Steve Jobs passed Wednesday night and he left a void in technology that will not be soon matched. On the web, on twitter, on Facebook and even at Disney tributes are still being posted. He was an amazing man with an amazing story. How did he affect me and my life?
in 1984 I watched the super bowl. I was 17 years old. I watched a commercial with a big head speaking to a zombie like crowd and a woman in red shorts with a hammer being thrown and marching men chasing after her. It was amazing! My seventeen year old brain wanted what ever it was advertising. The affect was not on me alone. Millions of people wanted one too. But, alas, my family could not afford one.
I took a Fortran class in High School that spring but what I really wanted was a Macintosh. I had a Commodore 64 attached to my TV and I could make the TV change colors and play a few games but to have a Mac would have been something entirely different. I knew I wanted to work with computers and this TV ad had a lot to do with that. I went another way initially but never lost that urge. It was powerful enough to bring me back in the early 90s when I got into the technology industry. But I became a PC guy.
Fast forward many years and I found myself in many a PC v. Mac discussion. One of my good friends, Mike Pereira, and I had many of these discussions. Me being the PC guy and him being the Mac guy. They were always friendly arguments and we had a good time touting the benefits of each. I am sure Steve Jobs encouraged these types of discussions across the globe. So much so that he produced the now famous PC Guy v. Mac Guy commercials.
There were many other ways that Mr. Jobs affected all of us. I will leave those to all the tributes around. I just wanted to add that I liked his commercials a lot. I know there were marketing teams involved but without the product to back it up, the commercials would never have been made.
Thanks Steve!
Till next time…
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