Apparently, I'm known as an Apple basher. Regardless, nobody can seriously suggest that Tim Cook is a clone of Steve Jobs or that he should be on stage rolling out products like a pitchman. To be blunt, Cook has the charisma of a box of cat litter.
But since when does the CEO have to be the guy at the county fair selling tomato slicers?
This whole idea largely stems from the early days of the microcomputer. The CEO had to be the pitchman because nobody knew what else to do. Bill Gates, Jobs, Mitch Kapor, and Philippe Kahn commonly pranced around proselytizing their companies like cheap preachers.
Jobs was a natural. He had presence and was something of a ham actor. Now it is suggested that every CEO must imitate Jobs. I've mentioned before that Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos are trying to copy his act. I say, step off stage and put in the professionals!
Today's CEO gets paid millions to run a company. Now they think that they should be spokesmodels, too? Watch some YouTube videos to see how General Motors and Ford introduced new model cars in the 1940s and 50s. Announcers’ voices boomed and pretty women posed.
This old style could easily be modified for today's public. A little Hollywood production couldn’t hurt. If Apple wants to get back on track, it should bring in Spiderman to roll out the new product line.
Hearing Tim Cook do it? You may as well be at a Politburo meeting listening to the public works commissar outline plans for the new sewage treatment plant.
Apple cannot make everyone a clone of Steve Jobs on stage. It won't work. Nobody needs to see the nervous and awkward product managers, either.
The idea that the CEO must either make a fool of himself (Steve Ballmer, Microsoft) or bore the audience to death (Tim Cook, et al.) also stems from the VC-funded nature of the tech industry. Theoretically, the CEO is an enthusiastic superman who is so passionate that he can transfer the passion to an audience. Well it's not 1986 anymore, dummies.
The CEO should be introduced as the guy running the company in a product rollout event and the rest should be left to people who know how to entertain. The goal is to get people to return to the events again and again. Steve Jobs was always a draw. Everyone at Apple knows that Tim Cook is not a draw, but a curiosity. They even used a smaller venue just in case nobody showed up.
But what would have happened if the entire cast of the Book of Mormon, the Broadway megahit, showed up to present the new iPhone? Maybe the event included a few of their songs, edited à la Apple? Tim Cook could have been an Ed Sulivan-like host, if he felt the need to be there.
Just image that raucous event. The media, shareholders and employees would be clamoring to get invited to the next event. You could scalp tickets.
This production is all very affordable to the large corporations that dot the tech scene, especially Apple.
Case in point, Oracle’s OpenWorld conference annually attracts developers and users to San Fransisco. Tonight, it holds an “Appreciation Event,” taking over a huge hangar on Treasure Island to put on a massive rock concert featuring Sting and Tom Petty. This private event can’t be cheap to produce, but everyone is grappling to get in.
Compare that to an academic CEO like Cook or Bezos trying to razzle and dazzle the crowd.
The problem is, most of the company event planners can’t think like this because they themselves are pretty dull.
My advice: Get off the stage! All of you!