The Importance of Love

I have been absolutely spellbound reading Walter Isaacson's "Steve Jobs." It's an incredible piece of living history that pulls back the curtain on so many of the innovations that have shaped the world in my own lifetime.

One of the most striking passages accompanies Apple's release of the iPod, leaving both Sony and Microsoft stunned. The fact that Sony couldn't pull their act together (despite boasting an incredible hardware division and already owning one of the major record labels!!) is even more shocking in retrospect than it was to me at the time.

But what struck me most was Jobs' simple explanation for why the Zune failed to achieve more than ~5% market share once it finally launched the Zune.

"The older I get, the more I see how much motivations matter. The Zune was crappy because the people at Microsoft don’t really love music or art the way we do. We won because we personally love music. We made the iPod for ourselves, and when you’re doing something for yourself, or your best friend or family, you’re not going to cheese out. If you don’t love something, you’re not going to go the extra mile, work the extra weekend, challenge the status quo as much."

This sentiment reminded me of a fantastic passage in Corita Kent's fantastic "Learning by Heart." She says, "A tremendously constricting force on our contemporary society is the concept of the professional or specialist, who deals for the most part with what has already been done and builds on his own limits. To the extent we can approach our job as an amateur (from the Latin amare, meaning to love) will we be successful in our work. When we pursue a thing for love, we are free to fumble and make mistakes. The course of our work may not run smoothly, but we are open to possibilities, embracing everything we have contact with. Our vision is not narrowed by convention." (emphasis mine)

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