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Last week, Steve Jobs held a presentation for Apple to announce some new stuff they were to offer, including a movie store on iTunes and upgrades to the iPods. He also gave a sneak peek of something they are working on for next year. Whether you’re a Mac or PC person, there are a few things we can learn from Apple and the performance of Steve Jobs.

  • Create anticipation. Buzz is the word. One thing that Apple did before this announcement was create a buzz. There were a lot of people anticipating what was coming from them. There were rumors about everything: new iPods with wide-screens, movie downloads, etc. Many of the rumors weren’t true, but at least people were buzzing about the announcement. The interesting thing is they did this with a simple “Showtime” announcement.
  • Make it an event. People from the media were lined up to get into this thing. It was just product announcement that could have been done via press release, but Apple went all out and made it an event. They even had a musician finish the thing off.
  • Powerful partnerships. Networking is a huge part of the success of Apple. The TV shows on iTunes are only available because of successful networking. In order for the movie store to work, they will need to partner with more studios. Of course, having Disney in your back pocket doesn’t usually hurt.
  • Listen to people. Colors are back with the iPod nano because that is what the people wanted. They also wanted brighter screens on their video iPods. Apple was willing to listen to customers and make changes accordingly. Are we?
  • Don’t be afraid to try new stuff. Innovate. It is okay to try new things. What the heck are they thinking making the iPod shuffle so small? What are they thinking with the new iTV thing? Steve Jobs himself said that everyone who has tried this has failed. So why are they doing it? Because they are willing to take a risk to be successful. Maybe we should be willing to do that, too.

I’m sure there are other things you can glean from the company, but these are the things that stuck out for me after last week’s news. I think these things can also be applied to ministry. We need to be thinking about these things in our programming ideas.