So what was the best part about being at Apple

There were a tremendous number of good things about working at Apple even during some of the most challenging times in the nineties.  It would be hard to imagine a job where you got to meet more interesting people or to better help customers meet their computing objectives.

An Apple business card, except for a few years in the nineties, would pretty well get you into any office including some very high ones inside the beltway.  Before Steve came back in the mid-nineties there were some wonderful sales incentives trips around the world. Duplicating those events would be beyond even the capabilities of some very well off folks.  Then there was the Apple sabbatical which before it disappeared had to be one of the greatest benefits ever given out by a company.

Then there were the gadgets and technology.  At one time we had so much technology that we hardly had the people to absorb it.  When I was a rep covering covering Canada's four eastern provinces by myself,  I used to joke it was just me and a dozen computers, a LaserWriter and two phones in the office.

There were also some "aha" moments in doing seminars for customers.  I can still remember doing an early desktop publishing seminar and watching as a roomful of educators really started to grasp the concept.  Then when I started showing Adobe Illustrator they were completely blown away.

I can also remember some classic moments like the time I was demonstrating one of the first Macintosh LCs.  An engineering professor at a leading university pompously said "There is no reason for anyone to need more than 16 colors."  Never was anyone so far from understanding where we were headed.

Then there were the events where we would have wonderful experts who could really make the software sing.  I never failed to learn something from our system engineers who could work miracles with almost anything.

All of those things were an incredible part of my personal journey that was Apple.  Yet I don't think there is any question in my mind as to the best part of Apple.  It was clearly the people whom you worked with on a daily basis.

I can't speak for the Apple of today since I haven't met a single new Apple employee in two years, but Apple always had the best and the brightest of employees.

Once I learned the very hard lessons of how to be a leader instead of a manager, I fully embraced the idea that a successful team was one where people of varying skills had the opportunity to fully demonstrate their talents.  At the same time they could count on the different skills of others to help them be more successful than they could have been by themselves.  That's a mouthful, but it served me well.

Basically it is another way of saying that the easiest way to create great success is to hire great people and let them do their job in a strong team environment.  As a leader you carry the water buckets and keep higher-ups occupied while the team does the real work.

I was really successful at Apple not because I didn't make mistakes, because I made plenty of them.  We didn't mostly hit our sales numbers consistently because I'm this fantastic sales manager, but because I had some of the best sales people in the industry working for me.

The amount of raw talent that I saw at Apple meetings would absolutely astound most executives. It wasn't just talent either, it was also dedication to the job.  Even in the last couple of years at Apple, it was not unusual for me to have to tell System Engineers to go home to their families at eight and nine o'clock at night.

When I took over the federal market for Apple, it wasn't my knowledge that made us successful, it was the combined knowledge of some people working at Apple who had some federal knowledge along with experts we hired.  We were lucky to be able to hire a few Apple champions in the federal space who had the market knowledge and the federal technical knowledge to tell us what to do.

We were even luckier to be able to convince some executives to let us run with those plans.  While Apple had plenty of sales executives that sort of got the importance of the federal market, there were people like Bud Tribble who really got it.  Bud's help was instrumental in selling the importance of some esoteric requirements like Common Criteria Certification and Smart Card support to high level Apple executives.  Then there was Fred Anderson who was a great supporter of enterprise efforts at Apple.  He also was fantastic with customers.  Tim Cook's supply chain stories completely bedazzled the US Army,

But in thinking back over the years and all the great moments before we were descended upon by the VPs who had little understanding of Apple technology, one time period stands out as the greatest times at Apple.

It was actually in the dark times for Apple the company.  It was probably just after the iMac was introduced in 1998.  Our team had just come off of a tough year.  Enterprise accounts were imploding.  We had been through a number of layoffs.  In fact the only person still on my team of nearly twenty going into the new year was my area associate.  People were leaving Apple faster than we could replace them.  The rats leaving a sinking ship metaphor was often mentioned.

Yet replace them we did.  We got some people whose love of Apple's technology was the driving motivation in their lives.  We were working at the time in a cross functional environment so we had some fantastic veterans whose talent we could tap.  Many of them were development executives with technology skills that were just awesome.

The corporate executives were plenty busy trying to turn Apple around.  For some odd reason there was a tremendous amount of funding available for field run programs that would help resellers.  We were also in one of those rare moments where compensation supported the right behavior. We had a compensation plan which basically meant we could go sell Apple products and not worry about how people would buy them.

We got together and some of the team members, not me, came up with the idea that we should run mini-MacWorld events around the southeast.  The more we talked about the idea, the more it made sense.  We managed to get Adobe, Filemaker, and other vendors involved.  I can't remember the exact number of events we staged, but it was in the thirties.  We went to places like Chattanooga, Tennessee, Norfolk, Virginia, and Greenville, South Carolina.  I can remember having nearly four hundred people show up in Greenville.  Of course we did have one of supporting development managers from New York fly to Greenville, NC and miss the event.  He did have some good barbecue I believe as a consolation prize.

We got an amazing response to our events.  Our format had Apple System Engineers presenting the latest and greatest about Apple technology, followed by some great presentations from the software vendors.  Then people got to wander around and visit technology stations manned by either Apple employees or vendor technical people.

I can still remember the countless hours of hauling equipment around, setup, and tear down.  We even used my old Previa van, "The Big Red Bubble," to haul some of the equipment to Norfolk. 

It was one of those memorable team efforts where everyone got to shine.  Everyone pitched in and no one complained that something wasn't part of their job description.

The even better news is that the event was well received by resellers.  Customers seemed to respond with increased purchases of our featured professional products.  Our efforts were so successful that other regions even adopted the idea for a while until "one on many events" became unpopular with Apple management, and the focus shifted to the "Kiosk crusade" that I mentioned in some recent posts.

We were never quite sure why we gave up on the professional customer and started focusing on iMacs, but some things you aren't meant to know.

That series of successful events along with those first three years (1999-2002) of Apple Federal fighting the good battle in the federal enterprise are certainly my fondest memories of Apple.

Apple was an absolutely great ride until the last year or so before I left.  One way or the other I will always cling to the belief that the best people to sell Apple technology are the ones who understand it, use it, and absolutely believe in its superiority.

I actually don't think there should be a shortage of sales people who meet those requirements.

I have a new project coming up, and likely my Applepeels posts will be a little more sporadic.  I've pretty well said most of what I wanted to say.  This latest series is more a result of an interview I did dredging up some old memories than it is of me having much new to say.

I hope Applepeels has been enjoyable to some as my very personal insight into what life was like at one of the most influential technology companies of the last thirty plus years.  My time at Apple was the best part of my professional life.

However, they do it, I hope Apple keeps producing the great technology which has given me the tools to do things I never would have attempted otherwise.  Apple has been a driving force in the computer industry.  I hope it continues to do that for many years.

There will be glitches along the way, like the slight discoloration of my new MacBook, but that doesn't stop the products from being far superior to much of what is on the market.

I'm hoping that as time passes other former Apple employees will write about their experiences.  Apple isn't a company with a particularly consistent system of field management so my guess is that their experiences will be as personal as mine and perhaps very different.

Had things gone a little differently I might still be selling Apple products.  Yet there comes a time when a career change is in order.  I went from farming to computers, so I'm on the cusp of that next career change.  I hope it will be even more rewarding than my time at Apple, but that's a big wish. Since I'm getting a lot older, I hope it ends a little better.

I haven't given up standing up for what is right, I just hope I've found something where it will always be part of the job description.

I'll continue my fairly regular posts at View from the Mountain, and I'll also be regularly updating my new website Coastal North Carolina, my photography site and photo index.

Keep buying those Macs.

Comments

[Juan de Dios Santander Vela]

Really nice post…

I'd love to translate it into Spanish and post it in my blog with due credit, if nothing's wrong with that.

[ocracokewaves]

I certainly don't have a problem with that. I appreciate your efforts.

-David

[Richard Taylor]

Classy way to transition. I look forward to your new endeavors, and will stay tuned for updates from Applepeels.

[Matthew Treder]

Thank you for the stories and insights. I've enjoyed reading them, more lengthy (and more rewarding) than most McBlogs. Even (especially!) those of us who are Apple to the core can learn something from you. Perspective and Apple are two words that rarely meet each other in the same sentence. I appreciate your willingness to help bridge the divide.

[Stefan]

Ive only stumbled across this recently, but its definitely helped me to see Apple in a new light. Ive always known that they can make mistakes, or do things the wrong way, but i didnt realise just how much of a balancing act it can be. But youve also shown how theres still plenty good about Apple which does help them make some amazing products, even if they are burning bridges and making new alliances in the process.

Thanks for the insights.

[Raoul Pop]

Thanks for this post! Among many things, it shows that corporate communication should be a consistent thing, even through leadership changes. Employees should be nurtured and continually brought into the fold, especially the ones that put their heart into their jobs. I doubt all those employees would have left at the time of the iMac intro, and that you would have later left, if the executive leadership would have deemed its employees a little more important than having their way. The needed changes would still have gotten made, but not so much good talent would have been lost.

[Daniel]

I like your writing and I'd love to subscribe to your blog but the subscription link you provide goes to the FeedBurner feed for your other blog, "Viewfromthemountain". Any chance you could get a feed set up for this blog?

[ocracokewaves]

Somehow the Typepad widget isn't working right so I've removed it. But you can grab a feed from the "Syndicate Link" which is this.

http://viewfromthemountain.typepad.com/applepeels/index.rdf

Thanks for catching the problem.

-David

[Laura Lucas]

I stumbled on your special insights on Apple as I deparately search for names and phone numbers for Apple Customer Relations... I'm looking for a last ditch repreive for my broken ibook. As a fellow Previa Owner ('95) I throw myself on your goodwill to share some of your special phone numbers with me? I have an ibook that has had the logic board replaced three times (with same part number... youd hope theyd put in one that was designed correctly) now the video is out again and I'm out of warranty... they say get a new one its old anyway. Thanks for anything you can throw me, reading your posts has been fun and good fortune to you