I want to shadow Steve Jobs

I know what most of you are saying: “I don’t buy your story why you didn’t go to the Apple Event on Regent Street, you’re no real Apple nerd!” or “you were just scared to death to go to the Apple Store” and “why don’t you have an iPhone yet? Even our Business Stat tutor has an unlocked one!” OK, I’ll give you credit for one of these: apart of not wanting to stalk El Grande Stevo, I was probably a bit scared to go there. And, yes, considering how well the unlocked iPhone of our tutor works I am ENVIOUS!

Anyway, there is some small progress. For one I have contacted MBA alumni who are now working at Apple. Obviously they wouldn’t give me his email address directly (not necessary anyway, a quick Google spits it out in seconds) but at least some clues on what I would need to do to impress him. For example trying to send an old school snail mail paper letter - hadn’t thought at all about that in my paperless mind.

Another lead looks even more promising, although it is more remote. A professor of the school was the classmate of a high flying executive at another company in Jobs’ history. My first attempt to contact him has not yet been successful, so I’m waiting and hoping.

But hope is no management tool, more action is needed!

So I missed Steve Jobs in London. I knew he would be at the Apple Store at Regent Street today and I didn’t go. I mean, I had an important course to follow this morning… Non sense!

But you see, there is a difference between meeting Steve Jobs and stalking him. You think I might have been able to give him my 30 second elevator pitch on why I would want to do my shadowing project with him? Maybe. My guess however is, that launching the iPhone in the UK was kind of higher on his agenda.

Anyway, I’ll get my chance to meet Steve Jobs.

Let’s imagine for a short moment that all my dreams come true and say 4 months from now I will be jumping on a plane to San Francisco to meet Steve Jobs. 1, Infinity Loop, Cupertino - here I come.

I get off the cab, go to the reception and am almost p…ing my pants when I tell the security guy “I’m supposed to meet Mr. Jobs…” He looks at me strangely and asks “May I have an ID, please?” He has a look at it and calls somebody. “Please wait over there, Mr.” I sit down in one of the designer armchairs in the lobby and wait.

10 minutes later a regular guy with turtle neck and glasses is heading towards me. Oh, my god it’s… not Steve Jobs. “Hi, my name is Stanley. We’ll just have to go through a couple of administrative things before we go to Steve’s office.” “OK, no problem”, I hear myself say - still shocked by the black turtle neck. Is this some kind of uniform?

Stanley brings me to a small room with a table, two chairs and a seemingly infinite number of photos on the walls. Sad photos. Photos of desperate people. Photos of people in court rooms. Photos of people crying in front of their houses while policemen take their furniture, their car and everything what is remotely valuable. I am starting to be scared…

“Don’t worry”, that’s Stanley’s voice, “this won’t happen to you. Just stick to the rules. As you will surely understand we have to protect our company secrets. You’ll follow Steve and will see our most recent product developments. We can’t risk that any of this gets out of the Apple campus.” And then he hands me over a one page non disclosure agreement - an Apple logo on top and very neatly laid out in the venerable Helvetica font. Written in some law talk it reads like Apple would chop off my hands if I only have the slightest thought of writing a word about what I will see and will stitch my lips if I only distantly consider talking about it.

“Consider my lips sealed”, I say while signing the paper.

Day 10 since the official start of my endeavour to connect to His Steveness. My first step, however, was of pretty low coolness. I posted a message on the school’s discussion board to all the alumni, students and faculty. Not so uncool in itself. However my message sounded much more like “Hello, I am a PC…” than “Hello, I am a Mac…”.

Sentences like

I am certain that if together we are able to convince Mr. Jobs to be shadowed, this would not only be a great personal success for me, but would positively reflect on London Business School.

can only be written by a brainwashed monkey who spent too many years writing politically correct emails in a large corporation. Dear Steve (should you read this post some day) I promise I’ll do better than that!

OK then, why do I want to shadow Steve Jobs? I was thinking about how to start this blog for a while and there is different alternatives. I don’t want to bother you with going back to my infancy to understand my passion for Apple in general and Macs in particular. Also the whining about “Windows only copied Apple, poor, poor, poor, Apple” which then goes over into “and now see who is kicking M$’s a.. in the music business” ending in “Steve Jobs is so great” story is not cutting it.

It’s that I love beautiful things. I love simplicity. I love when it just works. I love tiny details that show that somebody has actually thought about how to create an excellent product. I love to see that great products can revolutionize how we do things.

That’s why I want to meet Steve Jobs: who is this guy who is able to inspire his people to create products that are so simple and yet functional? Who is this guy who creates an environment where only beautiful designs make it to products? How does his passion for stunning design translate into gorgeous products?

And in the end learn: How can I turn my passion into changing how we live and do things?

One nice day not too long ago I arrive at this business school. “The best Years of your life”, “Enjoy every minute” and “Infinite opportunities” - that’s the song of joy alumni, faculty and business school staff are singing to us during the welcoming orientation week for new MBA students.

“Infinite opportunities” - I’ll take this one. And I’ll mix it with the 1st year project that stroke me the most: work shadowing an experienced manager. So, if I really had infinite power, whose steps would I like to follow for 5 days? Richard Branson? Too late, already done. Some politician in my home country? Too boring, our balanced political system is as uninteresting as it can be.

Suddenly an insanely great idea pops up: Steve Jobs, the heart and mind of Apple Inc.! Why him? A topic for my next post.

Curious if I will make it? Stay tuned.