Steve Jobs and Apple’s Reputation

There are a few people that we can say in our generation who have had such a tremendous effect on the world and Steve Jobs and Apple computers was one of them.  Steve Job’s innovations, creativity and stubbornness led him to build one of the most successful company and lines of products.

As a child, when personal computers were just beginning to make their way into homes, big and boxy as they were, I remember playing on my grandmother’s Macintosh, a slower more frustrating version of my father’s PC. I never remembered the button to close a window was on the opposite side and I couldn’t figure out why anyone wanted such an oddly constructed desktop.

Flash forward to college and suddenly anyone with a PC is outdated. A friend of mine spent hours constructing and ipod Halloween costume in honor of the new color ipods that had just come out. Another one, dramatically in love with his new power book showed me how the windows seemed to get sucked into the task bar. “They wrote an entirely new program just for that, just to entertain me when I close a window,” he said with pride.

The stores got bigger, brighter and more numerous. Apple.com became a major site for new information about what was quickly becoming the must-have items. Like facebook.com Apple went from being a college kid’s obsession to taking over small business offices, major firms and home computers.

When did this all happen? One day they were the ugly stepsister of the personal computer world. The next day they were everywhere, getting smaller each time, revamping their minimalist style, upping the ante on the technology they used and quickly over taking PC as the new tech-go-to guys. Many will point to the new designs, the new processing systems and the disgruntled ex-PC users who had suffered one too many computer viruses to stay loyal to their brand. But it wasn’t just the new colored ibooks that began to pop up in different colors that made them desirable.

Apple was suddenly everywhere. Many people had no real consciousness of Macintosh Computers as an option. No one else they knew was using them and there is nothing a luddite everyman fears more than switching technology to something he is not familiar with. Apple became accessible, and visible, to the general public. It began to appear in movies and the stores became more interactive. Soon, when someone heard the words “mac”  or “Apple” they nodded and said thing like “oh those new laptops I’ve been hearing about.”

iTunes, the god-send answer to the virus (and legal issue) ridden Napster and Morpheus, grew from music to television shows and movies. Simply looking up a movie online would bring you to the Apple website to see the preview. As the company extended their web presence, customers reached back in for more. The accessibility lead meant the more people looked, the more they learned. Their online stores as well as the physical ones became customer friendly. Gone was the Grandmother computers of old.

While not every company can be Apple, or Microsoft for that matter, there are important lessons we can learn about advertising, access and reputation from Apple and Steve Jobs. Beyond bad reviews, being obscure will never be a good thing. If someone says the name of your business and the response should not be “who?” Having an online web presence, including an easy accessible website as well as customer reviews and forums can be a game changer. Be searchable: if someone looks for locksmiths in your area, will you show up? If I’m looking for a good date spot is your cafe featured anywhere? Are their pictures? What does your business look like from the outside? Does it look like a professional place concerned with it’s image? Or does it appear like an amateur who threw together a website and called it a day? It’s never too late to change the game. Look at your online reputation and ask yourself if you would patronize your business. Consider what you used to know about Apple computers, how has that changed? What lessons could you learn from them?