I’ve been out slingin tools for a few days but a really deep thought about Jobs has been brewing. My business/profession is related to home technology so there are many parallels to what Apple does and my own business. I posted this in a private professional forum a few moments ago, in a thread discussing the comparison between Edison and Jobs:

I heard the Edison comparison. If you’re talking of impact in their era then it’s worth discussing. However, Edison was a real inventor and Jobs was a big picture guy.

But more importantly, Jobs legacy is not how and why he marshaled Apple. He did pretty good at that. His biggest legacy is one all of us here need to consider.

He created the products and the brand from the user experience backward.

Many in Silicon Valley focused on technology and thought of things they could do with it, the business people thought of how to create a business selling it, the marketing people thought of ways to market products.

Jobs’ inherent philosophy was to think of the user experience then work on creating the technology and company to make it happen. While I sometimes frown upon the disruption the iPad has made in our industry but at the same time respect the positives, my deepest respect for Jobs is how he thought of the human interface first then proceeded from there.

As much as I curse Apple at times, Jobs’ philosophy has really burned in good lesson that will stay with me for some time. Hopefully I never forget it.