Friday, October 5 marks the one year anniversary of the death of Apple CEO Steve Jobs. How did Jobs, whose death was mourned around the world, achieve such remarkable success during his relatively short life? What lessons can we learn from him? Let me share what I witnessed up close.

I had a ringside seat during the ramp-up of the personal computer industry in America -- serving as public relations counsel to CEOs and entrepreneurs who were re-inventing the way we would do business in the modern world. It was a pretty heady experience for a young, non-engineering female, not to mention an amazing learning laboratory.

A key barometer of industry clout was Esther Dyson's PC Forum, where the elite players would convene, preen and be seen.

You could see early on that Steve Jobs was a different kind of cat. He had an aura of cool amid a sea of self-professed tech geeks. He was a marketing impresario, not a programmer. A liberal arts major, not an engineer or MBA. He even dressed differently. (For example he wore a blazer and a bow tie, forerunner of the black turtleneck, at one of the PC Forum events in 1984, the year of Macintosh launch.)

Jobs didn't play nice with the other kids. When the industry moved toward standards and compatibility, Apple stood alone with a proprietary system. When the IBM "clones" (Compaq, Dell, HP, DEC et. al.) dominated the high-volume Enterprise sector, the Mac was beloved by students, graphic designers and creatives -- a much smaller niche.

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Today, Apple reigns as the world's market cap leader and most valuable brand -- with Greenlight Capital's David Einhorn predicting that the stock could eventually reach a valuation in excess of $1 trillion.

Competing in the ultimate center of brains and brilliance, how did Jobs accomplish this feat? Here are some clues:

1. FOCUS!

Instead of letting product lines proliferate or permitting a thousand ideas to bloom, Steve Jobs insisted that Apple focus on just two or three priorities at a time, according to the best-selling biography by Walter Isaacson.

Originally posted here:
Be a Success Like Steve Jobs