Tag: apple

Tim Cook: public leadership in action

Martin Vogel

By Martin Vogel

Tim Cook
Tim Cook: public leader

Apple’s showdown with the Obama administration over the latter’s demand that it decrypt the phone of one of the San Bernadine terrorists is a test case in public leadership. The dispute counter-poses the social goods of national security and citizen privacy. The FBI wants the former to trump the latter. Apple is arguing for the two to be held in a more considered balance. What’s interesting from a public leadership perspective is that Apple is taking a considerable risk; it’s by no means clear that things will play out in its favour. This is no mere PR stunt.

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Apple Watch: how the quantification of life assists managerialism

Martin Vogel

By Martin Vogel

Apple Watch blackSimon Western has ruined my eager anticipation of the Apple Watch (launching late next month, pre-orders from 10th April). In a profound and reflective piece, he discusses how the Watch (as opposed to the humble watch) represents the latest and most decisive step towards the creation of a neurotic age.

Key to this argument is the insight that technology is not simply an appendage to human life but changes what it is to be human. As Simon Western says, we are so affectively attached to the brands and products of the technology companies that they become a part of our emotional, physical and cognitive being. Apple is foremost in facilitating this attachment – with its celebrated competence in combining the disciplines of arts, humanities, science and technology in the service of the development of products to die for. But it is far from alone, as exemplified by the signal obssessions of our day: monitoring of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or email; the pre-eminence of collecting selfies above experiencing life; or the quantifying of one’s lifestyle.

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How social media support social value

Martin Vogel

By Martin Vogel

Eurostar: slow to board the social media bandwagon
Eurostar: slow to board the social media bandwagon

Book review: Who Cares Wins: Why Good Business is Better Business by David Jones.

Who Cares Wins by David Jones is the latest contribution to an increasingly crowded publishing niche focussed on how business can do well by doing good.  Jones, who is chief executive of the advertising agency Havas, shares the view of us here at Vogel Wakefield that the rise of social media is an important driver of social responsibility in business. He points to a tweeter using the name @BPGlobalPR who outpaced the official BP Twitter account in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon spill.

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