© 1991 by Lawrence I. Charters
Washington Apple Pi Journal, Vol. 13, no. 12, December 1991, pp. 41-42.
We live in cynical times. Those who demonstrate zeal and passion, in almost any endeavor, are castigated as frauds or fools. Given a choice between battling the cynics or joining in the feeding frenzy, most find it easier to be a shark than a saint. Saints need faith and fortitude, while all sharks require is a steady supply of food. Just swim around aimlessly and wait for an optimist to release a little blood.
Given that environment, Kawasaki’s Selling The Dream is remarkable in several respects. The subtitle alone shows he is seriously out of step with the times: “How to Promote Your Product, Company, or Ideas – and Make a Difference – Using Everyday Evangelism.” Note the phrase “and make a difference.” Kawasaki isn’t suggesting you just go through the motions and put on a good show. He’s suggesting you actually change the world.
“Changing the world” is a constant theme in Selling The Dream, and a most laudable goal. While the publisher classifies this as a business book and Kawasaki warns that it is not a Macintosh book, neither is fully correct. Selling The Dream is about business, about competing with foreign countries, and about rediscovering, or re-inventing, the pride of “Made In America” – though Kawasaki doesn’t cover the last two topics. And it’s about user groups, community service organizations, and making the world a better place. It is also about attitudes, motivations, goals, and passion. In places, it is even about religion.
Naturally, Kawasaki draws heavily on his experiences, first as Apple’s Macintosh Software Evangelist and later as President of ACIUS. Mac fanatics (a phrase that should have considerably more meaning after reading the book) will appreciate the inside slams, jokes and puns. Those who are not yet Mac fanatics -good recruiting material for evangelism – won’t really miss anything, and may be inspired by some of the references to, well, to become Mac fanatics. Notice how it all ties together so neatly?
For those who question the need of evangelism – we’ll be polite and not taint them with a label – consider user groups. Once upon a time, Macintosh users were so enthusiastic about their computers that they could hardly contain themselves, so they formed user groups. The user groups had as their mission the conversion of all who had not experienced the glories of Macintosh to – to the glories of Macintosh. To promote this goal, the user groups held workshops, set up bulletin boards, wrote clever programs that simultaneously boosted the Mac and defamed other computers, and generally had a blast. People left user group meetings filled with enthusiasm and a strong urge to stay up all night playing with newly discovered tricks.
Then user groups became ends in themselves. Self-professed managers offered to restore order to the groups – a suspect task because “order” was never a goal. Advocates of good business practices saw strength in numbers and so organized recruiting drives. Unlike past drives, however, these drives were not aimed at getting more converts -just getting more members. Demonstrations of extraordinary public domain software and “neat little hacks” gave way to demonstrations of”practical, useful business tools.” Talk of changing the world and unleashing the power of the Macintosh evaporated before the onslaught of Roberts Rules of Order.
This doesn’t mean that order and good business practices are bad, only that they shouldn’t be used to subvert the enthusiasms and passions of those who cherish the mission, the goal, the dream. In Kawasaki’s view, the best way to maintain an organization’s dreams, be it a non-profit organization like the Sierra Club or a quasi-marketing arm such as H.O.G. (Harley Owners Group) is through evangelism. And evangelism, he stresses repeatedly, is not something that you do once and then coast along. As the subtitle states, you need “everyday evangelism.”
There are chapters on becoming an evangelist, on developing evangelical skills, and on advanced techniques, each complete with diagrams, charts, and “exercises” to illustrate points and stretch the mind a bit. Two very interesting chapters are: “Evangelizing the Opposite Sex” and “The Ethical Evangelist.” The former is immensely entertaining; the latter — the ethics of evangelizing questionable causes – is a good introduction to what really deserves an entire book unto itself. Though Kawasaki doesn’t mention them, how would you like to be a lobbyist for the Tobacco Institute, or the Crack Cartel, or, for that matter, Bush’s “Points of Light” program. Will these causes change the world? For the better?
Rather than fill page after page with endless details on the fine art of evangelism, Kawasaki draws on personal experiences, both his own and others, in the very personal art of evangelism. Some experiences are hilarious: “When I called to get information from Harley-Davidson and gave them my name ‘K-A-W-A-S-A-K-I,’ the person said, ‘You are kidding, right?'” Other stories, such as Bob Hall’s campaign to get Mazda to build the Miata, or MaryAnne Schreder’s founding of the Center for Living With Dying, or the amazing corporate culture of Ben and Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream Company, are tributes to extraordinary dreams bursting forth in widely varying settings.
Given the setting for this review, however, there is another important question: Is this a computer book? Most definitely. There are juicy stories, gossip and slams about Apple, John Sculley, IBM, and Ashton-Tate, as well as praise for all (except Ashton-Tate). When talking about using electronic tools, these are Kawasaki’s rules for success:
1.a. Buy a Macintosh
1.b. Buy a copy of any software that I’m selling if I start another Macintosh software company.
2. Join a user group.
3. Buy a laser printer.
4. Buy a modem.
Sounds good to me ….
While some might call it padding, the last hundred pages of the book reprint an extraordinary document, the Macintosh PIP (Product Introduction Plan). Printed in October 1983 as a highly confidential internal Apple document, it detailed the company’s plans to establish Macintosh as the “third industry standard” (with Apple Ils and IBM PCs). In addition to being an exceptionally detailed business plan, it is also interesting for what didn’t happen: If you look over the list of software products and companies Apple forecast as “hits,” most of the companies no longer exist, and many software packages never made it to market. It is some of the most fascinating “padding” you’ll ever read.
Should you buy this book? Yes. And, after you read it, you should buy and give copies to other people. Give them to the dreamers; the cynics will convince themselves it isn’t worth reading.
Guy Kawasaki, Selling The Dream, Harper. Collins, 1991. ISBN 0-06-016632-0. $20.00 xii, 337pp.