It came as a collective shock when it was announced that Steve Jobs, tech innovator and business leader, lost his battle with cancer on Oct. 5, 2011. It is still very hard to imagine a world that Jobs will not continue to revolutionize and tinker with as he sees fit. There’s no denying the impact Jobs has had on technology that we interact with daily. The computer mouse, flash drives, PIXAR, and the many gadgets and software put out by Apple in the last 15 years make it clear that Steve Jobs made one of the greatest impacts on how the world operates and communicates. Jobs was perhaps one of the greatest innovators since Gutenberg.

Besides being a pioneer for the advancement of digital technology, he was also a pioneer in business.  Jobs found success with the products he engineered by doing business differently. His was a way that wasn’t driven by selling the cheapest possible product in the fastest way possible, but by giving people quality products that streamlined their own usefulness. This gift is something that we can all carry on to help his legacy thrive long after the iPods, iPhones, and iPads become obsolete.

How did he make this happen? Well, according to Jobs himself, it was through these key methods:

Being Great

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”

What made Steve Jobs great was that he never settled for a mediocre product. If Apple was going to make it and Jobs was going to promote it, then the product had to be great. We can take this practice into any business or industry. Why be in business if not to provide clients and customers with great products and services? Don’t just have a business exist just to have one, but look for ways to set yourselves apart and provide advantages and opportunities that no one else is providing. Look for ways to make things better than they currently are.

Always Keep Getting Better.

“I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.”

In order to be great, you must always look for ways to improve. Just think if Steve Jobs stopped at the Macintosh personal computer in 1982, or if he stopped innovating altogether after being pushed out of the company by the Apple board in 1985. Think of where technology would be today if he had stopped when he became part owner of a new startup called PIXAR, or if he had stopped when he created the software for NEXT (which brought him back to Apple). Or what if he stopped when they came out with the candy colored iMacs? What if he had stopped when they created the iPod? The iPhone? We can also say this about the iPad and a countless number of things. He never stopped looking for new challenges to take on and refine. Without this sense of getting better, we would be without a myriad of technologies that have shaped our world.

“I think we’re having fun. I think our customers really like our products. And we’re always trying to do better.”

There are always ways to improve. You’ll never know how much you can continue to improve your business or products unless you keep trying to discover new and different ways to do things that may or may not have been done before. Never think that you’re done once something has been created; there will always be ways in which to improve it, whether that be the process, the product, or the platform itself. Jobs taught us to never stop the process of refining because there will always be better things to discover along the way.

“A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.”

The computer, the cell phone, the tablet: these were things that existed before Apple created their products, but they’re also things that were greatly improved and continually enhanced by Steve Jobs and Apple.

“The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament.”

Never Be Too Afraid to Fail.

“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”‎

Not everything will be a success, but everything is always an opportunity to learn how to make things better. Never be afraid of never having another great idea. Success is a constantly moving machine. You must push to stay forward thinking so that you are not left in the dust. Stifling innovation is always a good breeding ground for complacency. Jobs and Apple had many misses, but they all helped to bring better ideas and projects to the table.

“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.”

Most experts called the original Apple TV a bust for the company, but that bust turned into a success four years later when they re-envisioned their concept and released their next version. They didn’t give up on this project and made a better one because of it.

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”

Taking risks in business is paramount to success. You have nothing to lose because there is an end to everything, even your own life. But by creating something that is greater than yourself, you can live on through your innovations. There’s nothing stopping you.

The End User Should Drive Everything You Do, So Surprise Them

“For something this complicated, it’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.“

Whatever business or industry you’re in, you are selling products and services that others can’t create themselves. This makes you the expert in this field or industry and gives you the advantage in seeing how to make your product even greater to those that need it. Think through the end users’ experience of what you’re providing, and see how you can anticipate meeting needs before the end user can. This one of the things that made Steve Jobs the legendary pioneer that he was. He was intuitively and acutely  fixed on user experience and concentrated on how to streamline technology to make it instinctively easier and intuitive for the consumer. No one knew how much easier their lives could be with the world’s greatest traveling computer and phone until Steve Jobs and Apple created it.

“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.”

The best way to do this is to identify two to three of the biggest problem areas that you or your customers run into the most.  Think through each of the ways in which these areas can be improved, prevented, and planned for. Implementing change in these problem areas will show your clients that you are working hard to make their experience better and you will be rewarded with loyalty and repeat business.

“This is what customers pay us for–to sweat all these details so it’s easy and pleasant for them to use our computers. We’re supposed to be really good at this. That doesn’t mean we don’t listen to customers, but it’s hard for them to tell you what they want when they’ve never seen anything remotely like it. Take desktop video editing. I never got one request from someone who wanted to edit movies on his computer. Yet now that people see it, they say, ‘Oh my God, that’s great!’”

Surround Yourself with the Best and the Brightest

“My model for business is The Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other’s kind of negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. That’s how I see business: great things in business are never done by one person, they’re done by a team of people.“

There’s no way that Steve Jobs could have made any of the innovative products on his own. He needed a highly competent team that could turn his ideas into a reality.  Jobs has never taken sole credit for anything, but rather credited the collaborative process in order to get to the end goal. Build a support team that can collaborate effectively to pushing innovation in your business and industry. If you find yourself  hitting a wall, look for ways to bring more diversity into the mix so that more viewpoints can be seen. People with different backgrounds and specialties will always bring a new and fresh perspective  to any ideas on the table. Just be sure it is the kind that breeds productivity and not chaos.

“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.”

Success on the scale of Apple’s is difficult to come by, but these tenets are key ingredients for success in our modern business world. As with most things Steve Jobs has touched, probably the most powerful advice he gave was in this simple but direct admonition:

“Stay hungry and stay foolish.”

Before I go into why I didn’t like the book, I want to first talk about some of the positive aspects of it. The author was a little misleading when he says that you’ll be building applications without learning another framework. That’s not exactly true. CherryPy, a web framework, is used. It is a very minimal framework, but it is a web framework nonetheless. I honestly think that the format of this book was influenced more by the lack of availability of a large web framework like Django for Python 3 and not meant to “save” the reader from learning a framework alongside web application development. Even if the lack of availability of frameworks for Python 3 is the true motivation, I think it’s a great idea to teach building web applications without all of the nice abstractions you would have with a huge fancy framework. This aspect is what I really loved about this book.  For instance, the author walks you through building your own ORM. I’ve never actually read a beginning web development book that had their readers build their own, but I think readers that follow through with this exercise will definitely have an easier time when they move on to something like SQLAlchemy.

Although I liked that the author walked readers through web development at a low-level, there are some issues with the book that ultimately led me to the decision that I could not recommend it.

One of the biggest issues I had with the book are the walls and walls of dense Javascript. I felt like I wrote way more Javascript than Python going through most of these projects. In the Preface, the author states that only an introductory level of Javascript is needed. While that may be true, if you finish all of the projects in this book you will have more experience developing Javascript than building web applications in Python 3. The amount of Javascript used was unnecessary and I feel someone with an introductory knowledge of Javascript would be very intimidated with the amount of Javascript strewn throughout the projects. Large amounts of HTML are encountered as well, which could have been reduced if the author had introduced some kind of templating system.

Another issue I had with this book is that I don’t use Windows, and this book is geared toward people who use Windows. All instructions given for installation of the various software packages are for people using Windows. The author gives you enough resources to figure out what you need to do if you’re using Linux or OS X, but why not include instructions for all three, or even just Windows and Linux? It wouldn’t have taken long to include instructions for both. The reason only including directions for Windows wasn’t a good idea, other than the fact that I don’t have an extra Windows machine laying around in my house, is that I’m not so certain that intermediate Python programmers looking to learn web development are using Windows.

Finally, I think that some of the projects are too difficult for people new to web development. Chapter 2 was especially unusual. I know it’s rather cliché now for web development tutorials to do this, but I think it would have been best if the author started out with building a blog. It’s stupid simple to do, you can use it to easily illustrate as many web development concepts as you want, and it gives the beginner something that they’re familiar with.

While I found the exercises helpful for people wanting to learn Javascript, the title suggested I would be working with Python 3. This was disappointing. Coupled with the fact that I feel that many of these projects are too difficult for people wanting to get started in web development, I cannot recommend this book for beginners. Ultimately, the goal of the book was to teach web development to beginners. It did not reach this goal.

If you would like to preview or purchase Python 3 Web Development Beginner’s Guide, it is available on Amazon.

Remember in  A Christmas Story when Ralphie worked so hard to get his Secret Society decoder ring from the Little Orphan Annie radio show? After weeks of anxious waiting, and missing out on the daily “secret message” (which to a kid appeared very important) Ralphie is finally able to participate.

The radio show comes on. He is ready and poised with his decoder. The announcer starts reading numbers. Ralphie anxiously records each number and painstakingly decodes each one.

B-E    S-U-R-E     T-O    D-R-I-N-K    Y-O-U-R     O-V-A-L-T-I-N-E

“Ovaltine?! A crummy commercial?! Son of a bitch!”

He feels jipped, connived, taken advantage of.  He has put so much energy into getting the device only to be sold to?!

Here’s the deal.  This is how a lot of QR marketing these days is treating its scanners. People see a cool thing in a magazine, go find the app as instructed, download it, and scan the code…. only to arrive at A HOME PAGE?! In less time, they could have just entered the website address into their phone.  They have wasted not only their time, but they have been taken advantage of.

So, don’t be an Ovaltine commercial.  Make sure to give your QR scanner some VALUE. Make sure the page they land on is ready to be seen on a mobile device. Make sure it offers something they couldn’t get by just going to the web address. And give them a way to participate, to respond, to interact.

Also, see the WordPress Plugin directory listing, and post any questions or issues here.

The support forum is located here.

Generate your own QR Code!

Type: Business Card URL Message

Choose colors:

First Name:

Last Name:

Company Name:

Title:

Telephone:

Work Address:

City:

State, ZIP Code:

Email Address

Website

Memo

Name:

URL

Name:

Message

Download it!

Download: JPG | PNG

Features

• A widget can be put in a sidebar, or by placing the shortcode: in a page or post the generator can be displayed in content.
• WordPress Simple QR Code Creator Widget can create Business Card QR Codes. Many smartphones recognize these codes as contact info and can immediately import them into the phone’s address book, making it extremely easy to share you or your business’s communication channels through print without error. At Steele Agency, we put QR Codes on the back of our business cards. This is a great way for print websites to push QR codes (and printing!)
• This widget can also create URL QR Codes. These can be shared through print and can allow you to send tech savvy users to special landing pages with special offers or promotions.
• Text Message QR Codes can be created which can allows you to encode special messages, data or directions on printed material.
• The Extended Version also tracks submissions on the WordPress backend, which allows you to see how the plug-in is being used and follow up with users.

Technical Aspects

• The widget uses jQuery to reload the sidebar with a QR Code without requiring a full page reload.
• The image is in-part created using Google Chart API which reduces the bandwidth required by your server.
• Submissions are recorded through the use of an AJAX call.
• Requires php5-gd, available on most shared hosting platforms.

Currently Recommended Readers

• i-nigma
• quickmark

Images

Download

The free version allows you to install the widget as demonstrated on this page. Your users can create their own cool QR Codes.

FREE VERSION LICENSE:
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it, except removing the watermark script and authoring comments within the code.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Extended Version Including Tracking

The extended version, WordPress Simple QR Code Creator Widget-Extended,  removes the watermark and allows you to track submissions.  Extended version is available for $15 by clicking below.

EXTENDED VERSION LICENSE:
Steele Agency retains full rights to the program. You do not have the right to redistribute, copy, or resell the program in any form.

Support

Click here for the support forum.

Last month, the White House re-launched its figurehead web presence, WhiteHouse.gov featuring among other changes, a switch from a proprietary Content Management System (CMS) to Drupal, an open source CMS. The switch was brought on not by efforts to save money or use a more secure web publishing system, but to better foster communication between the White House and WhiteHouse.gov visitors, according to the Obama Administration.

Drupal is one of the big three open source CMS’s and has built-in functionality for everything from e-commerce to podcasting, and in particular, as the Obama Administration notes, Drupal integrates blogs, comments, polls, user profiles, newsletters, and forums. These are all things useful in encouraging communication between the Government and its citizens, or as Steele Agency notes, a brand and its potential consumer base.

At Steele Agency, we use open source CMS’s like Drupal, Joolma, and WordPress to provide clients with the ability to easily manage and update their own web content and foster the interaction between staff and customers. Other federal agencies currently use Drupal for various purposes, including the Departments of Defense, Commerce, and Education and the General Service Administration, and the White House’s move only further validates the professional use of open source software. When talking to people about using open source in their businesses, they have concerns over costs, effectiveness, and security. When federal agencies employ its usage it does add a sense of authority, but from a business person’s perspective, its important to note three things:

• Open source software is very cost effective and has no licensing fees
• Open source CMS’s, when paired with Unix server platforms, are unparalleled in speed and reliability
• Though not all open source software is safe (just like proprietary software), Drupul is currently the undisputed security king among CMS platforms.

As the war of Operating System dominance wages on, Microsoft is taking a new approach to solidify itself as a premiere but-not-so innovative company. Their plan: blatantly copy Apple’s computer store experience and brand it as their own.

Before the end of October, Microsoft plans on opening two new Microsoft Stores in Scottsdale, Arizona and Mission Viejo, California alongside the release of Windows 7 due out Oct. 22nd, cnet reports. Why these locations? Well, apart from placement in high-end, high-traffic malls, these areas are already home to popular Apple Stores. And according to Todd Bishop of Techflash, the plans to intrude on Apple’s location space will not end there. With the recent hire of Apple’s former real estate head, George Blankenship, as a consultant we could see this trend occurring wherever an Apple store has already located itself.

But location duplication is only the beginning of the Microsoft strategy. As plans for Microsoft Stores progressed, Jim Dalrymple of the Loop reports that Microsoft has been approaching several Apple Store Managers about making the switch and coming to work for the new Microsoft Stores. Promising the potential Apple defectors with “significant raises” and even paying relocation costs (provided that the defectors bring with them more knowledge and fellow Apple employees). This is nothing new since Microsoft was apparently trying to lure iPhone developers to their company earlier this year according to Leander Kahney from the Cult of Mac.

With the new employees, the one piece of knowledge they will not need to provide is the Apple Store appearance; Microsoft already has the Apple Store layout down and isn’t going to change a thing. Well, except the job titles. The Stores will feature similar areas that include: different areas for Windows Mobile, Windows Media Center, Windows 7, and netbook; Regular demos and events; a special Microsoft shopping bang; and a “Guru” Bar (as compared to the Apple “Genius” Bar) where customers can get answers from Windows experts. The one addition Microsoft will also include is the hosting of birthday parties.

Though the store setup will be similar, the air in which things run will seem a bit different. Apple has taken great strides in promoting their stores as “more than just a retail store”. They refuse to allow employees to feel that retail is all they provide. With job titles like Concierge, Personal Shopping Specialist, and One to One Trainer, Apple empowers their employees and leads them to feel their jobs are about more than just selling a product. However, Microsoft has chosen to inflate this feeling as it simply and uncreatively includes “retail” in every job title available for hire.

So what’s the motivation behind all of this? It may better market share, but it could also be Microsoft trying to put to the test Steve Jobs’ fond saying: “good artists copy, great artists steal.” Hopefully, Steve Jobs and Apple will enjoy the flattery.