Do you have an Apple device on your wishlist this year?
The watches, tablets, and laptops trace their history back to decisions made to put human design at the center of the first Mac.
There are many reasons to look in awe at that 1984 announcement, including feature after feature that we now take for granted, demonstrated for the first time.
What sticks with me is what wasn’t visible:
Inside that first Mac computer, etched into the plastic case, are the signatures of early members of the Macintosh team.
Steve Jobs believed that artists sign their work. The Mac, he surmised, was a work of art.
I wrote about this in Technical Content Strategy Decoded:
In February 1982, the team had a signing party. One by one, Jobs called each member to sign a large piece of drafting paper. Cake and champagne were served. After everyone had signed, Jobs chose an open space in the upper middle to place his own signature.
Beyond the artistic statement, a signature has a kind of permanence and importance to it.
Your most foundational content can take on this same prominence when it reflects how you want to be known. LaunchDarkly and Gremlin added their signature to the problems they solve with their definitive guides.
I call this signature content.
The new year is a good time to rethink the big picture of your technical content strategy.
If your product could leave its signature anywhere, where would it be?
Not literally, like the inside of a computer, but metaphorically: what significant problem do you solve differently than anyone else?
Now, share that viewpoint with the world. Or at least the developers that experience the problem.