Mario Sundar's Speakeasy

This blog has seen a lot of coverage of my favorite tech obsession – Apple, their iPhone apps (v1.0 and 2.0) and corporate blogging. As you probably know, I edit LinkedIn’s corporate blog and I’m interested in all things corporate blogging. This post combines those two interests of mine.

Some of you marketers may ask yourself the question: “What would Steve Jobs do” when you’re faced with a marketing dilemma? But ask yourself the question: “What would Steve Jobs blog”? Read on, after the jump, to find the answer to that question.

What would Steve Jobs do?

I think we have had the answer to that question on two earlier occasions, remember these letters/”blog posts” from Steve Jobs himself:

1. The Greener Apple memo

2. We’re sorry about the iPhone price memo

And, now to complete the trilogy of posts, I give you…

3. We should have done better with MobileMe internal memo

So, earlier today we have the blogosphere in a tizzy about an internal Apple email from Steve Jobs on the debacle that was the MobileMe launch (read my experience with MobileMe).

I thought this would have been a great MobileMe status blog post, but if you were to break down the email into three parts, here’s what Jobs said.

* Now that launch sucked

– The launch of MobileMe was not our finest hour.  There are several things we could have done better:

* We could have done better. We’re Apple. (And, I couldn’t agree more)

– MobileMe was simply not up to Apple’s standards – it clearly needed more time and testing.

* The Future is bright. Lessons learned. (Read Om’s great piece on the topic)

– It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store.  We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence.

– The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about Internet services.  And learn we will.  The vision of MobileMe is both exciting and ambitious, and we will press on to make it a service we are all proud of by the end of this year.

Now, even if someone reveals this email’s a hoax, I think this is a great example of how CEOs should blog – internally or externally – in response to a crisis. Do you have other examples? Here’s an earlier post I wrote on when CEOs should blog.

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Filed under: Business Blogging, Steve Jobs