Once in a while I read an article that makes an impression on me, and this is one that did.

Why?


Because of this statement:

“The ROKR (phone, a commercial disaster), made with Motorola in 2005, respected the traditional relationships between manufacturers and carriers. The iPhone, released last summer, completely overturned them.”

I feel like I straddle the fence. I work within the (health care) industry, where I respect traditional relationships and support the best things happening within them. At the same time, the organization within that industry has a well known history of turning over traditional relationships, all the way back to 1947. It makes for a challenging and thought provoking existence. It’s great.

I love both this story, and a story I read previously about the birth of the iPod. I have worked in situations like the iPhone developers, with so much raw passion for doing the right thing, that maybe a door slammed here and there (and maybe not physically but emotionally). I know what that’s like. I also know what it’s like to arrive, physically and emotionally, to the place where people are happy with what we did.

The article drew nice parallels for me about how the actors in health care see each other and how those visions may change if we want the iPhone and not the ROKR version of a health system. The other nice thing about the story is that it pointed out that relationships were overturned, not organizations. Everyone has a role to play to get us there.

Enjoy the article(s) and see what impact they make on you (and comment on them here, please).

Related Posts