With the passing of Steve Jobs, I remembered a time 25 years ago when my employer changed my job and, in the process, gave me the opportunity to see how a company could influence many changes in technology and in society. I remember seeing the early stages of those dramatic changes in the confines of a small screen that could fit in my hands – if it weren’t inside of a stubby-looking piece of technology bearing the Apple logo.
At that time, I edited newsletters and other internal communications for a large health care system. We created our monthly newsletter – the main communication vehicle for us – the typical way. We researched our stories, wrote them, determined which stories should go where and carried them to our printer. We’d leave it in their capable hands and hope we had been accurate in estimating the number of stories so they’d fit the number of pages available. They would call us to do a proof and then drop off our printed newsletters.
Then we learned of a new way to do all of this. By using an Apple Macintosh computer and PageMaker software we could do our own layout and design. Our leaders agreed the possibilities were significant enough that we took a bite of the apple and began designing our newsletters on a Mac. We started designing the newsletter in-house. We’d send the newsletter to the printer on a disk, and they’d drop off our printed newsletters.
Within a few years, we had learned to do many more things with Macs and eventually created an internal team that churned out a large array of materials using the ever-developing Macintosh computers.
I’ve continued to use Macs and Apple products as much as possible in the 12 years since leaving that company. In that time, the new products and the changes have been amazing.
Today, I see all those changes driven by Steve Jobs when I look at another small screen just a bit larger than that first one – except now I literally am holding that screen in my hands.