That this post had to be the one to follow the last leaves me with a profound sense of sadness.  When I heard that Steve Jobs had passed away, I immediately took to my MacBook to confirm the news on MacRumors or TUAW, but didn’t even have to go that far because the default Apple page that loaded when I opened the browser was a picture of Steve next to his name and “1955-2011”.  It was a message as design conscious as the products he created.  So well done was it that I actually chuckled to see that rather than create their own graphic, CNN was simply using a shot of the Apple.com homepage to accompany their reporting.  “We make better stuff,” Jobs’ once proclaimed.  He was right.

As I took to Twitter to see the reactions to the news, there in my Twitter feed was a tweet from Michael A. Stackpole that embodied the simplicity of Apple while conveying the heartfelt sadness accompanying the news.

“”

Mike has always been associated with Macs in my mind because way back in 1997 or 1998, I attended an author chat with him and someone (can’t remember if it was me or not) asked him what kind of computer he used/if he used a Mac. And his response has always been a favorite of mine. “They told me to get Windows 95 or better, so I got a Mac.”  With that single character tweet, Mike took me right back to that moment, which was just one of the many touchstones I owe entirely to the Macintosh computers I’ve used over the years– and all of that is due to Steve Jobs’ vision.

I took to YouTube, both on my laptop and the iPad, to watch old videos of Steve at work.  The “Think Different” ads that perfectly sum up his impact on the world, the commencement address he gave to Stanford a few years ago, his playful jabs at Microsoft on-stage next to Bill Gates, his unveiling of the Microsoft deal at Macworld in 1997 with Bill Gates up on the monitor like Big Brother (one of the only times he ever got booed)… he was one of a kind.

Given that it was a day after Tim Cook’s first product unveiling as Apple CEO, you almost wonder if he was hanging on to make sure that Apple would be okay without him.  And while I definitely think it will be, it will never be the same.  It’s the end of an era and the world has lost one of its few modern day visionaries.

Think Different

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

.