The Housing Chronicles Blog: October column for Builder & Developer magazine now online

Thursday, October 13, 2011

October column for Builder & Developer magazine now online

My column for the October 2011 issue of Builder & Developer magazine is now posted online.

For this issue, entitled "How to Create Insanely Great Products," I reviewed the many lessons that the building industry could learn from Apple and its co-founder and former CEO, Steve Jobs. Although it will be pretty obvious that I wrote the column itself prior to his death, the points I wanted to make are still the same. RIP Steve Jobs.

An excerpt:

Like many others of my generation, I grew up with Apple products from the Macintosh to the iPad. When I bought my last car, I made sure it offered a direction connection from an iPhone or iPod to the stereo system, and I regularly give iTunes gift cards to family members under 25. When my parents got sick of the constant viruses and software updates to run their standard-issue PC, even when approaching age 70 they decided on an all-Apple format for their home office.

In other words, this is a company which has become so pervasive that it’s cut across almost all the lines which often separate consumers – gender, age, ethnicity, religion, language and, to an extent, income – while in the process managing to shake up several legacy industries and creating one of the world’s most valuable companies. Now that Apple CEO Steve Jobs is shifting gears to become the company’s non-executive chairman, I started thinking about rare it is to have a business visionary like Jobs and what the building industry might learn from his success...

To read the entire column, click here.

To read the entire October 2011 issue in digital format, click here.

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