Goodbye to an innovator and a great leader - and a heck of a presenter!

I have to say that I came into the Apple world after Jobs had left the company and I still loved the products they had (confusing as the product line up was).  I was there when the NeXT acquisition brought Steve back and witnessed the Apple renaissance. For a while there the fear was that Apple would go the way of the Amiga and we'd all have to go over to Windows 98 (*gasp*).

The two biggest influences that Jobs had on me was the iconic Think Different ads (same theme as the 1984 ad - don't conform, dare to innovate), and Steve's great presentational style. I think throughout my MBA and MSIT programs, where presentations were frequent, while many of my classmates seemed to put all their talking points on the slide, and kept looking at the computer or projection screen (and not the class), I adopted the minimalist but polished presentation style, and I spent quite a few hours practicing my presentations (and often timing them) to get comfortable enough with the material, the flow, and the crowd, so that I could just walk in front of the class not stall during my presentation.

Adieu Steve - you've taught us a lot.