There were two big events today. At 10 AM, Steve Jobs delivered a presentation that detailed Apple’s newest thing, a touch-screen tablet called the iPad.
And then, at 6 PM, Barack Obama delivered a speech detailing the state of the United States and the progress and difficulties we’ve gone through in the past year.
Were they that different, these two events? Both were highly anticipated. There were potentially high hopes that both might give us insight into a way to make our lives better in the near-future.
And reaction to both events afterwards was quite mixed. The iPad was not revolutionary, in the way that some thought it might be, but there are still many that yearn to get their hands on it. Likewise, Obama’s speech was not – could not in this fiercely politically divided time of ours – able to bring forth anything other than a mixed response.
It’s because, in the end, Steve and Barack were trying to do the same thing. They’re trying to get us to empathize with them, to see the world that they do and to dream the same dream. They want us to see the potential that they know the iPad has while overlooking its shortcomings. They want us to see the benefit that health care reform will give the country while overlooking the political hoops we may have to jump through to get it. They want us to try to understand that it’s hard.
It’s hard to create products that invent new markets and revolutionize the way humans interact with technology. It’s hard to run our country. “But,” say Steve and Barack, “here’s what we came up with. And we think it might be what you’re looking for.”