At this year's Milwaukee Tech Hub Summit, a former Apple marketing executive encouraged the city's innovation economy to not just "think different," but to think big.
Silicon Valley venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki served as the keynote speaker of this year’s summit, held last week at Venue 42 amid Milwaukee’s rapidly redeveloping Pabst Brewery area immediately west of downtown. The annual summit, which showcases the variety of initiatives aimed at strengthening the city's ecosystem, was once again hosted by Northwestern Mutual
Kawasaki’s lengthy resume includes an early role in Apple at a time when the budding company was at the forefront of transforming the personal computer into what we know it as today. One of his early accomplishments within the company entailed marketing the Macintosh computer line in 1984.
“I think the world is a lot less interesting without Steve Jobs,” Kawasaki said as he went before the crowd of several hundred attendees who are — ore are interested in being — part of Milwaukee’s emerging tech space.
Throughout his inspirational, oftentimes humor-filled address to the crowd, Kawasaki drew on his experiences at Apple and how they serve true for anyone looking to change the marketplace.
While Jobs’ innovative spirit is without question, Kawasaki shared a litany of examples from years long since passed of innovators and up-and-coming companies that were sneered at, only to rise and overtake competitors that failed to adapt.
Kawasaki, for example, put a spotlight on Western Union and its initial write-off of the telephone in 1876.
More than a century later, Kodak clung tightly to its core business, rather than looking to digital technology. Kodak’s flaw, Kawasaki said, was its approach — rather than considering itself in the business of creating memories, he said it was hyper-focused on putting chemicals on paper.
“You’ve got to get to the next curve,” Kawasaki said. “You cannot wait for perfection.”
As to the latter point, Kawasaki shared with the audience a mantra shared often within the walls of Apple: “Don’t worry, be crappy.”
While much of the spirit of sprinting ahead and course-correcting along the way comes out of California — and, more specifically, the San Francisco area — Kawasaki adamantly told the crowd the region does not hold a patent on entrepreneurship.
“Silicon Valley does not have a monopoly on innovation,” Kawasaki said, pointing out Milwaukee and other midwestern cities are capable of the same level of greatness.
The naysayers will inevitably lurk in the foreground, Kawasaki said, but he encouraged attendees to liken it to white noise and forge ahead.
“Don’t let the bozos drive you down,” Kawasaki said as he tried injecting humor into his message. When it comes to naysayers, he said, “The world is full of these kinds of people.”
As for making changes along the way as innovations are refined, Kawasaki encouraged attendees to embrace such thinking as well. Apple, and the companies Kawasaki has been affiliated with in the following years, were known to amend the path — sometimes frequently.
“Changing your mind is a sign of intelligence and strength,” Kawasaki said.
