In Memoriam: Steve Jobs

I intrupt my normal posting (infequent as it may have been lately) with this special statement regarding the death of Steve Jobs:

I am saddened more deeply than I ever imagined I would have been upon hearing of the passing of Steve Jobs. Although I'm a relatively new user of Apple computers (they had always been out of my price range), I have followed his career since shortly after moving his company out of the garage. I have always admired him not only as a brilliant and creative mind, but also as an incredible public speaker.

When I first started college, I had never done much public speaking. I think the last time I got up in front of an audience to say something it was (coincidentally) at my best friends funeral more than 15 years prior and I was terrified. My first presentation in college was no different. I stumbled, stuttered, and sweated my way through it, but once it was over, I found that it wasn't all that bad. After some tutelage from an instructor who went by the name of "Coach" (don't ask me his real name because for the life of me I can't remember), I became even more comfortable, but I still sucked. One piece of advice he gave me was to study great public speakers.

I went home and Googled "great public speakers" (or maybe it was brilliant public speakers something like that) and I hit on a site called TED: Ideas Worth Spreading (http://www.ted.com/). It is the official home of the Technology, Education, and Design (TED) conference held in Monterey, CA, a stones throw away from where I live. It is now one of my favorite sites. That first night I must have spent 6 hours watching speeches and presentations given at the TED conference. One of my favorite speakers is a man named Rives. His 4 am speech was brilliant,


but I digress.

One night I was looking for some new speeches to watch and since I was already a fan of Steve Jobs and knew he did quite a bit of public speaking, I thought, "I wonder if he has ever given a presentation at TED". So I entered his name in the search box and the first hit was not a speech he gave at TED, but rather one he gave at a graduation ceremony at Stanford University. The speech was called called How to live before you die.

It was by no means his best ever speech or presentation, however, it completely changed the way I viewed him. See, before he was like this ethereal, unassailable being who I knew was real, but was to me, like so many other celebrities, cardboard. However, his speech at Stanford completely brought him down to earth for me and made me view him as a real, tangible, and vulnerable human being. I could see that he was not just a cardboard facade, but that he was who he was.

I could go on and tell you how he inspired me and helped me improve my public speaking, which he did, but I won't. That is a story for another time. What I will tell you is that, while I am a sensitive person, I am not one who is moved to tears that often, but the two most recent times I have shed a tear are during Job's Stanford speech and today when I learned of his passing. I feel as though I lost a relative even though I have never met the man and he will be missed.

Rest in peace Mr. Jobs.