The wonderful definitive biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson spends many pages on the close collaboration between Jobs and his Chief Designer, Jony Ive. Ive was the brains behind the design of the iPod, iPhone and iPad. He and Jobs worked closely since 1997, refining a minimalist approach with an emphasis on rounded rectangles that makes Apple’s products so beautiful and unique. Great design works so effortlessly that we often ignore it as we enjoy it, while crappy design gets in the way of usage and pleasure. When I read a blog by Joseph Szczesny of The Detroit Bureau a couple of…
Author: Lloyd Graff
I’ve been anxious to see Tim Tebow, the controversial Denver Broncos quarterback people love to hate because he is unabashedly committed to his religious faith and fearlessly shows it to the cynical press and doubters. Tebow had been relentlessly mocked in Chicago going into Sunday’s game with the Bears, but once again he led an amazing comeback in the last few minutes to get to overtime and then win during the extra period. Tebow’s performance was miserable through the first three quarters, and terrific in the fourth. The Bears helped Denver by making bonehead plays and playing soft, “not to…
I had an opportunity to interview James Altucher, a writer, Web guy, venture capitalist, stock picker, who has a big following as a blogger. We discussed a lot of topics, but the one I found most provocative was his view of the importance of college for most young people. Altucher thinks the notion of 18 year olds heading off to five years of college and piling up huge debt is dumb. He looks back on his time at Cornell and wonders why he did college. This was the same conclusion Steve Jobs arrived at when he went to Reed College…
If Mitt Romney does decently in Iowa and wins New Hampshire he has the Republican nomination. If Newt Gingrich wins Iowa and is respectable in New Hampshire he has a chance to be the nominee. If Newt is the nominee, Barack Obama gets four more years to fight with Congress and Carterize his presidency. Anybody for a third party? ********* Bud Pohlman died last week. He saw the future of high production turning in the Hydromat rotary transfer machine manufactured in Switzerland by Pfiffner. In his way he was a visionary in the screw machine world in America. ********* Looking…
I see a mini-trend developing in the consolidation of companies in distribution and Hydromat machining companies. A major automotive supplier whose core business process is rotary transfer turning of steel bars is close to closing a deal with a fastener supply firm with CNC machining capability. I’ve already seen two other acquisitions of this type and I can anticipate more as the supply chain becomes more taut. Three years ago Tribal Corporation, a plumbing supply company, bought Marshall Brass to add screw machine and rotary transfer capability to their successful distribution firm. MultiTech, a primarily cold heading company near Chicago,…
Is Elon Musk, the head of Tesla Motors, the Steve Jobs of cars? Is his all-electric line of autos going to revolutionize the industry? Can one man with a vision and charisma redefine an aged, redundant, bureaucratic mammoth business with creativity and the leverage of ideas? Noah, my son-in-law Scott, and I decided to seek some answers at the brand new Tesla store in the Oak Brook shopping center just west of Chicago. Yes, store, as in Apple Store, or Brookstone, or Victoria’s Secret, which are its neighbors. The store manager Seneca Giese explained that Tesla used to be located…
One of the more interesting parts of attempting to teach my son Noah the art of business concerns negotiating. It’s a topic of enduring interest because there is seldom a day when I don’t negotiate with somebody−a client, an employee, or a partner. Lately, I’ve been reading the accounts of the messy negotiations between David Stern, who represents the NBA owners, and Billy Hunter, who speaks for the players union. From an outsider’s perspective it appears to be a botch for both sides, with everybody involved losing big−except the lawyers. What I try to teach Noah and continually relearn myself…
One of the most important things we do in our work lives is labeling, and it’s one of those things we usually do casually, without the care it deserves. Attaching words to our actions, our products, and especially ourselves adds or diminishes value. Do you “operate a machine shop” or do you “make extremely precise components which are part of a knee replacement?” Do you “work for your old man” or do you “learn from a master” or “work with your father to build something that will endure?” I believe we search for meaning in life with language as a tool, but…
Tom Friedman, the New York Times columnist, wrote a book a few years ago titled The World is Flat, where his thesis was that national and geographical separations had gone away. A factory in Thailand is the same as a factory in Tupelo and a call center in India can do the same things as one in Indianapolis. The events of 2011 have shown us that he misunderstood the hills and depressions still separating the inhabitants of our planet. The earthquake and tsunami in Japan is still affecting Toyota and Honda. They are under social and political pressure to keep…
For the last eight years I have lived my life as partially sighted. I’ve suffered detached retinas in both of my eyes, with the sight in my right eye permanently compromised and my left eye repaired by laser. My left eye is also impaired by floaters and a cataract but my doctor is afraid to operate on it because such a procedure would increase the possibility of another detachment, he says. I have a patch for my right eye that I seldom wear because I don’t want people to regard me as “disabled,” but I’m rethinking that notion because the…