A Boy From Colombo

Initially I thought that I should have written this a little earlier, however the Media has been very active about the demise of Steve Jobs, so I decided afterall that it is not too late to write this post. Nevertheless his absence will be felt not only among his peers but also his admirers around the globe

The First time I ever heard about this man was just three years ago when one of my lecturers wanted us to see the movie ‘Pirates of the Silicon Valley’, this film was based on the book ‘Fire in the Valley’ which portrays the rise of the personal Computer, and Steve Jobs i one of the prime characters in this film (Bill Gates, the founder of the Microsoft Corporation is also a character in this film).

That was the first time I was inspired about him and as I read, heard more of him the more I was inspired. There is a lot that we could learn from his achivements, triumphs as well as his occasional failiures and here are some of them

Parenthood – It is now a well known fact that Steve Jobs was an adopted child and this fact never disturbed him nor his inventions. It may be suprising for some that how this factor could affect any human at whatever condition, but the harsh reality is that this factor have been disturbing effects on certain individuals who believe that this would be a hindrance for their success, specially Countries in East where petty issues like Caste and Family lineage become decisive factors in their lives

Education – It is a well known fact that Steve Jobs was a dropout from college, this did not hinder his vision to create. This is unfortunately not the attitude towards education in Sri Lanka, where the Race from entering the Child to a prestigious school in a city to sending these children to all the existing tution classes in order to gain admission to prestigous universities has been an accpeted norm among many parents. So dropping out from a University (for whatever reason) is a considered a crime. But this man was bold enough to take a step forward and show the Power of Education presented through innovation than paper qualification awarded by Universities and Colleges.

Challenging Traditions – Steve Jobs did challenge the Tradition that Computers that were initially developed for large scale firms should  be brought into houses, Computers used by officials should be bought to home and used by children and house wifes. This was by far a revolutionary concept that was risky yet was proved successful

Accepting the Rejected – According to the Documentry Triumph of the Nerds and the film Pirates of the Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs had borrowed the concept of the Graphical User Interface from XEROX, which needless to say had no intension of going ahead with the development of the GUI, so thrash was converted to a treasure as a result of accepting the rejected. It is natural that we Sri Lankans at times are hesitant in taking taking daring decisions due to certain socio economic constraints and the fear of being humiliated, but this man was brave enough to take all these risks and in turn succeed in all his ventures.

Presentation – This is a very important aspect in any development. It is useless boasting about a creation from the developers point of view, it has to be presented to the common individual and it is the common man who has to be convinced. To do that Steve Jobs used a different technique, A technique which involved more interaction with the created object and Slides with less words(To read more about his techniques in presentation read the book ’The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs’). I recently observed a debate between two schools on TV, where the Students were trying to explain too many facts within a short period of time which was not clear

Retiring – The way in which he retired is a noble example for all Sri Lankans, when he realised that he lacked the potential to give his best he left Apple, the Company INITIATED BY HIM.

Finally I do understand that there is a wide difference between the Cultures existing in the Country that Steve Jobs lived and the Countries in the East, but I there wasn’t a big difference between the attitude towards hardships in the east and west, after all if there is a will there is a way.

Have a nice Day !