Open Letter to Steve Jobs: Join the Conversation

Dear Steve,

First off, thank you for all the brilliant, innovative products you created over the years. Thanks for demonstrating that hardware can be more than a commodity. Thanks for showing that software can be simultaneously simple, elegant and powerful.

And above all, thanks for being the star of the greatest comeback story of Silicon Valley history.

As a customer I have been consistently satisfied and often surprised by what was in the products I bought from you. I have forgiven you a certain arrogance in tone. For example, I was prepared to hate a support staff that required I make an appointment and stood under a sign calling them geniuses.

Except that they consistently have solved my problems, usually in prompt and painless fashion.

You are the underdog that got over the others; the Fortune 50 company with street creds; the rebel whose cause was to provide better stuff for the creative elements in the masses.

But Steve, just now, now as you become the biggest and most valuable of all personal computing companies, now you seem to be sprouting warts on your previously flawless face and I fear your image is turning uglier faster than you realize.

From March until today, there have been a series of missteps--not in product and business strategy--but in the sort of stuff that make people respect, trust and like you.

One night a geek left an iPhone prototype on a bar stool triggering a series of events that would have caused Apple Computer some minor embarrassment.

Steve, you should have shrugged, but instead, many of us feel like  you behaved like a schoolyard bully. The image of police storming a Gizmodo editor's door will be remembered as Apple police storming that door. When Ellen DeGeneres, did a cute and forgettable skit of her difficulties texting on an iPhone, Apple demanded an apology, it made it memorable. Many of us wondered when Jon Stewart if you were becoming "the man, if there were not more truth than humor in the question.

That bring us to your bungled handling of the iPhone launch, which ironically is the most successful phone launch in history in terms of numbers. But several issues, particular fear, uncertainty and doubt about the antenna have blemished the launch.

As evidence trickles out over this slow-news holiday weekend, it appears that you were right. The antenna is probably a non-issue as you said it was. But Steve, customers were concerned and you dismissed their concerns in a manner that seemed pretty glib to me.

Your style reminded me of Marie Antoinette.

You may recall, she was a regal lady in the pre-digital era. When she asked why people were angry, she was told they had no bread. She shrugged it off as a non-issue. "Then let them eat cake," she shrugged.

Perhaps, she was simply ignorant to the depth and breadth of people's feelings. In any case history sees her as incredibly insensitive to the needs of people whose lives she influenced. Seven years later, she was shown the bleeding edge of the Guillotine.

Steve, I am not suggesting that you are in danger of decapitation. But I need to stress in the strongest of terms that your current position as reigning hero can end and it can end abruptly and violently if you loss touch. Tech history is filled with cases of once dominant companies who overestimated the power of size versus customer championship.

You are facing new levels of competition. You are facing customers that used to adore you, suddenly scratching their heads and sitting back. I am among those.

Steve, I became convinced that the iPhone 4 was a great phone in about 15 minutes. I went to Twitter and I asked people who had bought it, about reception. Fifteen people said it was great. The 16th is in the UK with a different service provider and he was having problems.

But I think I'll wait. I just don't feel as good about you as I used to. It makes me curious about the Droids. The number of Droids coming out and the parade promised from other handset makers convince me, there will soon be an entire bakery of alternative cakes to choose from.

Steve, every second of every day there are conversations going on about you and Apple and it's products and attitude in social networks. Your customers influence each other and they influence your prospects.

Apple has managed to be among the least social of all tech companies until this time. It has done so by providing great products and services so that the conversation streams have gushed with Apple love.

A few years ago I coauthored a book called "Naked Conversations." My co-author and I observed that most companies that embraced social media had problems they needed to fix. "If you have great products and your customers love you, you may not need social media."

Steve, that was five years ago. A great deal has happened. People are talking about you all the time and it is not all filled with Kumbaya love notes. Much of what is being said is not true, such as is the case with the antenna.

But you need to join the conversation, now Steve. People need to know that Apple people are concerned and responding to customer concerns. Steve, very seriously, it is strategically time for Apple to join the conversation.