Stetoscope

Apple company is in the turmoil for several weeks due to rumors and informations about ots CEO’s health Steve Jobs. I do not feel really concerned by this affair but I am now thinking about the role of the spokesman in pearltrees, my own start-up. Is it a good thing to have a single spokeperson? What is his role?

It appears to be a logic rule to have one single spokesman for a start-up and it must be the CEO. Indeed, a start-up is continuosly running after time and representation work is an obligation but must not affect the daily life of the company. That is why a team cannot represent a start-up, it takes too much resources. Thus, who should be that person. I think it is the CEO, since he often has the best overview of what is done in the company and he is often the one that synthetise best the vision (which is key as we are talking of start-up).

What is the role of the spokesman? I think he has to embody and to be the voice of the company. What is really difficult is to include in the speech the whole company and not to reduce the company to his CEO. Steve Jobs and Apple fates are so entangled that is complicated to separate the both of them. However he has not mentionned enough his teams during his famous shows. The reality is that steve Jobs did not make and save Apple alone. Moreover Apple is now a culture, a know-how and very senior teams… The second mistake is to communicate on the “creation” myth only because the audience, years after year as assimilated Steve Jobs to an artist.

An artist is revealing and challenging the limits in which our lives are enclosed. A brand or a company must help people to live a better life… It is not the same. With or without Steve Jobs, Apple will continue to help people to have an esthetic and confortable touch in their technological life. Whereas as artistic work ends with the life of the artist. George Harrison had a very witty words about that when a journalist was asking him about an hypothetical beatles reunion “As far as I’m concerned, there won’t be a Beatles reunion as long as John Lennon remains dead”.

So the spokesman must be a single person, often it is the CEO for his capacity to encompass the whole company but his duty his to embody the company in all it dimensions… Really difficult to do.