Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg on Greatest Innovators List

Steve Jobs has been named the second greatest innovator of all time, behind Thomas Edison, in the 2012 Lemelson-MIT Invention Index.

The data comes from a survey asking 1,010 Americans ages 16 – 25 to identify the greatest innovator of all time. The majority of surveyed young Americans – 52% – chose Edison as the greatest innovator. 24% chose Jobs, followed by Alexander Bell, Marie Curie and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, who received 3% of the votes.

These two figures are doing so well on the list because young adults feel that the technology Jobs and Zuckerberg helped create greatly influences their daily lives. For example, 40 percent of respondents said they couldn’t imagine their life without a smartphone or a tablet.

However, the respondents aren’t so sure whether they’d try to become innovators themselves. 45 percent said that invention is not given enough attention in their school, and 28 percent said their education left them unprepared to enter the fields that lead to innovation, namely science, technology, engineering or math.

“This year’s survey revealed that less than half of respondents have done things like used a drill or hand-held power tool, or made something out of raw materials in the past year. We must engage students in these types of invention experiences as well as provide a strong STEM education to drive future innovators,” said Leigh Estabrooks, the Lemelson-MIT Program’s invention education officer.

The Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam Initiative grants teams of students up to $10,000 each, enabling them to pursue a yearlong invention project addressing real-world issues.

10 Things We Can Learn From Steve Jobs

1. Do what you love - Steve Jobs tought us that you can not come up with new, innovative and exciting products unless you've inspired yourself and have passion about moving society forward. Jobs once said, "People with passion can change the world for the better."


2. Simplify - Job's design philosophy is one of constant simplification. He ordered the iPod's designers to loose all the buttons on early prototypes, including the on/off button. The designers complained, then developed the iconic scroll wheel instead.

3. Keep your secrets - Nobody at apple talks. Everything is on a need-to-know basis, with the company divided into discrete cells. The secrecy allows Jobs to generate frenzied interest for his surprise product demonstrations, and the resulting headlines ensure lines around the block.

4. Say 'No' to '1000' things - Steve Jobs was proud, of course, of what Apple did, but he was also proud of what Apple chose not to do. Jobs once said, "Innovation comes from saying 'No' to '1000' things."


5. Master the message - You can have the greatest idea in the world but if you can't communicate your ideas, it doesn't matter. Steve Jobs was the world greatest story teller. Instead of simply delivering a presentation, like most people do, he informed, educated, inspired, entertained all in one presentation.

6. Do not be afraid - Steve was not afraid of anything or anybody. In fact, he wasn't afraid of death either; he embraced it gracefully. iPhone did not support Adobe Flash, as Steve felt iPhone's battery life will be compromised if he supported Adobe Flash. It was not sure if he was fully correct, but he took a stand. Later on he was vindicated. In his days at NexT he decided to sell his products only to academics & researchers; it was not a wise decision, but Steve alone could be bold enough to take such a decision that went against mainstream thinking.

7. Make great products and they will sell - iPad was not the first MP3 device (there were so many from Creative alone). iPhone was not the first smart phone (Nokia had many such in 2007 when iPhone was launched; Palm made the first smart phone perhaps). iPad is not the first tablet (Microsoft made one 7 years ago). Yet iPod, iPhone and iPad created history and continue to ride the market, because they were all great products. Steve had a similar story at Pixar Animation too.

8. Create what consumers will love -This is another area Steve was decidedly different. Apple iPhone when launched had dozens of established players, including the leader Nokia (then). Market research folks had a lengthy list of "features" that users wanted from the phone. Steve did not care a bit about those market researchers, but instead bet on "touch technology" and delivered "user delight" . The rest is history.


9. Be yourself - Steve Jobs, throughout his amazing days at Apple (and earlier), was by himself. He did what he believed in. He did his best. He accepted his mistakes and kept excelling in whatever he did! Very early Apple decided to drop floppy disks; recently Steve decided to bet on solid state disk (in place of hard disk) and very recently he decided to remove optical disk (CD/DVD). The recent Apple OS (Tiger) was completely delivered over the net (wire or wireless, but no installation CD). I can go on but the point is simple, he was by himself . He did not "flow with the stream" . In the process he excelled.

10.Focus on the Future, Not the Present or Even the Past - Always the visionary, Jobs was ahead of his time, time and time again. Too often companies can get trapped in the present, pumping out products with no inspiration. A few examples: In 1998 the first iMac came with no floppy disk drive whereas every other computer manufacturer had still included them at that time. The release of the iPhone did not have a keyboard whereas the Blackberry, the most popular smartphone at the time, had one. It also did not include flash as Jobs saw HTML 5 as the future. Now with the iPad, it promises to be the computer for everyone that the original Mac aspired to be. Through all of these decisions and more there was backlash, but in the end people eventually came around and benefited from this forward thinking. The world would be more innovative if more companies had the same focus.

Reality Shows - How Beneficial?

Today, we are living in 21st century which is a world of changes. A lot of changes have been continuously taking place in different aspects of life. Like other fields, a major change has taken place in the field of entertainment too, that is the introduction of reality shows and attraction of people towards them instead of fictions.

Reality shows have been proved very beneficial to some people. Various singing and dancing shows like "India's Got Talent" and "Dance India Dance" provide a great platform for people who are interested in these fields. These shows thus help to bring out the hidden Indian talents in front of this world full of competition. At the same time, these shows make people aware of dancing, singing and sports, etc. A few years ago, if you had asked anyone what is Locking - Popping or what is Belle Dance, most probably he/she would have answered "I don't know" or "I haven't even heard about it". But know, the answer to the same question comes like "Oh yeah, that's Prince does on Dance India Dance(for eg.)"

Other reality shows like KBC and BQC increase the general knowledge of people and sometimes they also change their lives. Sushil Kumar was one such person, who's life completely changed because of KBC. The show made him "Khaas from Aam".

A still from Emotional Atyachaar

Till now, we have seen only one side of it. We should look at the other side too. Some reality shows are aired on television that make use of abusive languages even when the same thing can be said with the same effect in simple language. Shows like"Roadies" and "Emotional Atyachaar" divert the minds of young people towards unrealistic things.They have adult contents that can generally be not viewed with the family members sitting together.


But, can you tell me any single thing in the world that has got only good qualities? Probably no. Reality shows too have good as well as bad effects on the viewers. But, one thing is damn sure, they have become a part of our life and it now depends on us how we spend our time watching these shows - by learning from them or by moving ourselves towards the unrealistic world.