schools: the word “reform.”
Reform has always had an aggressive, judgmental and negative connotation. Reform schools are where we send delinquent children. The Reformation was an attack on corruption within the Roman Catholic Church that led to splinter groups who formed the mainline Protestant churches.
Is it any wonder that many of the teachers working in our schools react negatively to the notion that they are in need of reform?
The strongest and weakest teachers receive most of the public attention, but most people agree that the average teacher is neither wrong, corrupt or even unsatisfactory. We know that most teachers spend their own money to make their classrooms welcoming for students and to provide them with supplies. I have known more than one teacher who kept healthy snacks on hand for the kids who didn’t get enough to eat at home.
No, the majority teachers aren’t in need of reform. Nor, typically, are the schools in which they work. But it is clear from the data on graduation and college admission and completion rates that they need to improve.
im·prove: verb 1. to bring into a more desirable or excellent condition.
State and local education agencies use the term “school improvement” quite a bit–they rarely apply the word “reform” to their efforts. These administrators and politicians understand that they are much more likely to get the necessary groups to buy-in to their efforts by focusing on the positive. Who couldn’t use a little improvement, after all? No one is perfect.
One of the lessons reinforced by the polling around the Chicago strike is that urban minority public school parents support teacher unions and are suspicious of the education reform movement. The education reform movement will never be truly successful if it fails to engage the very families it purports to help.
As Eduwonk notes, the “reform unionism” field is littered with the bodies of union leaders voted out of office after appearing too accommodating with management or school reformers. But reform unionism had a powerful pragmatic argument in its favor: Until the Chicago strike the political choice for unions looked like accommodation and collaboration or irrelevance. Last week Lewis added a third credible option to the mix – strident resistance.
Perhaps it is time for the leaders of the ed reform movement to regroup and consider a new name; one that doesn’t bring to mind the feeling of being rapped with a ruler.
Social Media Is Not Scary: 5 Tips for Corporate Social Responsibility and Philanthropy Teams
Filed under: Corporate Social Responsibility, Social Innovation | Tags: ACCP, campaign, corporate philanthropy, CSR, Facebook, marketing, social media, Toyota, twitter
Leave a Comment My colleague, social media guru Jason Moriber, and I helped facilitate a recent training session for the Association of Corporate Contribution Professionals. While I am unable to repeat the really juicy tidbits that emerged during the day due to the application of “Vegas Rules,” I can share the highlights of our counsel. You can also click through the “Cows and Chickens” deck we presented (you know you’re curious.)
- Dive in. Many corporate philanthropy and community relations professionals worry they are falling behind on social media, but they shouldn’t let that stop them from trying. Because it is still a relatively new communications channel, social media is actually a great space to experiment.
- Start small. When you work for a large corporation, you tend to orient around BIG. But, by starting out with more targeted efforts on social media, you can develop specific, valuable insights about your audience at a lower cost and lower risk. For example, try a campaign out on a specific geographical audience (e.g., Prius owners in Nevada or dog owners in San Francisco) to test out what works before going national. Some companies use social media campaigns less to market to their audience in that moment and more to learn certain things about their audience that will be helpful for future campaigns, and CSR professionals can do this, too.
- Define success. Here’s a secret: many executives are similarly intimidated by social media, and they don’t have a clear sense of what success looks like. This creates both an opportunity and an obligation for program managers to set expectations and declare metrics before the campaign launches.
- Step away from the press release. There is still a lot of press release love, particularly in highly regulated industries like pharmaceuticals and defense, but they simply aren’t appropriate for this medium. These companies are really struggling with how to adapt to the casual, fast-paced, and conversational nature of social media. There are creative ways to keep the lawyers calm without having them review every word. More on that in a later post. But, if you haven’t yet achieved that equilibrium, you can start by pulling interesting quotes, facts or statistics out of an approved release to share on Facebook or Twitter.
- Make friends with marketing. Effective internal integration and communication unlocks the opportunity to launch flashier campaigns for smaller budget orgs like those found in CSR teams and corporate foundations. Toyota’s 100 Cars for Good campaign is a great example of this kind of collaboration in action.
Note: Post originally appeared at http://waggeneredstrom.com/blog/2012/08/09/social-media-is-not-scary-5-tips-for-corporate-social-responsibility-and-philanthropy-teams/.
Hal not HAL: Why Teachers Won’t Be Replaced By Technology
Filed under: Education, Technology | Tags: Andrew Coulson, classroom, ed tech, education technology, ISTE, K-12, Larry Strauss
Leave a Comment Today’s Huffington Post blog by Larry Strauss addresses head-on the concern some teachers have of being replaced by technology. Anyone who has observed the link between technology innovation and downsizing in other industries would have to acknowledge this is not an irrational fear. Andrew Coulson’s Wall Street Journal Op-Ed lamenting the “teacher surplus” likely heightens this anxiety.
But, this notion of a virtual classroom without real human interaction is hard to embrace as a real possibility for the masses, because, for most students, the social part of school is what keeps them coming back. We’ve become so overwhelmed by the media’s hyped bullying coverage that we’ve forgotten that the majority of kids enjoy school, both because that’s where their friends are, and because they enjoy interacting with their teachers. Numerous studies have noted that students who have a strong relationship with at least one adult in their school are significantly less likely to drop out.
This makes complete sense. When kids are young, they are shameless about expressing their overwhelming preference to spend time with their parents above all other human beings. Once they enter school, those same kids start to shift their affection to their teachers. (Do you remember the first time you called your teacher “Mom?”) As they evolve into adolescence and beyond, some kids more readily express affinity for their favorite teacher than for either parent (though, we parents know they still really need us deep down inside.)
I am not alone in believing that technology can and should be doing more to improve K-12 education. But, the value of that technology will be realized in the hands of skilled teachers who develop emotional connections with their students. Teachers v. technology is a false choice. Teachers well-supported by technology is where we are headed.
Ed Tech’s Reputation Recovery: Reflections on ISTE 2012
Filed under: Education, Social Innovation, Technology | Tags: Bill Gates, broadband, communications strategy, digital divide, education technology, iPad, Matt Richtel, reputation management, Steve Jobs
Leave a Comment Last fall, education technology was under siege in The New York Times. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Matt Richtel was in the midst of his series criticizing ed tech for over-promising and under-delivering. Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs highlighted the following conversation between Jobs and Bill Gates:
Jobs asked some questions about education and Gates sketched out his vision of what schools in the future would be like, with students watching lectures and video lessons on their own while using the classroom time for discussions and problem solving. They agreed that computers had, so far, made surprisingly little impact on schools—far less than on other realms of society such as media and medicine and law.
Today, questions linger about the ROI associated with education technology, but the tone of the debate in the media seems to be softening. What’s changed and can we expect sentiments toward ed tech to continue to improve?
Now: Cool Gadgets
We love fun gadgets, and some iconic consumer tech products are making their way into the classroom. Too often we forget that teachers, administrators and policy makers (and reporters) are people. They are attracted to sleek, portable, multi-purpose devices the way we all are. And, when students can take their ed tech solution home with them, the whole family buys in.
Mobile was the hot topic at this week’s annual conference of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE.) How do you integrate mobile devices; should you allow/encourage students to BYOD (bring your own device); what about students who don’t have Internet access at home? I heard from one major publishing executive that when he meets with superintendents, they often pull out their iPad not to use, but to signal that they are tech savvy. School boards are embracing tablet initiatives to send the message to parents that they are innovative leaders. Tablets are replacing the SMART Board as the device that signals tech savvy. And, unlike SMART Boards, tablets are consumer technology that the general public is familiar with, and with Microsoft, Google and others entering the market, there will be no shortage of devices to choose from.
In the Works: Divorcing the What from the How
Tablets and e-readers are also changing the way the industry thinks about content. Publishers will either have to make their texts and lesson plans accessible across multiple platforms or devices, or they will need to demonstrate that their package deal enterprise solutions are truly superior. Rumor has it that some of the biggest players have quietly negotiated pay-for-performance contracts with districts based on student test scores. Meanwhile, content-agnostic startups were everywhere at ISTE. Any measure that helps identify high v. low quality content and gets it in front of students will be good for the ed tech industry’s reputation.
Coming Soon: Long Overdue Solutions to Underlying Problems
What educators value most is technology that solves their problems. Some of the underlying challenges plaguing ed tech like outdated networks, products that cannot communicate information with each other automatically (interoperability), or the inability for teachers to navigate the curriculum resources that exist to find what they are looking for are being tackled in a serious way.
Assessment 2014–a national move to computer-based testing–could lead to dramatic improvements in broadband support for schools. Several for-profit and non-profit (client) startups are building solutions to provide interoperability. The Learning Registry Management Initiative (LRMI) is working on a tagging system to help teachers find the ingredients they need to teach students as quickly and accurately as they would searching for a recipe they need to make dinner. (At ISTE, a representative from Intel as well as Karen Cator of the US Department of Education told me LRMI was key to revolutionizing technology in the classroom.)
Future Forecast
Tablets will continue to be a popular, disruptive force in the education technology marketplace. Proven results for students will ultimately win the day, and some of the most significant barriers to impact are in the process of being whittled down. Ed tech seems to be headed toward a more positive narrative, but it will require a combination of easy-to-use, enticing, effective products and compelling stories about the students they benefit.
Post originally appeared at http://waggeneredstrom.com/blog/2012/06/29/ed-techs-reputation-recovery-reflections-on-iste-2012/
Cause Marketing v. Corporate Philanthropy
Filed under: Cause Marketing, Corporate Social Responsibility, Social Innovation | Tags: Arctic Home, cause marketing, changing media landscape, corporate philanthropy, corporate social responsibility, CSR, social media
Comments (1) Reflecting back on last week’s Cause Marketing Forum and Social Innovation (SI) Summit – which discussed cause marketing and corporate philanthropy, respectively – can we predict that one of these approaches will eclipse the other? I’ll discuss this question by comparing these tactics on three central business goals: customer engagement, benefits to bottom line, and reputation.
Customer Engagement
Perhaps because it was born of marketers, cause marketing wins this one hands down. As Melanie Healey, Procter & Gamble Group President for North America noted in her CMF keynote, “Consumers want to be involved in solving problems, not just watch companies do it.” For example, leveraging social media channels to not just inform, but engage audiences in a cause was central to every campaign referenced at Cause Marketing Forum. Meanwhile, one of my colleague’s key takeaways from SI Summit is that traditional CSR practitioners are still struggling with how to evolve their use of social media beyond a channel just for news sharing.
Bottom Line Benefits
Cause marketers have an easier time demonstrating these benefits, particularly when the campaign is focused on a particular product.
- Arctic Home results shared at Cause Marketing Forum 2012
However, done right, corporate giving or CSR programs can yield huge benefits to the organization. For example, Microsoft’s* generous employee match supported by an innovative and well-resourced annual giving campaign engenders corporate pride and loyalty. Starbucks’ multi-faceted approach to sustainability helps them attract customers who might otherwise be turned off by their size or corporate environmental impact.
Reputation
This one breaks down by audience – customers and government. Customers are more likely to be aware of–and therefore, impressed by–cause marketing efforts than corporate philanthropy due to the inherent nature of the approach. However, government officials–a top priority audience for most CSR programs–have historically been more impressed by corporate giving and skeptical of activities that directly drive product sales.
Public relations is an essential vehicle for building reputation, and media coverage is increasingly challenging for both camps. Most media outlets have cut philanthropy coverage and redeployed those beat reporters. Just this week, GOOD Magazine announced significant layoffs. Traditional corporate philanthropy is becoming fodder for the blogosphere except when it achieves the magic combination of high dollar value (think $Bs, not $Ms) and demonstrable impact. News outlets will report about cause campaigns in a business context or cover a particular stunt, but their primary concern in the realm of public good is government, so they are most interested in efforts that lead to government action. Public-private partnerships are the purview of the type of CSR programs represented at SI Summit, which would explain, in part, the high media turnout there compared to the lack of traditional news outlet representation at CMF.
The Winner Is…
Rather than one replacing the other, I believe we’ll see more companies blending the two. Changes in the traditional media landscape and the rise of social media are causing corporations to reconsider their tried and true approaches to CSR. Because it is becoming increasingly difficult for companies to generate the kind of earned media interest in their programs that could lead to reputation benefits which translate into increased sales, program marketing investments will need to grow.
For a cost center, big marketing dollars can be hard to come by, so linking to specific products or services via cause marketing is likely to become increasingly attractive for CSR executives. At the same time, aligning to existing corporate philanthropy causes will make it easier for cause marketers to build a coherent narrative around their brand. The internal organizational challenges to this alignment are not insignificant within large companies, but when the right thing to do also yields the most bang for your buck, change becomes more likely.
*client
Also posted at http://waggeneredstrom.com/blog/2012/06/07/cause-marketing-v-corporate-philanthropy/.
Corporate Social Responsibility 2.0
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Amazon, cause marketing, consumer engagement, CSR, philanthropy, social, social innovation
Leave a Comment Last month, the Seattle Times kicked off a four-part critical series about locally-based Amazon with an expose on the company’s lack of organized philanthropy in the community. The meme is not new–we’ve seen similar critique emerge about Apple in the wake of Steve Jobs’ death and the Foxconn scandal. What was surprising was the backlash to the criticism reflected in the comments about the article on SeattleTimes.com. Here at Waggener Edstrom, it caused us to wonder: has the American public changed its expectations for corporate social responsibility?
Next week, two conferences go head-to-head on the topic of corporate support for public good. In Chicago, the Cause Marketing Forum (CMF) will celebrate its 10th anniversary covering the intersection of commerce and cause. In New York, the Social Innovation Summit will hold its 3rd semi-annual invitation-only networking event focused on public-private partnerships.
At first blush, it might seem surprising that two events with such overlap in focus would be held at the same time. But, the reality is that many corporations treat cause marketing and traditional philanthropy or NGO partnerships as separate endeavors managed from different pockets of the organization. And, to be sure, cause marketing isn’t for everyone. It is a relatively newer strategy–the term dates back to the American Express Statue of Liberty restoration campaign launched in 1983, but similar applications precede the coining–that has largely been the domain of consumer focused companies looking to drive sales by linking to a social issue of importance to customers. The SI Summit, on the other hand, is focused on innovating longer-held corporate approaches to partnerships and giving.
Waggener Edstrom is a sponsor and facilitator of the 2012 SI Summit, and WE will also have senior agency representatives at CMF (including yours truly). Watch this space for blog posts examining the hot topics and emerging trends from both events next week. We’ll also explore the question of whether we are in the midst of a sea change in corporate social responsibility.
In the meantime, here is a sampling of the folks we’ll be following on Twitter from both events:
Cause Marketing Forum
@geoffliving
@tweetCMF
@lauragonzo
@3BLMedia
@meganstrand
@philanthropylnk
@k8e4d (WE)
Social Innovation Summit
@socinnovation
@DovSeidman
@Akhtarbad
@Hbuffett
@JeffHollender
@seemabhende (WE)
Note: this blog also posted at http://waggeneredstrom.com/blog/2012/05/24/corporate-social-responsibility-2-0/
Guns v. Knives: Lessons from the “#WarOnWomen”
Filed under: Health, Policy Communications, Politics | Tags: abortion, birth control, communications, George Will, Planned Parenthood, president, pro-life, Rick Santorum, Rush Limbaugh
Leave a Comment The saying goes: don’t bring a knife to a gun fight. But, in communications, that is not always good advice. When it comes to the issue fueling talk shows across the country–women’s reproductive rights and services–the gunslingers are drawing damaging attention to themselves.
For decades, pro-life groups have worked steadily to erode access to abortions in a series of well-organized state-based legislative campaigns. Recognizing that the Supreme Court was unlikely to overturn Roe v. Wade and that national public opinion supported access to abortions, they made state legislatures in more conservative states their battlegrounds. This “knife” strategy has been extremely effective, because it kept the battle localized and didn’t mobilize opponents at a national level.
Over the last year, some pro-life supporters brought their knives to the national forum. First, there was the heated congressional debate over federal funding for Planned Parenthood. Then, it appears one influential conservative group pressured Susan G. Komen for the Cure into cutting its funding for Planned Parenthood. In both cases, pro-choice organizations and women’s health advocates roared about the perceived attack not just on abortion funding, but to women’s health funding, particularly for low-income women. And, in both cases, they effectively rallied grassroots support to retain their funding.
The current debate about insurance coverage for birth control is one where both sides pulled out their big guns. The Obama administration decided to mandate zero co-pay coverage from all employers except for churches or official places of worship. This riled the Catholic Bishops, who’d been readying their weapons for months in anticipation. As a result of savvy strategic planning, they won an early concession from Obama who realized he did not want to be embroiled in a fight with men of the cloth in an election year.
At the same time, a law made its way through the legislature in D.C.’s neighboring Virginia that mandated vaginal probe ultrasounds for women seeking abortions. The degree to which this law insinuated the government between a woman and her doctor captured national attention, leading to a public retreat by the sitting Republican governor.
But, the real excitement came when Republican presidential not-quite-frontrunner Rick Santorum harnessed his bully pulpit to express his opposition not just to forcing religious employers to pay for birth control, but for birth control in general. This was capped off last week when Rush Limbaugh branded a Georgetown University Law student a “slut” and “prostitute” for advocating for insurance coverage of contraceptives by all US employers and universities.
In the span of one year, the debate shifted from abortion to birth control. In the span of a few weeks, it shifted from the boundaries of religious liberty to something reminiscent of the 1640s.
Pundits on both sides have speculated about whether it was Obama’s plan all along to lure the social conservatives into a birth control debate. The reason they think it might have been is because they sense, and a few recent polls bear out, that the Republicans may have just lost the women’s vote. Advertisers and Republican party officials pressured Limbaugh to apologize. George Will is now encouraging the party to shift its focus to congressional races.
I have spoken about this battle with women from all parts of the political spectrum, from the red state in which I grew up and from the blue state in which I currently reside. The one thing about which we all agree is that we can’t believe the presidential election has turned into a fight about birth control and a debate about whether the GOP is waging a war on women. But it has. Because when someone pulls out a gun, everyone pays attention.
For a play-by-play of the current debate, click here: http://dyn.politico.com/tag/BirthControl
What privacy violations and sweatshops have in common
Filed under: Policy Communications, Pop Culture, Technology | Tags: Apple, Facebook, Foxconn, Google, privacy
Leave a Comment They have us in common. Ambivalent American consumers. Facebook’s IPO announcement last week generated a flurry of news coverage and opinion pieces about the value of our personal information, and why we don’t seem bothered that it is up for sale. This comes on the heels of Google’s new privacy policy announcement that it is officially building and applying user profiles based off of anything we do on a Google site that it will use to serve up ads and search results. And, it is just a few weeks after a scathing series of articles by the New York Times opened our eyes to the suicide-inducing working conditions fueling the production of not just admired Apple’s products, but many of the electronic devices we carry with us or enjoy in our homes.
On the Chinese sweatshops, outrage is beginning to percolate. How dare they?! We didn’t know! Actually, we kinda knew, we just didn’t want to know, so we looked the other way. It has been public knowledge for some time that Apple’s ability to produce such beautiful devices in record time with astronomical profit margins was related to their China-based manufacturing. We may not have known exactly how bad the conditions were, but deep down inside, we knew they had to be pretty awful. Steve Jobs closed Apple’s corporate philanthropy shop when he rejoined as CEO. He was never shy about the primacy of well-designed products and profits above social issues.
Google has been in the crosshairs of government agencies and privacy organizations around the globe for years, and we’re now surprised that they are doing what we always suspected they were or would do? They are currently motivated by their need to compete with Facebook–the current uber-player in “helping” people disclose personal information to the masses (also known as advertisers and data aggregators). Is that really so bad?
At least with Google and Facebook, no one is getting hurt, and we get to use their services for free. Well, not exactly. According to law professor Lori Andrews, many people are being denied everything from employment to mortgages to health insurance based on what they search and share online. And, because of our lack of online privacy laws in the US, there is no requirement that those companies share their reasoning or prove its relevance. Those economists were on to something: there is no such thing as a free lunch.
How did we get here? Does the American consumer really value fast new versions of cool technology and free, efficient search and communications vehicles more than we value human dignity, privacy or even human life? Are we so busy between work and family that we’ll accept any fine print tradeoff a company puts past us? To some degree, yes.
But, the blame is not entirely ours. Facebook has been rightly criticized for being downright tricky in its attempts to create more sharing outside people’s network of “friends.” In addition to trying some of Facebook’s old tricks with Google+, Google’s promises to anonymize data after a set period of time have always been marred by questions about the quality of their eraser. Apple only released its full review of its China operations within the last few months.
In the environmental space, American consumers have demonstrated a willingness to choose, and in some cases, pay more for green products. So much so, that “greenwashing” emerged as a problem earlier this century. As the fog of ambivalence starts to burn off, technology companies may find there is more money to be made from selling us on their virtue than they can make in profits from vice.
Apple iBooks2: Innovation Trumps Communication
Filed under: Education, Technology | Tags: Apple, education, iBooks Author, iBooks2, innovation, iPad, technology
Leave a Comment Over the past year, a debate has been raging on Twitter, Facebook and the front page of the New York Times: is technology helping or hurting education? Are electronic whiteboards, learning games and video lectures providing teachers with tools to help them do their jobs better, or are they giant wastes of money that have diverted scarce resources from teacher salaries?
Today marks the beginning of the end of that debate. Apple’s announcement of the launch of iBooks2 and iBooks Author today in New York is a game changer. Some of us remember the debates about mp3s v. CDs (or even vinyl!) and what would happen to the music industry. Then came the iPod and iTunes, and suddenly the conversation changed.
Similar to how Apple partnered early with big players in the recording industry to ensure a marketplace of desirable content, they have textbook publishing heavyweights Pearson, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and McGraw-Hill on board. Kudos to them for seeing the wisdom in Apple’s observation: traditional textbooks “aren’t portable, searchable, current, or interactive.” But they are a core part of all students’ education and their districts’ budgets (According to the Association of American Publishers, the U.S textbook industry is worth $10 billion. That money comes from K-12 schools and districts and higher ed students.) Today’s e-book alternatives aren’t much better–often just digitized versions of their paper counterparts (remember websites from the ’90s?).
Some, like ZDNet’s Zack Whitaker, question whether the revolution will be accessible to lower income public schools. Given Apple’s history of deep discounts and donations of hardware to schools, I believe they will overcome this hurdle. History also teaches us that we should expect Amazon and Microsoft to produce their own e-textbook innovations in the near future.
Beyond the impact this will have on the textbook industry and on how students consume their contents, widespread adoption of iBooks2 and iBooks Author will open the door for technology to have the transformative, positive impact on education that it has had on other industries. According to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, both Jobs and Bill Gates expressed their frustration last year that transformation hadn’t yet happened. The reasons behind that are myriad: outdated hardware and networks, limited tech support for teachers, a historically older teaching corps less comfortable with technology, lack of interoperability, a marketplace that favored big, established players over innovative upstarts. iBooks2 and iBooks Author don’t solve all these problems, but they will likely improve teachers’ overall comfort level with technology in the classroom while also opening up opportunities for smaller education entrepreneurs to create dynamic content for students that is easy to use. This will give educators more and better choices and likely make them more amenable to other technology solutions.
Does today’s announcement answer all the questions raised by Matt Richtel and others in recent months about the ed tech industry? No, but it largely moots that point by closing the chapter we’ve been debating and starting a new one.
Steve Jobs, Superman
Filed under: Pop Culture | Tags: Apple, consumer culture, icon, innovation, philanthropy, reaction to Steve Jobs' death, Steve Jobs
Comments (1) Steve Jobs’ death generated a huge outpouring of affection from the American public. Unlike other major figures our society has celebrated en masse, Jobs refused to feed the public appetite for details about his private life, nor did he feel compelled to wrap his or Apple’s pile of cold hard cash in the warm blanket of support for a social cause or substantial charitable donations.
Why, then, are we so affected by his loss?
First, Steve Jobs sold fun. Much has been said about Apple’s cool factor, but much of that cool was built on the notion that their products would make life more fun (remember those dancing silhouettes rocking out in the iPod ads!). We all crave an easier, more entertaining life, and Jobs designed products that helped us achieve that goal. I remember my pre-iPod MP3 player, and it was a complicated device that held maybe 20 songs. The original iPod combined with iTunes made digital music accessible, portable and cool for anyone. It revolutionized the music industry in the process. Time and again, he transformed clunky technology designed by and for engineers into simple, “magical” gadgets we all wanted for Christmas. Even in the midst of hard economic times, we remain a consumer culture that believes happiness can be bought.
Second, we like people who make our lives easier without meddling in our private business. There are similarities between Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg in their “I know what you want before you know it” philosophies. However, Facebook’s repeated attempts to default people into sharing more than they think they want with the public have given Zuckerberg a tinge of creepiness (The Social Network didn’t help). Apple’s attempts have been subtler and less intrusive. It also helps that when Apple releases a new version of a product, consensus is that the new is actually better than the old. Thus, he did actually know us better than we knew ourselves.
Related, Steve Jobs is different enough from the average guy, while having humble roots, that neither do we feel bad about ourselves nor resent his success. Adopted child, middle-class upbringing, college dropout, lover of typography, Buddhist, hallucinogenic drug experimenter, corporate failure, corporate runaway success, creative genius, recluse, showman, questionable but consistent fashion sense, husband and father–this is a unique combination. We don’t know anyone quite like him (and, therefore, don’t feel so bad that we didn’t invent the iPhone), and yet there is something for everyone to latch onto. And, because he died young and at the top of his game, we can admire him and feel sorry for him at the same time.
Third, innovation and success are core American values, and they appear to be in short supply in other areas. While our public schools stagnated and health care and higher education became astronomically expensive, Steve Jobs led the consumer technology revolution that created better, cheaper products. His single-minded pursuit of excellence, commitment to his vision, and confidence in the face of challenge are core ingredients of the American hero. He left a permanent mark on the world–achieving the immortality we all crave–and in our homes. At a time when we are feeling a growing anxiety that our best days are behind us, we pin our hopes to creative innovators like Jobs to lead us out of the darkness. To lose him now scares us.
Does our reverence for Steve Jobs mean that we care about gadgets or technology more than we care about curing disease or feeding the poor? I think it means we feel most acutely the losses that impact us personally, and our Apple products have become parts–fun parts–of our daily lives. I also think, as with all heroes, some people have an image of Steve Jobs in their minds that aligns more with their values than his. Driving to work the morning after his death, I heard a local radio talk show host state with confidence that Jobs would have traded all he built at Apple and Pixar if he could have developed a cure for his own cancer. I doubt that’s what we’ll read in his biography, but for the people who want to believe in that Steve Jobs, it won’t matter.
