Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Authors Walter Isaacson

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Product Description
Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.

Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.

Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.

Product Details
# Hardcover: 656 pages
# Publisher: Simon & Schuster (October 24, 2011)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 1451648537
# ISBN-13: 978-1451648539
# Product Dimensions: 10 x 6.2 x 2 inches
# Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds

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Reviews


This is well written and similar to the recent "Endgame" Bobby Fischer bio from Frank Brady in that it does a fine dance of reportage and hero worship. There's not much I will recount that you won't already find plastered on the 60 minutes website, but there's plenty on Steve Jobs and B.O., chain smoking Marxists and some good interviews of some people at Apple you don't hear much from otherwise.

I want to know the answers for the following questions.
1) How did Jobs convince Woz to do all the tech work for him and still take a share of Woz's earnings (in 1974).
2) What really inspired him to go to India? Did that trip help him in making any important decisions later in life?
3) It is well known that Jobs is not a good programmer. How did he earn the respect of his fellow workers?
4) How did he become a millionaire in 5 years? How did he get the customers to buy all those bulky machines?
5) Was he really a shrewd man?
6) How did he get a Job in Atari without a college degree?

Steve Jobs has always projected a "larger than life" image because of the tremendous impact of his great products.But,Jobs had a strict regard for privacy of his personal life. We hardly knew the guy outside of his great business achievements.

Walter Isaacson has done a a great job in revealing the "real" Steve Jobs,warts and all.The life of Steve becomes more inspiring when you realize the great hurdles that he had to cross to go on to the remarkable things he has achieved.

How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience

The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience







Authors Carmine Gallo

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Product Description
The following summarizes some of its suggestions for planning and preparing a presentation.

1)What is the one big idea you want to leave with your audience? It should be short, memorable, and in subject-verb-object sequence.

2)Identify why you're excited about this company/product/feature, etc.

3)Write out the three messages you want the audience to receive, and develop metaphors and analogies in support.

4)Include a demonstration if your product topic lends itself to such. (Eg. pull the product out of your pocket if it is 'pocket-sized.'

5)Invite partners and customers to participate.

6)Include video clips if helpful, but limit to three minutes or less.

7)Answer the "Why should I care?" that's in the audience's mind. Have a passion for creating a better future.

8)Having an enemy (eg. IBM, Microsoft) helps visualize 'the problem' you're solving.

9)Simplify your presentation (and products).

10)Make numbers meaningful - eg. "Stores 1,000 songs," not "5 GB memory."

11)Don't use 'bullet-point' style visuals; instead, use short phrases that accompany your talk, or pictures.

12)Practice, practice, practice - and ask for feedback.

About the Author

Carmine Gallo is the communications coach for the world’s most admired global brands. A former anchor and correspondent for CNN and CBS, Gallo has addressed executives at Intel, Cisco, Google, Medtronic, Pfizer, and many others. Gallo writes "My Communications Coach," a regular column for Forbes.com. He has written several bestselling and award-winning books, including The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs. Gallo has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Success magazine, and on CNBC. Gallo’s latest book, The Power of Foursquare, reveals how innovative businesses around the world are leveraging new mobile marketing tools to attract and engage customers.

Product Details
# Hardcover: 256 pages
# Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (September 11, 2009)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0071636080
# ISBN-13: 978-0071636087
# Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
# Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces

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Reviews


Performance piece

When Steve Jobs takes to the stage he often tells dramatic stories, so it's appropriate that the book itself is structured as a three-act play. Act 1 tells how to create the story, Act 2 tells how to deliver it, and Act 3 stresses the importance of rehearsal. Gallo adds "Director's Notes" that summarize each chapter (or scene), and he introduces a cast of supporting characters.

Organizing the book in this way also reinforces the importance of telling a story in three parts; of delivering a speech with three messages. In fact, Gallo concedes, the chapter on the effectiveness of breaking a speech into three "could easily have become the longest in the book."

Live action video

A book alone will go only so far. If you've never actually seen Jobs present in person, then you haven't experienced the "reality-distortion field" his charisma and eloquence creates in the auditorium. Gallo has this covered.

The book's end notes provide URLs for some of the 47,000 [...] video clips showcasing Jobs and clearly demonstrating the techniques discussed. Viewing the videos compensates for the poor-quality monochrome photos of Jobs onstage-the one disappointment in the book.

Speechwriters' playbook

The book is a playbook for writing a great speech. Jobs and his team start scripting a speech long before firing up PowerPoint or, in their case, Keynote software. They settle on an attention-grabbing headline ("The world's thinnest notebook"); then they decide on the three key messages; develop analogies and metaphors; and scope out demonstrations, video clips and cameo guest appearances.

Next they develop the "plot" of the speech, setting up an antagonist (Microsoft or IBM in the early days), dressing up numbers and including plenty of "amazingly zippy" words. Finally, they script a memorable "holy smokes" moment that people will talk about long after the event ends. The slides they eventually create are heavy on images and light on text and bullet points.

Steve Jobs in His Own Words

I, Steve: Steve Jobs in His Own Words







Authors George Beahm

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Product Description
Jobs made an indelible mark in multiple industries, and played an enormous role in creating others. Consider how Jobs and Apple shaped the following fields: personal computers (laptop and desktop), apps (for multiple electronic devices), computer animation (Pixar), music (iTunes), telecommunications (iPhone), personal digital devices (iPod), books (iBook), and, most recently, tablets (iPad). Jobs was the greatest business visionary of our era.

Jobs, who passed away on October 5, 2011 at the age of 56, co-founded Apple in 1976. He stepped down from that role in August 2011, bringing an end to one of the greatest, most transformative business careers in history. Over the years, Jobs gave countless interviews to the media, explaining what he called “the vision thing”—his unmatched ability to envision, and successfully bring to the marketplace, consumer products that people find simply irresistible.

Product Details
# Paperback: 160 pages
# Publisher: Agate B2 (October 19, 2011)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 1932841660
# ISBN-13: 978-1932841664
# Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.5 x 0.6 inches
# Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces

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Reviews


The quote about broad-based education, for example, at first seems a strange choice of topic until one reads the quotes about the Pixar years. Beahm's selection of quotes reveal as much about the editor as the speaker. Both have minds that range far and wide, yet find the diamonds amidst the terrain. Including the bibliography in this book is as refreshing as it is informative. I've not been a fan of Jobs, but this book made me soften my opinion. Additionally, and perhaps one of the most unique characteristics of this book compared to other quotation books, the editor provides the full citation for each quote and in many cases a link for the reader to visit online.

I was being treated that way. Steve Jobs was very brusque, and Jobs said, "Well, tell me about--", and, I told him about Datapoint Corporation's ARCnet network and how everybody could share the resources. And then Steve Jobs gave me his philosophy: "Everybody can have their own computer. It shouldn't be tied to anything else. Time sharing is a thing of the past." And I said, "No, I'm not talking about time sharing.