Dale Carnegie and Steve Jobs

Dale Carnegie


Dale Carnegie was born in Maryville Missouri on November 24, 1888. Through out Dale's life he lectured people and wrote many books on: interpersonal skills, public speaking, self-improvement, and salesmanship. Through 1915 to 1962 he wrote many books, but the one he is most famous for is How to Win Friends and Influence People. The title of this book is self explanatory. Dale's main idea in the book is that you must change yourself, before you can change peoples perception of you. Dale Carnegie did not learn from anyone. He naturally had excellent interpersonal skills in my opinion, but as he explains in his book you do not have to be a naturally good speaker you just have to do the small things, that give off good vibes to the person you are listening or speaking to. For example two little things that he mention in his book  How to Win Friends and Influence People are 1. Smile and 2. Remember that a person's name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language.  Dale Carnegie inspired and changed many peoples lives for the better. He definitely made a positive mark on the world. Founded in 1912, and still running there is a Dale Carnegie Training, that more than 8 million people have completed, and is in more than 80 countries.   

While refereeing to Dale Carnegie's 1936 book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" Warren Buffet said in an interview, "I do not have my diploma from college I do not have my diploma from graduate school, but I have my Dale Carnegie diploma. Because it changed my life" Warren Buffet is one of my idols and someone that is a extremely hard worker and very successful, so for him to say that makes me want to read some of Dale Carnegie books, when I get the chance.

"Feeling sorry for yourself, and your present condition, is not only a waste of energy but the worst habit you could possibly have."

Steve Jobs

As you probably know the late Steve Jobs was known for his extremely successful business Apple. Steve Jobs was not only a genius, but he had a extremely good presenting and interpersonal skills. He had a way to keep the audience always in awe in during his presentations. One big theme all of Apple has, and Steve Jobs does a great job of, is making everything simply. Steve Jobs makes everything from is presentation to his stores to his products. For example on his slide shows he will have one picture and maybe a couple bullet points. This puts more of the focus on him and how he presents himself instead of the information. Steve Jobs also knows his products inside and out, even though his presentations are more general, so the audience can understand them. I have no doubt in my mind that he knows just as much about all of his products, as anyone else in the company. 

"Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.''

 

Steve Jobs and Dale Carnegie Common Themes 

Dale Carnegie failed to mention anything about presenting your self in a certain way, in other words dressing nicely. I think dressing nice should be secondary, to how you present your self and what you are saying. For example, in all of Steve Job's presentation he will always wear jeans with a black turtle neck. This makes the audience focused on the presentation and the information he is saying instead of focusing on the presenter. One other thing that they both preach is that you must show emotion when you speak. If you are really passionate about your topic you will show emotion. This has a huge impact on the listeners. Dale Carnegie and Steve Jobs general principles of presenting and managing people will never change. 

One other common theme both Steve and Dale preach is do not be afraid to fail! Failure will only help you succeed in your future endeavor's. Learn from your mistakes.

Dale Carnegie

"Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success."

Steve Jobs
Below is a video I find very inspiring. It is a video of Steve Jobs talking about failure. 

"Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. "

Both Steve Jobs and Dale Carnegie both agree that you must love what you are doing in order to be successful.

Dale Carnegie

"People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing."

 Steve Jobs Stanford University Speech (2005)

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do."

Differences 

One main difference that I found was that Steve Jobs was actually talking about a product he made, while Dale Carnegie just had simple guidelines for public speaking. One thing to keep in mind when you are presenting is that, you can take all the public speaking classes in the world, but if you do not know your product or project inside out then, it will affect your presentation. Unlike a lot of CEO's Steve Jobs made everything from the stores to the actual IPOD, so everything about his company inside and out. To conclude read Dale Carnegie's book  How to Win Friends and Influence People  but more importantly know what you are talking about. 

Conituum

                                               
Myles Penniman
9/30/12


The best way to find out about how a company is ran, is to know who is running the company. That is why I read these two articles about Adam Byrant, the chief executive of conituum, and Gianfranco Zaccai, the co-founder of conituum. 
I admire both of these guys, because of their passion to innovatate. Also because they have created well known projects and innovations. 




Adam Byrant-Chief Executive
I found the article "You Can't Find the Future in the Archives" by Adam Byrant, very useful and informative. The article was an interview with the chief executive from Continuum Harry West. I think the best way to find out how a company is ran is from their higher ranking employees like the chief executive, Harry West. After reading the interview I get the feeling that conituum is a very well ran company. Harry West mentioned he is very supportive of his employees ideas. I got the feeling even before I read this, when I saw in the website under team it had pictures of all of the employees in alphabetical order. The page made it look like everyone had an equal responsibility in the company. I think this is very important to do, because in a company he have to let the best ideas win. And it does not matter if it comes from the CEO or a intern. 

Gianfranco Zaccai-Co-founder 

After reading "The engineer of Everyday Objects" by Ellen Gamerman, the first paragraph read, "Industrial designer Gianfranco Zaccai is lying in a hospital bed. But he's not sick. The fake hospital room sits in his company's offices, placed there to help find new ideas for a health-care client." After reading this I thought to myself this guy is either crazy or an extreme hard worker and innovator. Gianfranco stresses the importance of being in the situation and looking at things from different angles. For example, "As you can see Mr.Gianfranco does what ever he can to innovate. Mr. Zaccai's work requires him and his staff to pretend to be a lot of things: a Chinese parent (for Pampers diapers in that country), a basketball player (for the Reebok Pump sneaker), a bargain hunter (for a plastic Target shopping cart)

Capabilities and Clients 
Essentially what Continuum does is they help people improve their innovative ideas. One thing that I found unique about the company was they have so many areas of expertise. Everything from brand experience to product design. Also by looking at their staff I can see their employees had degrees in a variety of fields. I think it is a good thing that the company has a wide range of experts in different fields. Because if all of the employees studied the same thing, they will all think similar, and it is good collaborate with people who think differently than you, so they can criticize and help your idea. 

Observation before innovating
Conitnuum has worked on a array of projects. They have worked on designing lobby rooms in hotels, to make the hotel more profit able. Also they worked with proctor and gamble to create the swiffer. Just to name a few. The thing that I get out of the projects, that I read was you have to observe before you can innovate. For example, for the redesigning the lobby of the hotel project, the team has to have artichetures on the team, but before you can build a new lobby you must have people that study and observe people's habits. 









Articles I am referring to-
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/business/harry-west-of-continuum-on-defining-your-companys-future.html?_r=2&ref=business
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903999904576470091454779676.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

Itunes and Ipod Presentation Conclusion

     Myles Penniman

     9/29/12                                           

                                                                     

                                

             For my creating culture of innovation class on tuesday, we had to pick a innovator or innovation and present a ten minute slideshow on it. I chose to do my presentation on the invention of itunes and the Ipod.

After finishing this project I was astounded by how much impact and effort Steve Jobs had in apple products. Unlike other CEO's of other big compaines, Steve jobs not only presented the finished product he designed it. Steve Jobs did everything from deciding the price of a song to designing the apple stores layout. 

The common theme with all apple products is simplicity and design. The ipod is a perfect example of this. Unlike a lot of the music players at the time, that had a lot of buttons, the first generation Ipod only a one simple wheel. As they improved the models of the Ipod, they would only get lighter and slicker. For example the first ipod weighted over two ounces, and the ipod shuffle second generation only weighed 0.55 ounces. The simplicity of the ipod only got simpler, from the ipod wheel to only one simple button on the ipod touch. 

There was a lot of things I already knew but even more things that were new and fasinating to me. Some interesting facts I learned were,

-Apple bought SoundJam MP and re named it itunes.

-The iPod's wheel technology can measure changed in position greater than 1/1,00th of an inch.

-By 2007 the Ipod accounted for nearly half of all apples sales.

-Ipod batteries can last between 14 - 28 days if they are not used at all.

Depending on the model of iPod, the battery will continuously play music for between 8 - 20 hours if fully charged.

-The worlds most expensive Ipod was auctioned off at a charity auction for $40,000

Samsung VS Apple Article Response

Myles Penniman

9/20/12

After reading the article "The Way Forward for Samsung, and Innovation" by Sohrab Vossoughi, in the Harvard Business Review, I thought it was very one sided. The author tends to lean towards Apple's favor a little more. For example the author writes "The act of performing a task with an iPhone is fulfilling, delightful, and trustworthy, and Samsung gets this." After I read this quote I thought, wow thats a little much. Everyone is not in love with using an iphone like this guy seems to be.

The last line of the article reads, "The real impact of the Apple verdict is to make it clear to the whole world what forward-looking innovators have known for some time: that following is no longer the safest bet in consumer goods." I fully understand the authors main point, which is that in order to be successful you must come up with your own ideas and products. Essentially he is saying you can not steal from other innovators. The author is all for apple, but the late Steve Jobs even said it himself  “Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal” Steve Jobs did not play by the rules in life or in business! It is important to innovate by yourself but it is also important learn from other people. You do not have to completely copy them, but you should look at there ideas and inventions and see what you can learn from them. 

I do not think Samsung should have been accussed of anything. The author brings up a quote from an expert that reads "devices using a different navigation mode would be like "cars with square or triangular steering wheels." The analogy reveals more than the expert intended. Circular steering wheels are standard on cars because steering requires rotating something in a circular path. It's the most effective geometry, not because of human perception, but the unchanging reality of rotational motion." This is a great point the expert brings up. To say that another phone company copied something that is so general, like pitching to zoom on a phone is absurd. 

Overall I disagree with the jury's decision and the author of this article. The idea of pitch to zoom is to general of an idea to copy. I think this quote explains it better than I can: "devices using a different navigation mode would be like "cars with square or triangular steering wheels."

Below is a picture of Apples "trademark" idea "pitch to zoom"

Below is a nice display of what Apple is suing Samsung over.

Here is a little bit better explanation of what happened during the trail.

Sources 

iphone vs Samsung phone picture

http://1.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/apple-samsung-patent-claims.jpg

Apples pitch to zoom picture

http://www.technocrates.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/ipad-auto-pinch.jpg

"Samsung ordered to pay Apple $1bn" video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cZudrPG_1I

Article I am responding to

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/09/the_way_forward_for_samsung_an.html

 

7 Sources Of Innovation By Peter Drucker

                                               
Myles Penniman
9/16/12

After reading the 7 sources of innovation I thought it was great advice for someone like me who aspires to run a business someday. Here are the 7 sources of innovation written by Peter Drucker. Every innovator and business should keep these in mind.

1. First off is The Unexpected. The Unexpected is exactly what it sounds like, you have to expect the Unexpected if you want to have a successful business. The unexpected could mean failure, success, surprised, ECT. You must be ready for anything. The whole market could change dramatically by peoples unexpected decisions. A good hypothetical example of this would be if the whole electron market was down really bad in the stock market for some random reason. If you are a electronic company like say Best Buy you must adjust.

2. Second is something called Incongruities. Incongruities is basically thinking differentely. Not only thinking differentely from your competitors, but also thinking differentely from society. What I mean by this is you must find a creative idea to sell, and you can only do this by thinking differenelty to discover a new invention or idea. When I think of thinking differentely Steve Jobs comes to mind and all of his inventions. A good example of this would be how Steve Jobs and apple created the Iphone it was one of a kind at the time, no one else combined both music and a cell phone in one. Manoj Bhargava                                                                                                                                             3. 

3.Third on the list is an idea called Process need. Process need is similar to Incongruities in that you must think differentely than the everyone else. If there is a glicht or something missing in society or in a business you must find a innovative way to fix it. For example the creator of 5 hour energy Manoj Bhargava noticed that more people were consumming caffinated drinks. And in turn more people had to wait in line at stores that supplied coffe. Manoj Bhargava was innovator in that he created something that you can drink right away and did not take a while to drink nor did you have to wait in line to get the drink.

4. Fourth is called Changes in Industry and Market Structures. This topic is related to the "Unexepected" if you are a business owner you must expect the unexpected in your indurstry or market. Other business's  from within or even from with out your market could change your market. To make things simple I will stick with the 5 hour energy example. When Manoj Bhargava created 5 hour energy the whole caffene market was changed, more and more people were now buying small less expensive energy drinks rather than coffe. This meant that Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and other coffe industries had to adjust because of change in the market.

5. Demographics is esstiannly the change in population. For example the change in amount of kids riding bikes, change in amount of men over 50, change in amount of African Americans in America, ECT. These changes in Demographics change the way innovators run their business. A hypothetical example of this would be if we annexed mexico then the hispianic population in the U.S. would rise. If spanish people consume a lot of coffe then the coffe market would change, and in turn it would also effect other markets for example the bagel market would be affected because if more people buy coffe more and more people might stop by to get a bagel as well.

6. Sixth on the list is Changes in Perception. Perception is the way people perceive something. In the business world the general public might perceive a industry a certain way that could be good or bad. Perception changes over time. For example 50 years ago people did not know the affects of tobacco. So now more and more people are staying away from cigarettes so there is less advertising.

7. Last but not least is New knowledge. New knowledge of technology both scientific and non scientific. Business owners must be in touch with todays technology to run their business. There are new discoveries all the time that could affect your business. For example if the U.S. discovered they have a bunch somewhere in the U.S.! Oil companies would start digging to get the oil.

To follow these 7 rules written by Peter Drucker takes discipline and commitment. Some innovators do not take the time to stop and think about their surrounds and how the market is changing around them. This was a great learning experience reading these 7 sources/rules and, I will be sure to keep these sources in my mind when I run my own business someday!
Below is a informative interview with the author himself Peter Drucker.

Bloomberg Mayors Challenge

                                                           Bloomberg Mayors Challenge

Myles Penniman
Aug 30, 2012
http://mayorschallenge.bloomberg.org/

    
           Bloomberg's Mayor Challenge is a contest to see who can come up with the best innovations for there city. My immediate thought was this is a great idea. Because America's depends on there cities so much for jobs and U.S. the economy, not to mention that 80 percent of people live in 366 metro areas across the U.S.
            Even though I have only been to a couple major cities across the U.S. Boston to me is the most innovative city I have seen. I think the people that live in and around the city make the city what it is. Boston in my opinion has the best Universities/Colleges in the world, and when you have smart people in your city, they create more jobs and have innovative ideas which in turn attracts more people to the city. I think some cities like Boston will always be better off then say New Haven Because they have better Universities and jobs that attract people to live near and in the city.

        To go off my last point about the cities and Universities, my innovative idea would be to give tax incentives for students who attend colleges in cities, and that start businesses in those cities. This would result in more jobs for the city. Which is a very important right now because of the unemployment rate in major cities.