If indeed the world has become a global village and this is the age of informational and technology world order, Jobs was among those who made it so. Unlike Nigeria’s Professor Philip Emeagwali, he was not into super-computing. And unlike Bill Gates, his peer at Microsoft, he was not that much into software.
Steve jobs was a design innovator extraordinaire, who led the revolution that has enabled mankind to take the computer with them wherever they go and perform instant miracles by just touching screen surfaces.
He transformed the computer from being just a “personal” property to its actually being a part of its user, thus the “i” phenomenon. These devices converged technology into iPhones, iPads, iPods, iMac and iTunes and other digital devices from his Apple Group that bring the world to one’s fingertips. Jobs was one of the giants of the modern world, who democratised knowledge and made it accessible to those who dared to grab it.
Not surprisingly, therefore, when his death was announced on Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at the age of 56, the torrent of tributes came from all corners of the world, whose lifestyle he helped changed forever.
For us in Vanguard, the life of Jobs was inspiring in that therein lies a lesson for all people of the world that greatness can come from the most disadvantaged quarters so long as one is determined to conquer the odds of human existence. Almost everything about Steve Jobs seems a well-laid plot to prove a point that all it takes to change the world are vision and innovation.
Here was a man, who was born out of wedlock. He was given up for adoption when he was born. In some cultures he would be looked upon as an “illegitimate child” and victimised accordingly.
The surname “Jobs” actually belongs to his adoptive father. Though one of his biological parents came originally from Syria, he went on to live to the fullest the American Dream after joining his school friend, Stephen Wozniak, to found the Apple Company in 1976 in a garage in California. He was even once a user of the hard drug LSD. He could not even complete his education at Reed College, Portland before going into his private endeavour. This is an attribute he shares with Bill Gates.
We in Nigeria, especially our youth, have a lot to learn from the life of Steve Jobs. He left a lot of questions for those in political authority to ponder. One such lesson is that the circumstances of one’s birth and experience, while growing up need not determine what one will be in future.
If we apply our faculties positively we can move from job seekers to employers of labour. It is difficult to imagine how many people in the world are gainfully employed using the innovations that Steve Jobs has put in our hands.
Jobs was an expert at bringing the best out of specialists he coordinated. He was a perfectionist, who often got criticised as a slave driver but in the end the result always justified the effort. He did not believe in the concept of giving the customer what they wanted. As far as he was concerned: “It is not the consumers’ job to know what they want.” How on earth would a consumer on the street ever know it is possible to put the world in your pocket and carry it wherever you go as Job’s “i” gadgets have enabled people to do?
While we celebrate the life and times of this unusual achiever, we should also spare a moment to consider why our environment is not conditioned to produce the Steve Jobs kind of geniuses. We need to find out why it would take an Emeagwali to leave Nigeria and settle in America before he could pioneer the supercomputers that enable the world to connect to the Internet.
Unless we address our minds contemplatively to these questions, we may only sit by and watch the likes of Steve Jobs come and go in other climes, while we remain relegated in the backwaters of perpetual consumers.
SOURCE: VANGUARD NIGERIA
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