Wednesday the 24th of August will be marked in history as the day when the most fascinating business career ever ended. Steve Jobs anounced his resignation as CEO of Apple just a couple weeks after he brought the company on the top of the list with the most valuable companies in the world in terms of capitalization.

Steve is now named the Chairman of the Board as stated in Apple’s PR website. Tim Cook will fairly take over the duty of leading world’s most innovative company as its CEO and it couldn’t be a better time for him to do so. Apple is growing in double digits and there is a promising innovation pipeline that ensures further growth on the coming years.

Regardless the fact Apple is an amazing company itself, Steve Job’s career in and outside Apple is admittedly a very fascinating one.  A career built upon passion, guts, taste and vision. Starting up in a garage (for real – not for PR purposes) to finding himself out of the company he co-founded , to building up a couple other successful companies such as NeXt and Pixar and then returning back to save Apple from its ashes. If Steve was a mythology figure he would have defienetly been Midas. Everything he touched turned into gold!

If you want to find out a bit more about Steve’s fascinating career take a look at his Bio on wikipedia. In any case if  you haven’t watched this video (below), it definetely worths your time. Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address proved the fact that having the traits is far more important than developing the skills. There he is, a guy who never graduated from university, standing in front of world’s brightest graduates advising them that the most important thing in life is to follow their heart:

Also Click here to check out Business Insider’s spot on some of Steve Jobs life highlights

OK. So you believe in innovation and you think that is key to grow your  business. You call a meeting with all the stakeholders and let them know that this is the way moving forward.  Next thing you do is structuring your business accordinlgy and bum… the next big thing is right in the corner!

Well, hold on a minute. It may take sometime to hit the market with a really breakthrough product. But that’s alright. Not everyone can release an iPhone/iPod/iPad (OK… I admit. I love Apples!) every couple years. You know that this is going to be a long way.

Innovation can take years to pay back. Down the road it is always unclear whether you head the right way or if you are going fast enough. It’s like racing with your eyes tied in an absolutely open space. So how can you judge whether things go well? You can’t. That’s the fun about taking these additional risks associated with Innovation. However,there are some signs that can definetley show you that things don’t go well:

You are spending too much on Market Research

Innovation is about invention. It can be revolutionary or evolutionary. If you are spending too much time asking your consumers what they would like, I’m afraid you are a bit hopeless. Unless you are lucky enough to have recruited Edison inone of  your focus groups. Most of the times consumers can tell you how to optimize or normalize your product offering. Henri Ford’s famous quote puts this in the right context: “If I had asked people what they want, they would have said faster horses”

Your New Products Pipeline list is long

If you have a long list of “breakthrough” products that are “coming soon” chances are that you are a bit all over. You also probably try to just please everyone by showing them how their product ideas are in! A key trait of a truly innovative company is focus. Take Apple as an example. How many many products Apple have?

Mistakes are unacceptable  (after all you are Perfect!)

The Innovation and Perfection relationship is like a love story. Falling in love is the greatest thing can happen to everyone but love can also hurt. It’s really all about keep looking for it and accepting the fact that you are going to be hurt along the way. And is actually the power to recognize it doesn’t work and the speed to recover from dissapointments that helps you finally find the right one. Again, this time is Woody Allen’s quote that puts this is the right context: “If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.”

Promo: My new blog “PhygitAlien” is launching soon. Click here to get an ealry invitation when is live.

That’s how U2 calls them. Guy Kawasaki calls them the “bozos”. Seth Godin has given it a more internal approach. He calls it the “lizzard” in our brain. They all refer to the same principal; the visible and invisible forces that keep us away from doing things that could potentially change the world!

How many times you voiced over an idea about something and people thought you are crazy? How many times you had an idea of doing something that you never even voiced over because of the previous? How many times you have asked permission to do something but people stopped you to protect you? How many times you were afraid of taking an action so that you don’t dissapoint yourself in case of a failure?

Everyone of us have had a moment like this. It is true that every single one of us has been used to live in a world of common rules and beliefs that keeps the society engine work smoothly but sometimes puts us in such a sterile way of thinking and acting that grinds our imagination down.

Sometimes there are obvious reasons why someone wouldn’t like you to do something that would potentially be against his or her interest. Sometimes there is no one to blame really. In fact sometimes the motives of those (or even our selves) that stop us from doing something we feel is right for us, are of goodwill to keep us safe (however “Safe is Risky” sometimes).

Your parents would try to stop you from dropping out of university so that you don’t miss the chance to get some good job opportunities in the future. Your manager would try to stop you from applying for a job in your organization that’s “over” your skills and competencies because he or she wants to manage your expecations and help you avoid a dissapointment. Your self will stop you from quitting your job and starting that business you always wanted. These are definetely not bastards, bozos or lizzards but it is another way of looking at this.

So, what can we do about it? I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. It’s up to you!

At first there were barter and gifts. Then the commodity money came in. Then some of my great ancestors created some standardized coinage. Lately we are using bills and banknotes and even more recently plastic money has become the norm.

Time for a change in the history of money. After all, the modern economic system doesn’t seem to work perfectly. So, what’s next?

Pay with a Tweet - Case Study - OMG version from Leif on Vimeo.

Pay with a Tweet is a new form of payment! A social form of currency based on a simple idea: ” the value of people talking about your product is sometimes higher than the money you would get for it.”  In simple terms, Pay with a Tweet gives people the opportunity to sell their work i.e. a book teaser, a music demo, a coupon by just asking you to share the news in your personal twitter or facebook network.

The idea has been already awarded in Cannes Lions and seems to start becoming a trend. It was about time for social media to start proving their economic value I suppose…