In an article about Apple’s iCloud (here), CNN Tech talked about what Steve Jobs learned from his experiences starting Pixar Studios. When Apple launched the iTunes store in 2003, Steve Jobs was interviewed at the All Things Digital Conference in 2003:
In that interview eight years ago, Jobs described the vast divide between technology and entertainment executives, and he talked about how he bridged it.
“One of the things I learned at Pixar is the technology industries and the content industries do not understand each other,” he said. “In Silicon Valley and at most technology companies, I swear that most people still think the creative process is a bunch of guys in their early 30s, sitting on a couch, drinking beer and thinking of jokes. No, they really do. That’s how television is made, they think; that’s how movies are made.”
Likewise, record executives can’t relate to technical people, Jobs said.
“People in Hollywood and in the content industries, they think technology is something you just write a check for and buy,” Jobs said. “They don’t understand the creative element of technology.
“These are like ships passing in the night,” the Apple co-founder added.
The technology-content tension doesn’t only exist at your church, on your team, it is a universal tension. God created each group vastly different for great reasons.
I think many of us would agree, that Apple has figured out ways to seamlessly combine content and technology, making it appear effortless. And the impact of getting that right has changed the way the world functions.
We are just talking about computers, here.
How much more could the world be changed, if we could harness the technology-content tension for the benefit of telling the most life-changing message there is?
