Jobs and the fun factor

I reckon by the time you are reading this, the ‘Ipun because Isad’ tributes to You-Know-Who will have subsided somewhat. And by Sunday all those Einsteins on MacBook will desist from putting up ever more brilliant graphic interpretations on his passing.

His Stanford speech will have been assigned to memory, his business methodology will be taught as zeitgeist sermons on the mount, his chronology of innovations will have been etched on every techie’s heart and even those who have never held an Apple product (yes, there are some) will catch the sadness in the air. And when the iDust settles (I’m allowed one teeny pun) what will be Steve Jobs’ legacy? In my opinion, it will be that he taught us to never underestimate the fun factor.

After his death many have compared him to Edison, and some to Ford. But Jobs’ strongest suit was not invention: MP3 players had existed many years before the iPod came as did smart phones before the iPhone and tablets before the ipad ( I was at the Oberoi Mumbai when Bill Gates unveiled the Tablet to an underwhelmed audience!), Jobs’ genius lay in taking products that already existed and covering them with lashings of fun.

Thus, boring old beige computers were now presented in delicious fruity colors. White vanilla staid shapes transformed into sexy contours. Gadgets that offered tactile pleasure just this side of legal. Gizmos that seduced and delighted you. Jobs’ genius lay in connecting with his inner child and then getting that child to ask the world to come out and play.

As a business ideology it was a killer. Too long have innovators and entrepreneurs ignored the fun factor in our lives. Too long has the Christian belief in suffering influenced our thinking. Perhaps it was his years spent in an Indian ashram that led Jobs to understand Hindu philosophy that sees all life as leela, and the world as a playground.

Some of the world’s greatest individuals like the Dalai Lama and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi are childlike in their simplicity. Have you watched children at play? They are enthusiastic, not self-conscious, unafraid, absorbed and creative. All the qualities that led Jobs to create his iconic products. When he spoke about death being the great teacher, that teaches you that you have nothing to lose, and when he endorsed young people to be hungry, be foolish, what Jobs was telling them was to have fun with their lives, to follow their dreams, their passions, to be creative, to not take it all too seriously.

And boy did he have fun himself! Whether it was telling stories through Pixar like the Toy Story to dressing for his world-watched presentations in jeans and sneakers, to schmoozing with like-minded individuals like Spielberg and Eisner (who also — by the way — made fortunes appealing to the child in us), Jobs epitomised the truth that if you are having fun in your job — you’ll be working so hard — that success will inevitably follow.

Killjoys will look aghast at the legacy of a man such as Jobs — reduced to what they consider as trivial as fun. Surely visionaries have more serious things to do then offer us tantalising ways to have more fun in our lives? But according to me the greatest thing that Steve Jobs taught us was never to ignore our inner child.

Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer
malavikasangghvi@hotmail.com