IRB Post #3: How Apple Does It

Article: How Apple Does It
Article Source: http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1118384,00.html

According to the article, Apple was successfully able to revolutionize technology and capture the consumer market by its diversity -- by creating its own hardware (ie. Macbook laptops), its own operating systems (ie. Mac OS X), its software (ie. Safari web browser), and consumer-friendly devices that connected and facilitated the use of these devices (ie. iTunes store). As quoted from the article, "if you smooshed together Microsoft, Dell, and Sony...you'd get something like the Apple technological biosphere." Common sense would indicate that producing so many different branches would cause inefficiency and that companies might be better off specializing in specific pieces. However, in the instance of Apple, Steve Jobs argued that by taking all the steps under wing, he was able to push for specific innovations and make sure that he saw his vision the whole way through. He gave his explanation through a story, which he called "The Parable of the Concept Car:" the concept for a car design looks great in the beginning, but after it is sent to a different engineering team who declares it impossible, it gets worse. Then after it is sent to the manufacturers who also doubt its potential, the product gets worse.

At Apple, instead of having separate stages of sequential development, the teams work together throughout and fluidly collaborate in all steps towards production. Workers at Apple boast that their meetings are efficient and everyone is on the same page. Moreover, with Jobs in control at all stages, he was able to be nitpicky and argue for exactly what he wanted. The article was written in 2005, when the iPod nano first came out. As a tiny, shiny, and compact piece of metal that played music and with easy-to-use buttons, the iPod swept the markets like wildfire. Jobs fought for the iPod’s blueprints, designed its complements, and oversaw the entire process until it reached success.

The resounding theme of the article was that Apple's approach at integration was what made it successful. However, the author conceded that other companies like Microsoft, which focused on operating systems, were also able to reach the pinnacle of success by specialization. It was a combination of integration and control, in Apple’s case, that made it so user-friendly and popular.

IRB: Post #2 Harvard and Class

Article: Harvard and Class
Source: http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2011/07/11/harvard-and-class/

I chose this article expecting to read something interesting about Harvard's community and campus life. However, the piece lacked coherent thought or content. For pages, the author, Misha Glouberman, whined about how he had no Harvard-related connections in Montreal and how he supposedly "threw away" his opportunity as a Harvard graduate. It seriously irked me how the author could complain that he was a Harvard graduate in Canada and had no influential connections. He seems to expect that, by graduating from Harvard, he is entitled to success and recognition in Canada. Harvard gives people access to the most influential social networks – true – but having connections from college will help you get positions only if you are good at what you do. The author just doesn’t seem to fit in this circle. Moreover, Canada has its own top schools with their own influential alumni bases.

The author also went on to complain how Harvard locked up its students in "an ivory tower" by providing housing for its students and "preventing" them from meeting non-Harvard students. Obviously if he stayed in Harvard-only buildings, he would find only Harvard students… If this was “too weird” for him, the author could have just gone off-campus -- other schools are very close in proximity: MIT and Boston University, for instance. I doubt the Harvard community was as constrained as the author described. Just about every college in America tries to piece together a “community” with campus events and college-housing – it’s not just Harvard.

The fact that the author felt the compulsion to write a lengthy piece on how his Harvard experience was “pretty weird” and concluded that he was unsure of his own opinion on the topic only shows aimlessness of his writing. Infuriatingly, his tone was bordering on condescending. Arrogant and with nothing to back it up, the author is very likely to get on readers’ nerves. It is clear that he posted the article to show off how “smart” he was to be accepted to such an elite school and how he was supposedly able to see through the illusion of its perfection as an Ivy League school. How this obtuse, inarticulate drunkard could get accepted to Harvard still remains a wonder to me.

IRB: Post #1 Divided We Eat

Article: Divided We Eat
Source: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/11/22/what-food-says-about-class-in-america.html

I once read an article on how "Obesity is the Illness of the Rich." However, "Divided We Eat" by Lisa Miller cites the opposite trend: that obesity is not the illness of the rich but the plight of the poor. Miller argues that while corpulence used to be a sign of being well-fed and wealthy in the past, obesity has become a sign of poverty in today’s fast-food society. Obesity is more prevalent in poorer areas as lower-income families are forced to buy inferior goods -- sugary, fatty foods that are filling for a low cost. Fast food restaurants have seen sales increases with economic slowdown; although it might be unhealthy, McDonald's Dollar Menu is substantial for a cheap price. Upper classes tend to eat healthier, trendier foods because they are able to afford it – shipping exotic cheeses from around the world, eating organic apples, sprinkling kale in their cereals. The author of the article even went on to call food a fashion. According to Miller, the French do not have this problem as they see food as something to be shared and as a means of bringing people together -- unlike Americans who see food in terms of calories and nutritional value. The idea of banning the sale of soda to food stamp recipients was also mentioned in the article, with arguments in favor of and against the proposal in New York. Ultimately, Miller argues that food has increasingly grown as an indicator of social status in the United States.

The author goes on to elaborate how her neighborhood is "foodie", being able to afford to follow special diets of organic Whole Foods and local grocer markets, while just a few blocks away in Brooklyn, other families are struggling to make ends meet and feed their families anything at all. I personally find it ridiculous how these people can ship cheeses from around the world as a mark of social status and then act concerned about the food-insecurity of inner cities. While sipping her imported breakfast and chatting with her equally food-obsessed friend – the author states that "[she] cautiously [raised] a subject that had concerned [her] of late: less than five miles away, some children don’t have enough to eat; others exist almost exclusively on junk food." Miller was supposedly concerned about her fellow city neighbors going hungry. However, she herself was eating luxuries -- an Alessi capuccino with organic milk and imported parrano cheese from the Netherlands! Moreover, her wasteful friend bought a bushel of organic apples even though her mother-in-law already offered her regular apples, an instance which just shows the disparity of the rich and the poor.