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April 3, 2006
Steve Jobs Journalism and the TTM Factor
In reading Michael Wolff's over-wrought Vanity Fair column on Apple guy Steve Jobs it reminded me of my TTM measure for all Jobs journalism. TTM? Time to Mercurial -- how long does it take until the writer describes Jobs as "mercurial"?Wolff is a slow-starter, but he gets there eventually. It takes him eight paragraphs before he uses the "m" word, but he eventually it's right there:
Over the years there have been reports of his disorder-ish eating quirks, obsessive perfectionism, bouts of depression. There's the mercurialness; the tantrums; the hours-long, dictator-like speeches; the famous, desperate, and transparent hogging of credit; and always the charismatic-leader complex (known widely as the Jobs "reality-distortion field"), through which he has been able to seduce and, subsequently, abandon so many of the people he's worked with. He may be as troubled and unsocialized (and, too, as charismatic) a figure in American business life as anyone since Howard Hughes. [Emphasis mine]
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Your TTM indicator reminds me of the TTB indicator for interviews with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I'm always waiting for the inevitable mention of the Beatles. The more thoughful articles never get around to the Fab-4.