[ad_1]
When the Apple Macintosh was introduced, a lot changed. It wasn’t about RAM, chips, or processor speed. Forty years ago today, our world changed. Marketing, technology, commerce, luxury brands, community, communication, and our expectations for how we will spend our time in the future have all changed pretty quickly.
Guy Kawasaki brought me one to use as a beta tester. I was 23 years old and was surprised. What I didn’t realize is that revolutions like this are extremely rare, and it was a revolution at exactly the right time for my career and for a new cadre of creators.
The Mac announced a major change that transformed computers from hobby novelties to centers of pop culture, productivity, and creative work. The Commodore 64 was a toy. This was a car. This is the first such leap forward since Henry Ford.
While the device itself wasn’t as capable (yet) as we had hoped, the clear and actionable promise it brought changed what we expected and imagined next. Ta.
Regis McKenna has never received enough credit for being the visionary behind so much marketing and the ripples it has caused. Susan Care became a minor celebrity by giving computers her face and personality.
It was the first time (perhaps outside of Edsel) that a new product launch became such a big media event.
The Super Bowl ad (which Jobs also didn’t want to do) marked a shift from advertising about products to advertising about advertising.
Once I understood the joke, I wanted to tell it to others. Insiders and outsiders. Early adopters and mainstream. Evangelists. A pattern that has been repeated hundreds of times since then.
There are few concepts that Apple can’t explain with anecdotes, and it primarily started with the launch of this one device.
[I invented two devices to work with the Mac–the first fax board in 1986, and a precursor to Sonos that would pipe your music across the room. It turns out that it’s easier to write about Apple than to work with them…]
I’m probably typing this on the 20th (or 40th) Mac I’ve owned. The pace of innovation is now at an all-time high, as Apple looks to reap profits with the aim of changing culture, not just selling products, rather than following the path started by his Mac two generations ago. It’s slowing down.
They taught people all over the world to want to do that, even if they lost the instinct to create something insanely awesome.
The changes we make are central to the work we can do.
![](https://i0.wp.com/seths.blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/image.png?resize=891%2C578&ssl=1)
[ad_2]
Source link