Additional post for week one: self-referential/self-cognizant media

A large part of our in-class discussions have focused on Apple.  Although my artsy family and I were already "Mac people" in addition to the countless "creative" and "alternative" free-willed Apple users of suburban America, I couldn't help but think that a large part of Apple's success has been its strategic positioning as a desirable "status product.  As we have discussed in class, this was deftly accomplished by artistic brand management by Jobs and his underlings.

The point of this post is hopefully a brief and self-referential one; the most effective (i.e. "pithy" in college-lingo) messages are the ones that are delivered in a manner consistent with their content.  I think that a large part of Apple's success has been due to its self-definition as a non-PC (i.e. non-IBM) product.  This was exemplified in the interview we watched in class (where Jobs grilled a suit-and-tie nine-to-fiver who was applying for a position at Apple and was more recently addressed with the "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" series of short commercials:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5z0Ia5jDt4

I'm sure that the aesthetically-pleasing graphical interfaces and soothing variety of fonts initially positioned the Mac as a piece of art in an otherwise-bleak technological creative wasteland, but I think that deliberate and almost surgically-precise brand management is a large part of the reason that I am typing this on a Mac.

Good messages are short and to the point.  Sometimes they even have abrupt endings (although rarely).

Religious implications of the Steve Jobs Commencement speech (Stanford):

As a technology innovator and acclaimed technology paradigm shifter, I was not surprised by the content of Jobs' commencement speech at Stanford.  As a college droupout, Jobs warns about the dangers of being trapped by the institutionally-imposed dogma and systematized structures if and the intellectually rewarding pursuits that can be gained from deviance.  To provide an example of this motif in Jobs' speech, he details how his non-adherence to the general education requirements led him to pursue a rewarding and perception-altering class on calligraphy.  These pursuits are ways of "following the heart" and personal interest, regardless of final destination.

I found this somewhat odd, especially given the nature of the other theme in Jobs' address; for all of these concerns about living life fully, Jobs notes that the primary drive underlying his technological and business success was really a cognizance and acceptance of his own mortality after a cancer diagnosis.  This is where I feel the address has religious and/or philosophical implications; by fully accepting that physical existence might be a end destination in itself, Jobs was able to more fully take risks and enjoy the resulting successes and failures.  

Jobs also notes that "Death is very likely the single best invention of life.  It is Life's change event.  It clears out the old to make way for the new."  By assigning a meaning to both death and creating a framework through which to view the impermanence of the human form, Jobs has clearly constructed an individual philosophy and perspective through which to view his world.  This individualized perception of reality addresses many of the identical questions and concerns that are addressed by more widely-accepted philosophies and religions and clearly helped create a directed and effective technological and business titan.