Time to Take a Bite Out of the Apple?
The chief designer at Apple just got knighted for his services to design and enterprise. Sir Jonathon Ive’s helped create some amazing products. Products that are wonderful to use and look at.
See the BBC story here
It’s Not About the Money
Sir Jonathon described the ethos of Apple. It speaks of personal integrity and producing wonderful objects people want. He describes Apple’s goal as:
“It’s to try and design the very best products that we possible can.
“We’re very disciplined, very focused, and very clear, across the company – that is our goal.
If we manage to do that then there are a number of consequences. People will like the product, hopefully they’ll buy the product, and then we will make some money.
The goal isn’t to make money, the goal is to try and develop the very best products that we can.”
Values We Can All Live By
These are surely values well worth copying. Here is a company with a simple desire to produce wonderful products. They are very clear and focused about being the very best they can be. The money is not the goal.
These are the endearing values of personal integrity. They are far sighted and future focused, this is the company who cannibalise itself (with ever greater frequency) in the single minded pursuit of designing the very best that they can do. They serve the interests of an idea, not popular sentiment, political pressure, bureaucratic self interest. Their customers and shareholders can choose to buy their product, they don’t have to.
It seems to work. It is a model worth mimicking.