In 2007, Steve Jobs was getting ready to launch Apple’s new venture.
A mobile phone.
But not just another mobile phone.
This one wouldn’t have a keypad, just a touch-screen.
It would be totally sleek, with just a single on-off button.
Absolutely everything else would appear on the screen.
Numbers, letters, pictures, emails, websites, photos, videos.
This phone was also a camera and an MP3 player.
It was also a mini-computer that you carried in your pocket.
Steve Jobs needed a name for it.
He’d already launched the revolutionary iMac, and iPod.
So the name for the next revolutionary addition to the Apple family seemed obvious, iPhone.
It wasn’t overblown and pretentious like all the other companies’ names, which was why it fitted with Apple.
iPhone was simple and understandable and human
Which was why iPhone had the potential to be huge.
It could define the market, it could become the generic.
There was just one problem.
Someone else owned the name.
Cisco had patented the name for their handheld device that let you access Skype, photos, and music, wirelessly from your computer.
This was a problem for Jobs.
He wanted the name, Apple deserved the name, it was unfair that someone else had it.
He asked his ad agency for alternatives names.
But the more names they came up with, the more obvious it was they weren’t as good as iPhone.
Jobs saw it as inevitable that Apple should have the name.
He had his lawyers contact Cisco’s lawyers.
Eventually the two sets of lawyers thrashed out an agreement that was a compromise.
It restricted Apple’s rights to the name.
Something Jobs wasn’t happy with, but at least it was legal.
At least the lawyers were satisfied.
The night before the launch, Jobs was due to sign the agreement.
But he didn’t sign it.
He just went and launched the iPhone as the iPhone.
Without signing anything.
He ignored both sets of lawyers.
He decided his device would be known as the iPhone, and everyone else would have to sort out the details.
Everyone at Cisco and Apple was shocked.
Cisco straight away sued Apple.
Apple’s lawyers started talks with Cisco’s lawyers.
Legal talks inevitably take a long time.
And Jobs knew, all the while these talks were going on, the iPhone was becoming a bigger and bigger brand.
The launch was a worldwide phenomenon.
The longer the talks took, the more the iPhone became embedded in everyone’s minds.
Every week the talks went on, the iPhone became the name for that type of phone.
Eventually it became obvious, even if Apple stopped using it, the world was now calling Apple’s phone the iPhone.
There wasn’t really any point in Cisco continuing the legal action.
In a face-saving move, Cisco agreed that they and Apple would each use the name for their own product.
Steve Jobs knew the tsunami he created would be irresistible.
He didn’t put reality on hold while he waited to see what the lawyers would say.
He let reality create its own momentum and roll right over the lawyers.
When we have a great idea we can look for reasons not to do it.
Or we can look for reasons to do it.
We can treat every problem as an impenetrable wall.
Or we can treat it as a speed bump.
Nowadays, nearly everyone in the world has heard of Apple’s iPhone.
Cisco’s iPhone doesn’t exist anymore.
The world of performance vs the world of reasons.
Ben - 15 August 2012 9:49 am
Yup Ben.
As Werner says “You can have what you want, or you can have your reasons for not having it.”
Dave Trott - 15 August 2012 10:03 am
Here’s the thing, Dave.
Steve, IMO, obviously has not respect for other people or thier legal rights.
But when the shoe was on the other foot, Steve would insist upon and demand on his rights.
For example, his vendors were not allowed to put the apple logo on their client list.
However, when Steve was doing a presentation, he would often use his partners’ logos.
Without their permission.
And almost always not complying with the partners’ Corporate Identity.
The advertising business is brutal and unethical enough as it is.
Do we really need someone who operates like Steve Jobs?
If we say yes, then we only have ourselves to blame when less than honest bankers make victims out of innocent people.
Robin. - 15 August 2012 10:21 am
Robin,
So here’s how it is for me.
We notice that people like Steve Jobs will use the rules how and when it suits them.
That’s what successful people everywhere do.
We can grumble about that, or we can learn from it.
Dave Trott - 15 August 2012 10:35 am
The more I hear about Steve Jobs the less I like him.
Jeff Preston - 15 August 2012 1:41 pm
I am sure we can learn and grumble.
It doesn’t mean we have to emulate.
Look at the incredible mess some successful CEO’s leave in their wake.
Trust in big business and politicians is at a historic global all time low.
Largely because they broke the rules, sometimes the rules they set.
Jim - 15 August 2012 1:58 pm
Dave, when you say rules, does that include laws?
When you say ‘learn from it’, does that mean don’t follow? Or take a page out of their book? Thanks.
Robin. - 15 August 2012 4:49 pm
Hi Robin,
Rules can mean law, as in football.
If you break the rules or law, and get found out, you pay the penalty.
If what it cost isn’t worth what you got then that’s not a good deal.
If what it cost is worth what you got, it may well be a good deal.
Each person has to take that decision for themselves.
As I understand it, Jobs would bend the law as much as possible to get what he wanted.
He wouldn’t actually break it.
He would also use the law to stop anyone else doing something he didn’t want.
In that sense he may have been a hypocrite, but it wasn’t illegal.
Was he immoral, or was he smart, or both?
Each of us have to decide how we feel about that for ourselves.
Personally I feel the end justifies the means.
Biut my ends may be different ends to Jobs’ ends.
So I’ll learn from his means and use them for different ends.
I don’t have to like the bloke, or agree with him, to learn from him.
Dave Trott - 15 August 2012 7:22 pm
Jobs loved his product and his consumers more than his competitors.
He didn’t care what anyone else thought.
His was a ruthless and brutal strategy.
His competitors were equally ruthless and brutal.
Advertising and business are no different to a boxing match.
The bigger your punch.
The more force applied.
The greater the follow-through.
The more knockout wins.
The bigger the pitch invites.
The harder the knocks.
The greater the rewards.
The hard part is between the ears.
Kev - 16 August 2012 12:45 am
I don’t get it.
If Cisco has the legal rights to the name,
can’t they sue Apple for what its worth?
Surely Cisco will laugh all the way to the bank?
Or am I missing something?
Irfan - 16 August 2012 7:12 am
Irfan,
I think you have to be able to prove the actual amount of damage done (money lost).
So what you win is compensation for that amount.
That’s where Jobs was really clever.
Cisco’s iPhone wasn’t very big, the damages wouldn’t have amounted to more than a few million.
Jobs calculated that, to Apple, that name was worth many, many millions.
Cisco did sue Apple.
Jobs had his legal team delay Cisco’s legal team with injunctions, etc.
All the time Cisco is paying their lawyers by the hour.
Eventually Cisco’s legal team will cost more than they will get in compensation.
It isn’t worth it to Cisco.
It is worth it to Apple.
That’s what I admire about Jobs.
He doesn’t simply as ‘Is it legal?” and use that a reason for not doing it.
He asks “Is it worth it?”
Dave Trott - 16 August 2012 8:34 am
Thanks for Point 8, Dave
The book I read tells i differently – Steve called the Head of Cisco on Valentine’s Eve – not eve of Valentine’s. But 14th Feb, around dinner time
Steve bluntly told Cisco, “I need the name”
There was no “I’ll buy it or can we talk?”
Call me old school but decency and manners still count.
Robin. - 16 August 2012 9:08 am
Robin,
I don’t think qnyone disputes that Jobs was an arsehole.
Even his biggest admirers admit that.
I just think that’s irrelevant.
I don’t go to Jobs to learn ‘decency and manners’.
I go to Jobs to learn how to revolutionise an entire industry.
I go to Jobs to learn creativity and effectiveness.
‘Decency and manners’ is a different subject.
Dave Trott - 16 August 2012 9:19 am
It a good point Dave.
A bit like when people moan about Wayne Rooney being thick.
Nobody ever says, that Stephen Hawkins is clever but a shit centre forward.
Context knocks once again.
Jim - 16 August 2012 10:34 am
This discussion reminds me of the response from Karl Malone of
the NBA when asked about being a role model, he said “They pay me to take the other team apart, not to raise your children.”
Ciaran McCabe - 16 August 2012 10:38 am
I absolutely love that quote Ciaran.
it made me laugh out loud.
Dave Trott - 16 August 2012 10:47 am
Hallo Dave,
For me, it’s about winning without cheating.
The fear is, in learning how ‘to revolutionise an entire industry’, we un-learn ‘decency and manners’.
This whole ‘decency and manners’ thing – aint’t that what progress and being civilized is all about?
Robin. - 16 August 2012 10:47 am
For me, it’s about winning without cheating.
The fear is, in learning how ‘to revolutionise an entire industry’, we un-learn ‘decency and manners’.
This whole ‘decency and manners’ thing – aint’t that what progress and being civilized is all about?
Robin. - 16 August 2012 10:50 am
Good examples Jim.
Apparently, Marilyn Monroe once said to Albert Einstein “We should have a child together: imagine it with your brains and my looks.”
Einstein said “A nice idea my dear, but what if it had your brains and my looks?”
We have to use discretion about what we take from who.
Dave Trott - 16 August 2012 10:55 am
This is fabulous tale. Even though Apple is now one of the most aggressively litigious companies worldwide. But it shows the spirit, strength and single mindedness that actually made them…worldwide.
Apple created so many exciting new markets under Steve Jobs. His legacy is a kick up the arse to all taking part in this technology revolution – the most significant revolution since the industrial one, as history will record in a hundred years time.
In all, exciting times for fresh thinking, stubbernness, vision, intellectual aggression and world inspiring advertising and communications!
Julian Williams - 16 August 2012 11:05 am
As a postscript to my last comment. I find the technology that is inspiring this new revolution understandable, inspiring and liberating.
In the industrial revolution cottage industry was smashed and factories were born.
With the technology revolution I now have the tolls to create my own cottage industry – back in my “own home” as a freelance writer.
Kind of weirdly full circle, in a way. Just a thought
Julian Williams - 16 August 2012 11:14 am
Obviously that’s important for you Robin.
It was also important for David Abbott and Bill Bernbach.
It was less important for Charles Saatchi, Ed McCabe, and George Lois.
It was important for Alf Ramsey.
It was less important for Bill Shankley, Brian Clough, and Alex Ferguson.
Personally I don’t see the two things as connected.
Dave Trott - 16 August 2012 11:19 am
There’s a different way of thinking about this. It is now accepted as self-evident that Steve Jobs was a genius who could do no wrong. But what if the opposite were true? That Apple would have been even more successful without him. What if he was actually holding them back? Completely unknowable of course. It’s like the bloke who discovered the Beatles. He is always lauded as a genius. But he may have turned down bands that were much better and would have been more successful than the Fab Four. But we don’t know so we can’t call him an idiot.
Maurice Trim-shaft - 16 August 2012 1:25 pm
This is an interesting article on Jobs
http://www.wired.com/business/2012/07/ff_stevejobs
Toast - 16 August 2012 1:36 pm
Maurice,
What we do know is that Steve Jobs grew Apple from nothing into a very successful company by 1984.
He was fired from Apple in 1984.
Then he returned in 1997 and built them into the global giant they are now.
So we can look at Apple with Jobs, without Jobs, and with Jobs again.
In the years he wasn’t there 1984 – 97 they were run by someone else and became all but bankrupt.
So I think we can judge Jobs on performance, not speculation.
Dave Trott - 16 August 2012 2:48 pm
Thanks Toast.
I’ve printed that off and I’ll read it on the tube home tonight.
Dave Trott - 16 August 2012 3:26 pm
I was once almost as aggressive as Jobs. In Secondary School, when a classmate jokingly accused me of some wrong-doing, I actually threatened to sue him.
I suspect that despite what you say, ethics matter a lot to you. Otherwise, you’d be like so many others – selfish, unthinking, manipulating.
But from the short time I’ve known you, you come across as a decent, generous person.
My exCD, not unlike Jobs used to bully and abuse his teams in the hopes we would produce good work. Later, when I was in London, and spoke to those who worked for you, they would tell me, ‘nah, Trottie would never do that – bully, abuse, threaten.
Robin. - 16 August 2012 3:48 pm
I wouldn’t do anything Robin unless there’s a good reason.
Form follows function.
So I wouldn’t bully, abuse, threaten for no reason.
But if there was good reason to bully, abuse, threaten of course I would.
Dave Trott - 16 August 2012 4:04 pm
One of the hardest lessons in business is to separate emotion from fact.
However once this is achieved, you enter a different plane of thought.
When I had my own business we went through black monday.
All our budgets were halved overnight.
I wanted the board to fire everyone except the partners.
They all started to fight their corner with pathetic excuses:-
“I can’t fire so and so because I need x for y.”
They wanted to “look good and act bad”.
I wanted to “Act good which would have looked bad”.
The result was the agency went bust because it could not sustain its staff overheads
and the other partners would not take the appropriate action responsibly because they were too lazy to work that hard to save what we had, so they lied to everyone and lost their credibility as individuals instead of taking the tough decisions they should have done. When the reciever came to visit me he told me;-
“I wish you had been on the board of directors when it went bust”.
And of course, when the agency went bust, they all lost their jobs
and a number of good friends had to take a hit including myself as the other directors dumped me with dealing with all the debt. They ran away while I dealt whith it for the next ten years sorting out the mess they had left behind. Had they taken my advice, we could have kept going and got the same people their jobs back within a year, but instead of that, I had to also suffer abusive phonecalls from staff family members because my fellow board members did not act decisively and responsibly.
Responsibility has a price.
And today I still don’t shun my responsibilities.
If I’ve made a mistake I admit it immediately.
Never run away from your responsibilities
now matter how much it hurts.
That’s why I respect Dave so much and others like him.
It’s one thing working in advertising.
It’s a completely different thing running your own business.
Kev - 16 August 2012 7:21 pm
Well we’ll never know about all the great ideas that Steve turned down. I shall judge him on speculation rather than results. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind/care.
Maurice Trim-shaft - 17 August 2012 9:26 am
Dave,
I once overheard somebody saying they disliked SAF because they thought he was a bully. Of course I couldn’t help myself from interjecting their thought process. “He’s not a bully, he’s from Glasgow”. It’s all about context. Btw isn’t bullying just cajoling with negative p.r?
john p woods - 17 August 2012 1:31 pm
Bullying comes in many guises. Surely this is more about getting what you want at all costs. There is s big difference.
kev - 17 August 2012 5:35 pm
John,
Fergie is in charge of blokes earning up to £10 million a year to do a job.
IMHO if you’re not doing your job for that money you deserve more than bullying.
Dave Trott - 17 August 2012 5:45 pm
I agree Kev.
I think Robin is disputing the ‘at all costs’ part.
We each have to decide for ourselves what the limits of that are.
We can all agree that it would certainly apply to our family.
We may differ on whether it applies to our job.
Personally I’m not that interested in what it was for Steve Jobs.
I want to learn from him how he does what he does.
I’ll decide for myself when and where I apply it.
In WW2 the Allies learned a lot from Rommel about how to use tanks.
They used that knowledge to beat him.
They didn’t all decide to become members of the Nazi party.
Dave Trott - 17 August 2012 5:50 pm
There are some managers and boards who seem unable to learn from the most successful club. That’s when certain players decide they do want to join the party.
Does that apply in Advertising?
john p woods - 17 August 2012 6:14 pm
So it’s okay to trample over someone else’s rights to get what you want? Criminals everywhere already think like that, and I’m not going to admire someone just because they had the balls to be bigger and better at it.
Roger - 18 August 2012 1:32 am
Roger,
As George Bernard Shaw said:
“The reasonable man adapts himself to fit the world.
The unreasonable man adapts the world to fit himself.
All progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
Dave Trott - 18 August 2012 9:59 am
I often talk about the naming of the iPhone, and how it took “huevos” to call it a phone. Huevos, smarts and leadership. I know many CEOs that would have called a product like this nexus or some other silly thing. That said, THIS story proves Steve Jobs brilliance.
Steve Poppe - 18 August 2012 3:14 pm
When you slap the water, the fish start to move.
john p woods - 19 August 2012 6:14 am
Steve,
That’s exactly right.
If you read the book ‘Insanely Simple’ you can see a list of the other pompous, meaningless names the other companies used.
You can also see how they are all the same and consequently invisible.
And how iPhone stands out from everything else and is the only one we remember.
Dave Trott - 19 August 2012 11:10 am
Thanks Dave. Ordering the book now….Steve
Steve Poppe - 20 August 2012 5:03 pm