Started from almost nothing, Steve Jobs showed us that if we pursue on something that we believe, it will come true. Besides the skills and collaboration with expert people, the main factor that contributed to the success of Steve Jobs is his belief that the computer was going to change the world, and it was going to become what he called “the bicycle for the mind”. It would enable individuals to have this incredible capability that they never dreamed of before; He was a person of huge vision. But he was also a person that believed in the precise detail of every step. He was methodical and careful about everything a perfectionist to the end. He always looked at things from the perspective of what was the user's experience going to be. But unlike a lot of people in product marketing in those days, which would go out and do consumer testing, asking people, “What did they want?” Steve did not believe in that. He believed that showing someone a calculator, for example, would not give them any indication as to where the computer was going to go because it was just too big leap.
Steve Jobs is not an ordinary student as what some of the people expect. He did not finish his college because he started his business in an early stage of his life. The business that he started is not ordinary. This business was started from a scratch. In my own perception, this was one of the factors that contributed to his success. His business was to find another way how the ordinary people can also use computers by their selves because at their time only big companies like IBM or International Business Machines can only use computers for their own good. He persevered and found a solution to achieve what he wanted to do. Like other awesome humans, he was a risk-taker. He did all his best just to come up with his idea of his codes to be used in the computer that he wanted to build. As usual, he did not come up with good results at first. He tried and tried his best to come up with good results whatever he may encounter in his life. Being persevere was also the factor that contributed to his success.
When he tried to introduce their product to a company, he wished that their product which was the personal computer would not be appealing to them. Because of his clever mind, the company that they visited declined to use their invention. He was so very happy to know that the company did not have the interest to take their invention and that leaded him to take that opportunity to make it more powerful and thought of building their own company to produce the personal computers. He also has this tendency of pushing his co-workers to their limits which, if became abusive, gives him the title of an encouraging superior or partner just like what he did to convince his friend, Steve Wozniak, to sell his invention by putting up their own business rather than giving it to other companies. He had a wider perspective in his life and this was also a great contribution to his career. Another factor that contributed to Steve Jobs’ success was how he charms and manipulates possible investors to deliver his business and convince people to buy his product which I think is also the reason why Apple hired him back.
Steve Jobs experienced a lot of failure moments when he was still in the Apple Company. Steve was fired because he had an attitude of being an abusive boss. Why? Because he turned like a monster that he cannot control his rage and did not know the right thing to do and all he did was to be an abusive boss that made his co-workers to stay away from him. In my own observation, this attitude of being an abusive boss would not occur if he did the right thing. The right thing that he must do was to sustain the daily needs of his family and accept the fact that he had a daughter named Lisa from his girlfriend. When the time that his girlfriend needed some help to sustain the daily needs of his daughter which cost a money worth $20000, he declined to help because he was consumed of his anger to his girlfriend and wouldn’t accept the fact that he had a daughter in his life. All he wanted to do was to pursue his career and be a powerful man in his time. And lastly, his problem was he was succumbed by power that is why maintaining his success was the challenge for Steve Jobs.
Because of his arrogance and being overwhelmed by his latest product, he made a team named Apple and Macintosh. The organization can become bigger but not the Mac team. The Macintosh was set up as a product development division and so Apple had a central sales organization, a central back office for all the administration, legal. It had a centralized manufacturing of that sort but the actual team that was building the product and this is true for high tech products, it does not take a lot of people to build a great product. He was so consumed with his anger that leaded the two teams to clash with each other and that made the whole company suffer a massive failure performances and it almost thorn the Apple Company down apart. Another factor that made him failed was the trick of Bill Gates. Bill planned to trick him because he wanted to use Steve’s prototype of his computer. Bill used this trick to make another prototype for his invention. He also planned to use the technology from the Xerox Company which was the mouse system and the graphical user interface. Aside from that, all he wanted to do was to create another operating system that would surely be different than the Apple Company did. He was been successful for convincing Steve Jobs to give his prototype from Macintosh and it leaded him to create a wonderful operating system that almost all the people are using at the present time. Windows operating system from Microsoft was a bit different compared to the operating system of Macintosh. Macintosh is a lot concerned to the graphical user interface of the computer while Microsoft is concerned to the functionality and the friendly-user style of their operating systems.
When we talk about the failure of Steve Jobs, It is his personal failure and not the failure of the company that he made. And the reason of that failure for me is his attitude problem. He is a perfectionist that he does not even care about the feelings of his employees. As we could see on the movie, the engineers usually do not show up until lunchtime and they work well into the night. And an engineer would bring Steve in and show him the latest software code that he had written. Steve would look at it and throw it back at him and say: “It is just not good enough.” And he was constantly forcing people to raise their expectations of what they could do. So people were producing work that they never thought they were capable of. Largely because Steve would shift between being highly charismatic and motivating and getting them excited to feel like they are part of something insanely great. And on the other hand he would be almost merciless in terms of rejecting their work until he felt it had reached the level of perfection that was good enough to go into. And that perfection that he wanted created his masterpiece of that time, the Macintosh. I can’t say that he was obsessed of power but I think he acted like this because Steve Jobs was way too much carried away by his goals in life.
Three months after his birthday celebration, Steve Jobs was fired in the company that he built. Some people are wondering if this is legally possible, well the answer is yes. You can be fired on a company even if you are the one who built it when you hire someone that has a position which has the same level as you. When that person suggested to the board that he wanted to fire you and the board will agree, you will be fired immediately like an ordinary employee. That could have not happened if Steve Jobs treated his employees well.
The lesson that we could get from his story is even though we do not have enough resources, we could still excel as a technopreneur. We should not be afraid on taking risks if we think we got what it takes to be a successful man. We could also learn from the movie that stealing someone’s idea is not really bad at all. It is because technopreneurship is either being the first to think of an idea or steal and improve someone’s idea to make it more useful.
2. How do you yourself as a technopreneur?
Before answering that question, let us know what technopreneurship is all about. Technopreneur aims to provide you with, the latest information on new, emerging Internet technology trends, sifting the hype from business reality. You will get the inside track on all things Internet technology that will affect your business tremendously. Business and technology are almost always entwined. Evolution of technology inadvertently leads to evolution in business.
Source: http://www.technopreneur.wordpress.com
For me, being a technopreneur in the near future would be a challenging one. This might take me into a wider perspective in my life. To be frank, being an entrepreneur that involves technology would be a hard thing for me to deal with. Technologies that would be invented in the future would be interesting for me. For this reason, I would be glad if I would be a technopreneur someday. I would see that if I would become a technopreneur, I would sell lots of good things that would cost lots of money. The technology that I would really like to sell is something that everyone would like to buy. As of now, I am thinking of an idea that I am going to make if I ventured in the field of technopreneurship. Actually, this idea is a product of cramming due to the mentality of making the assignment on the day before the deadline. The idea that I have thought is making a mobile stethoscope. I also passed this concept paper to a competition without his consent of our facilitator. A risky move but I realized technopreneurship is also about taking risks. To continue with my idea, it is a device that gets our heartbeat and analyzing the collected data if you have a heart disease or just normal. This technology will be a hit especially here in the Philippines because most of us do not go to the hospital for monthly check up. We do it because either we do not have money or we just go to the doctor when we feel something is wrong with our body.
To explain further, the technology for the device that I will be using is Piezoelectricity. It was discovered a long time ago but technology experts are still exploring this technology to make it more useful. To use the device, connect the device on your smartphone. Make sure first that your heart rate is normal and then put the device on your chest. Check your phone if it is already done collecting the data and wait for the results. If you are asking how the analysis works, the app on the smartphone just compares the frequencies got from your heartbeat to the database of frequencies. If your heartbeat frequency matches to a frequency labeled with a certain heart disease, that is how you will know if you have complications or not.
At first, I thought that this idea would not be approved because I do not know what technology is going to be used to implement this idea. My first proposal was using the phone’s microphone to record the heart beat but my facilitator is not convinced because the phone’s microphone is not powerful enough to record that kind of sound. Actually, I have told this story before in one of my papers but I would like to tell it again because it will somehow answer the question. So after the disapproval of my first proposal, I went outside. When I was thinking outside, one of my classmate’s idea was approved and when I questions what was her proposal, she said that it is a pen that could scan letters and transmit it to the computer as a PDF file. I was shocked because their idea was also requiring I device but it is still approved. They said that they just need to collaborate with an ECE student. So after I heard that, I immediately revised my paper and then tried to get my facilitators approval again. And when I proposed my idea, he still rejected it because he said I need to have collaboration with an ECE student so that I could explain and prove to him that my idea is possible. So I came out of his office again and tried to contact my friend which is an ECE student. Few minutes later we found him and I told him about my idea. He said that my idea is possible in fact the technology to implement my idea is already existing and in use. So I returned to my facilitator and told him what I have learned from my friend. But as expected, he did not believed it, maybe he wants to talk to my ECE friend so that he would know if it is true or not. I was hopeless that time because my friend is maybe on a ride home but luckily, he was still not far away from school and he said that he will come back. So when he came back, I made my friend and my facilitator talk about my idea and my friend delivered it well as if he was the one who is proposing. But I thought I will get the approval on that time but there is still a problem, our facilitator said that my idea is really beyond my expertise. I really felt hopeless that time. But I have to go on; there is still a little time so I keep on searching of ideas on the internet until I came up with a digital video processing application. An application that when a surveillance camera gets a scene of fire, accident or even crime, it will automatically alarm and contact for help. So I went back to his office to propose my new idea. We still have talked a little about my first proposal and I do not know what I am supposed to feel. He said that my idea was not rejected and he keeps on saying that I still need to collaborate with an ECE student. I said that my friend was ready to collaborate with me and he even talked to him personally so I asked him; if how could I convince him that my friend will really collaborate with me. He’s answer was very simple, a signature on a contract. My head would like to explode that time. I think he was just really trying my patience and my cleverness in talking with clients. That was a lesson learned. But I still feel good though, because when you analyze the situation my idea is still approved.
That story has a lot of points to ponder especially when it comes to technopreneurship. If you have an idea and you think that it is good and will help a lot of people, then pursue it no matter what it takes because you do not know what will possibly happen when your idea is implemented. It may create history. That was the reason why I insisted to pass that concept paper. As I mentioned before, it was risky to violate my facilitator’s instructions but I felt that I have to do it no matter if that concept paper will win or not. Just like in technopreneurship, you to risk something when you strongly believe that your risks will be worth it. A good example of this is when Steve Jobs sold his car just to have a capital for the company. It is like gambling. However, unlike gambling, you have a better chance of winning when you work hard for your goals and of course having enough skills.
Sometimes, being a technopreneur is not an ordinary thing to deal with. Of course, you would try to please all the people to convince them to buy your technology that you invented. For me, if I would sell that machine or device, it would take a long time just to make that technology more appealing and more functional to bring your costumers buy all of your inventions. If I might able to do that, I might experience the life of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. The life that is fool of hardships and full of stressful moments. As a technopreneur, I must also consider the situation that there will be an instance that there is someone who is going to steal my concept or ideas. It is normal actually nowadays but you must make a move that the people around you will recognize that you are the first one that implemented that idea.
To continue, being a technopreneur in the near future would be risky. If I would have the courage to pursue being an entrepreneur, I will have to have a more business-suited attitude, which means I have to wipe out my habit of being overdue and I should really try to practice managing big responsibilities. Next, I have to enhance my creativeness and innovative thinking in order to create saleable ideas. Technopreneurs are entrepreneurs who are into the core businesses involving technology-based industries. They make use of technology to come out with new or innovative products through a process of commercialization.
To be honest my vision of myself as a technopreneur is still unclear, but who knows? I might be inspired and work out on it.
3. Would you take the same career path as Steve Jobs took? Why or why not?
Right I am still not sure of what I am going to answer with that question. I have no clear vision of my future as an information technology graduate. However, every time I think of the success of Steve Jobs, I always say to myself “Hell yeah. I want to be like him, without the pancreatic cancer though”. I would like to make Bill Gates as my example but since Steve Jobs is the one who is mentioned to the question, so let us stick with it.
Steve Jobs has done a great contribution to the world. He did this by creating a prototype that made the computers achieved the goal to be with the people who wants them. He did this when he was on his young age. That is the reason why I might take the same career path as what Steve Jobs took.
To be honest with you people, I regret taking up the course of information technology. I suck at it. To be a person who has many failures in life since childhood it is hard for me to fail on the part where my future is at stake. I entered this course not because I love computer games, or I am interested in programming or what ever a reason that a common IT student says. I entered information technology for the thought of I will be surely employed when I graduate because computers will be not obsolete. I enrolled in this course without knowing what information technology is all about; what the subjects are we going to take or what kind of environment that there is. I did not even know that information technology requires a lot of math. I hated math since high school so I was like hitting my head with a stone (pfft I do not know if I translated that common Filipino saying [LOL]). However, the worst part is not being aware of one of the main subjects of this course: Programming. The first day that I encountered that word, I asked my classmates what it is all about, they said that it is inputting codes, and logics and other overwhelming stuff. Oh man, I entered a war without knowing what kind of enemies we are going to encounter. No wonder while I was still a first year, I failed two subjects, which is particularly Programming and Algebra. After that incident, I have thought of changing my course. “Information Technology is not for me”, I keep that telling to myself. However, my mom did not wanted me to shift course not because she believes that I can do it but because of practical reasons. Oh man, I am stuck with this course. I could not do anything but to follow because she is the one who is spending for my college. Therefore, I continued the saga. As time goes by, I started to like this course especially when I enrolled the subject Multimedia. I really loved that subject and it is too sad that unlike other colleges, our university does not have a major for multimedia so if I am going to be a graphic designer I have to work on my own. In graphic designing, I saw my potential future job. I love illustrating photos and editing pictures. It is fun and makes me feel comfortable while doing it. In fact, I accept photo editing and other graphical works without payment. I like it because I could enhance my skills and on the other hand, helping other people save money. Now my friends approach me if they wanted me to design or edit pictures for them, designing tarpaulins for graduation and debuts, souvenirs on any occasions, designing t-shirts and even editing videos. I love what I am doing even though I am not paid, other people appreciating my work is enough for me. My friend also liked what I am doing so he thought of an idea to make talent earn money. He had thought of a business. My friend was a computer technology student so we could create a business that fixes computers and graphical designing. I just ignored his offer because as an information technology student in the University of Southeastern Philippines, I have no such free time for a business. We do not have a capital for that business to so it is really hard for us. Then the subject Technopreneurship came. It made me thought of my friends offer and made me realize that instead of finding a job as a graphical designer, why not create a business of my own. Our facilitator inspired us about having an alternative mindset. I have entered the course IT because of a sure future job and this is because the people now are learning to get a job and forgetting on creating business. It is so ironic that the reason why I took this course made me know that I am wrong and now I am using my learning in this course to alter the common mindset.
In technopreneurship, I had also thought of helping my community and even the whole country. One of the goals of technopreneurship is making you an employer. That has made me thought of ideas that will not only help the user of my product but also the entire community. I have said in one of my works that one thing to help the community or the economy is to create jobs. I have said, “As a technopreneur, I could greatly help to propel the economy of Davao city because Technopreneurship means business, and business is one of the powerhouses for a great economy. When you have a business, you have to hire workers, so you are not just helping the economy but also you will help the unemployed. One of the things that I have thought to propel the economy of Davao city is to decrease or possibly eradicate the unemployment by having a business. Some of us may have not known this but unemployment is not the effect of economic crisis, but one of the main reasons of it. Actually, this problem will continue to create bigger problems, just like disease that keeps on spreading and slowly destroys our system and if not cured at an early stage it may cause too much greater problems.” In other words, the aim of technopreneurship is not only making yourself rich but also helping other people.
Now let us get back to the movie. As what I have observed, I slowly realized that I really hated Steve Jobs for his manner and temperament. However, he is a sort of a person that shows an idea that can be great if you will start to work and create. He is a great example that even a person did not graduate college or did not have a degree can be wealthy, instigate others, and have a mark in the history of humankind. He is truly a technopreneur, I saw in some sites in the internet telling that he was the father of technopreneurship and I believe in that. I did say no for his outcome because I do not want the kind of failure he has gone through. He has the best path of success to consider but his failure was not his business or his idea or even his team but it was he. I will not imitate and show off bad influence, attitude, and approach that he showed the people around him. This would therefore be against the principles of technopreneurship. What Steve Jobs did to his employees is he managed them, which is wrong. As a good employer, we should lead them, the employees, to better build a bond, build a team, and together become successful. No one should leave anyone behind. We must always look back although we have gained all the goals and success that we want in our lives, in short always put ourselves on the ground because everyone starts there. We as being an technopreneur, we must possess the good character and relationships between our employees in order for us not to be broken down and fail because of our bad relationship towards our employees. Nevertheless, I will follow the positive characteristics and develop myself, the skills that Steve Jobs have. I am inspired of what Steve Jobs positive characteristics and Technopreneurial skills. However, as for now, I must study hard and give the best that I could in different subjects so that I will graduate in this course and have a better degree than others have. If ever I would be given the chance to begin my own career I would really do my very best not to meet the troubles and circumstances that Steve Jobs had back in his old days. I would never be consumed by power but as an alternative, it will try to stay my feet on the ground. I will really encourage and move forward my employees to do their best in a way that is not abusive but instead being helpful and keeping feet onto the ground.
ahh mao jud :O
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