As we’ve often discussed, nothing is more important — and brings more reputational power — than your personal brand. When we look back at those figures whose identities are etched permanently in our collective memory, very few 20th and 21st century brands are more indelible than that of Steve Jobs. The Apple impresario spurred us to “think different” and the world has never been the same since.
Now, Jobs’s widow, business leader, executive, and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs has been thinking differently indeed by way of the Steve Jobs Archive.
Look at this new website as the ultimate personal branding strategy — a “tribute website” like no other. It’s a living archive that carefully curates some of Jobs’s most lasting, inspiring “ideas.”
“With respect for the past and excitement for the future, the Steve Jobs Archive offers people the tools and opportunities to make their own contribution,” reads the website.
Including everything from his 2005 Stanford Commencement address to salient, prescient thoughts that stemmed from his appearance at the 1983 International Design Conference in Aspen, the site preserves the essence of the brilliant tech innovator for generations to come. Rather than a static memorial or library archive, the site aims to inspire future thinkers and leaders.
It also offers a lesson to all of us in how we manage our own personal brands. What legacy do we want to not just to leave behind, but start to build in real time? This is sure to launch a new trend. Yes, it offers a new way to memorialize those who passed, but it also sets an example for those living people of note who have a significant sway over our society — or simply aspire to move us the way Jobs did.
What we put out there for all to read bears a reputational responsibility. If we aim to have an impact that presents our best selves — and inspires others to embrace their own, in turn — then we have to be mindful of how we wield the power of our digital presence.
The speeches, emails, and private notes preserved in the Steve Jobs Archive paint a picture of a man who understood the full power of his words. Powell Jobs also knows this well. Through this site, she put a digital bookmark in place on her late husband’s brand. It’s a page that will forever be held open for us all to read.
It should spur us all to be mindful of how we manage our brands and choose to harness them powerfully to affect others.
For inspiration on the power of your online reputation, look no further than Jobs’s speech at Apple’s internal meeting in 2007: “make something wonderful and put it out there.”
