Steve Jobs : Visionary or not?

[SYNACK]

Especially if they're spelt incorrectly

 

[before you retaliate, I'm a self confessed member of the EduGeek Pedants!]

 

No retaliation, it re-enforces my point, that and my lack of care led to truly shocking spelling

[MK-2]

Especially if they're spelt incorrectly

 

[before you retaliate, I'm a self confessed member of the EduGeek Pedants!]

 

As vice chairman of the Edugeek pedantic society I'd like to also point that spelled would also have been accepted

[Dos_Box]

I'd say it isn't money specifically, its scale. Someone can be a visionary on any scale. As GrumbleDook said, Dos_Box is a visionary for his ideas for this site. Someone within a small company could be a visionary within that company, but someone like Jobs was a visionary on a global scale. He changed the future via his decisions and his drive for hundreds of millions, if not billions of people worldwide.

 

Hmm. Not really, I had a good idea and took it as far as I was able (remember when Dragonfly began to wobble?). Then Shaun took over the design and real running of the 'site', of which I now have minimal input into due to the fact most of it now goes over my head and I have the utmost respect for his vast knowlege of how things work. Everything you see on your screens has been his effort for many years now.

Many of our best decisions/moves were also made with the help of others. For instance our first conf was organised by Grumbledook and Russ, as was establishing our contacts at BETT before they asked us to run the help point. In many cases I simply said 'yes' or 'no' as ideas and opportunities came our way. The differance between us and Steve Jobs is that we don't take credit for every little thing. We are a community, not a religion after all

Edited October 7, 2011 by Dos_Box

[pcstru]

If it was only money maybe you would have a point. Jobs though didn't start out with inherited wealth - what he gained, he gained through building up his companies. Apple is now one of the most valuable companies in the world. Jobs and Wozniac built Apple from the ground up, from nothing. It floundered after Jobs left and then prospered when he returned. If it was just Apple or just money, then why did it flounder without him and why the success after he returned?

[localzuk]

By that view the terrorists that took down the towers were visionarys, they saw weknesses in security and they have changed things for millions too.

 

Not meaning to compare the people or the actions, just the definition applied to them, words are clumbsy instruments being made clumbsyer every day. Language entropy if you will, in 100 years words will mean absoloutly nothing.

 

To the group of people who admire those terrorists, they probably are visionaries. Context is important.

[SYNACK]

To the group of people who admire those terrorists, they probably are visionaries. Context is important.

 

Stage 5: Acceptance?

 

Jobs was not a visionary to all people as the context is different. That sounds like an remarkably agreeable statment.

[Hightower]

In my opinion, that's a poor attempt at Daily Mail style arguing. Can't win an argument? Insert "our boys" "pedos" or "Diana"

 

It's got nothing to do with not being able to win an argument. I'm arguing with no-one, merely stating my opinion. And my opinion is that our lads and lasses in the forces have been more visionary in their role than Jobs was in his, merely because they are making more of a difference to the future of the world.

[MK-2]

We are a community, not a religion after all

 

Amen

 

[sonofsanta]

It's got nothing to do with not being able to win an argument. I'm arguing with no-one, merely stating my opinion. And my opinion is that our lads and lasses in the forces have been more visionary in their role than Jobs was in his, merely because they are making more of a difference to the future of the world.

 

That's stretching the point even further away from visionary though. They might be heroes, they might be altruists, they might be a force for good shaping the future of nations, but they're not operating under their own vision, so difficult to call them visionaries. Whether or not it was an important vision (which I think is the real issue here), Steve Jobs did have a vision for a number of products, and pushed it through.

 

Can we agree on technological visionary at least?

[LosOjos]

It's got nothing to do with not being able to win an argument. I'm arguing with no-one, merely stating my opinion. And my opinion is that our lads and lasses in the forces have been more visionary in their role than Jobs was in his, merely because they are making more of a difference to the future of the world.

 

And how many of "our lads and lasses" do you think have had a single shred of input on any of those decisions?

[Hightower]

And how many of "our lads and lasses" do you think have had a single shred of input on any of those decisions?

 

Erm, quite a few - the Army/Navy/Air Force isn't run by aliens.

[LosOjos]

Erm, quite a few - the Army/Navy/Air Force isn't run by aliens.

 

And neither do they all sit around a camp fire and decide how next they're going to save the world.

 

I'm not denying there are some genuine heroes in the armed forces, but they do not make visionary decisions on the direction of the world: that job is left to a chosen few who control many.

[NikChillin]

He did, it was and it did. He had vision, and skill and marketing ability in spades...but a 'visionary'? Not in the world changing sense of the word, no. He did change some things and improve others, but a visionary is much much more than this. It is just hyperbole - as is the overhyped use of the word 'tragic'. Real tragedy is something far far greater than the sad, too-early death of a clever and innovative man.

Also, whilst we can be saddened by the death of someone we never met, we cannot really get emotional. All this ridiculous 'Princess Diana' stuff is weird, IMHO

 

I agree, just because he turned Apple products into a fashion 'must have' item it doesn't warrant adulation. He was a great businessman and finely tuned the marketing. I was never really bothered with Apple stuff simply because I thought they were over priced and both my sons have had numerous returns on their Ipod touch's.

[Domino]

We are a community, not a religion after all

 

Of course not...!

 

Google is a religion.. » The Church of Google

[NikChillin]

Erm, quite a few - the Army/Navy/Air Force isn't run by aliens.

 

They are not visionaries, they do as politicians dictate acting on orders subject to budgets. The lower ranks do as ordered. They took on the job to defend the realm, hardly a position to be in if you want to be a visionary...

[mthomas08]

Hmm. Not really, I had a good idea and took it as far as I was able (remember when Dragonfly began to wobble?). Then Shaun took over the design and real running of the 'site', of which I now have minimal input into due to the fact most of it now goes over my head and I have the utmost respect for his vast knowlege of how things work. Everything you see on your screens has been his effort for many years now.

Many of our best decisions/moves were also made with the help of others. For instance our first conf was organised by Grumbledook and Russ, as was establishing our contacts at BETT before they asked us to run the help point. In many cases I simply said 'yes' or 'no' as ideas and opportunities came our way. The differance between us and Steve Jobs is that we don't take credit for every little thing. We are a community, not a religion after all

 

So you are all visionary's

[Dos_Box]

Post edited -Off topic. Edited October 7, 2011 by Dos_Box

[RabbieBurns]

[MK-2]

One last link, kind of touching on the Daily Mail article, but with some very good quotes in there:

 

This Dianamania is a slur on Jobs ? The Register

 

Let’s remember Jobs for what he achieved. He’d be the first to agree that there are more important things in the world than media devices, and he made that case very eloquently

[Disease]

Steve Jobs, not a visionary but a maker of decent phones, I pick mine up on Friday

[MACKIO]

I believe the Apple computer - compared to a Windows machine - is a far faster and more efficient machine. A computer geek friend of mine who knows his stuff said comparing the efficiency, speed and potential of the Apple machine to the Windows machine was like comparing a jet engine to a propeller engine. Didn't Steve Jobs invent the Apple computer? If so, in my opinion he is visionary in the sense that he was first to come up with that particular computer design.

[localzuk]

Didn't Steve Jobs invent the Apple computer? If so, in my opinion he is visionary in the sense that he was first to come up with that particular computer design.

 

No, Steve Wozniak was the brains behind the technology at the beginning of Apple, and since then a string of genius engineers have been.

[Theblacksheep]

Superb in the Rebel Alliance, but whos visionary became the Empire.

[laptopsandspares]

vi·sion·ar·y

 

Adjective: (esp. of a person) Thinking about or planning the future with imagination or wisdom: "a visionary leader".

 

Would suggest yes then.

 

Noun: A person with original ideas about what the future will or could be like.

 

Would open debates around the term "original" no doubt and call into question "Job's the Visionairy" The iPod wasn't a visonairy product (mp3 players had been around forever), but it's did change the game and that wasn't by accident. Making it work took vision becuase the existing soultions weren't working. (Apply that to tablets, and smart phones)

 

Synonyms: adjective. fanciful - imaginary

noun. dreamer - daydreamer

 

yes and yes then.

 

For me, "Jobs' as a visionairy" was never in question. I think the arguments/debates about this often gets into his involvement in the technical side of things which tbh, I have no idea about his expertise in.

 

Always going to be a hot topic this one wasn't it

[localzuk]

Would open debates around the term "original" no doubt and call into question "Job's the Visionairy" The iPod wasn't a visonairy product (mp3 players had been around forever), but it's did change the game and that wasn't by accident. Making it work took vision becuase the existing soultions weren't working. (Apply that to tablets, and smart phones)

 

Please don't just focus on the iDevices. Jobs achieved a lot more before anything started with 'i'...