Steve Jobs, the Consumer, and Inventing the Jewish Future

Of all the recent retrospectives of the late Steve Jobs, the one that has had the most impact on me contained the observation that he “hated traditional market research”.  It was a comment made by one of the guests (advertising consultant, Cindy Gallup) on the public radio show “The Take Away” on Friday, October 7. You could hear the entire recording here.  Mr. Jobs believed that successful marketing and production must be customer centered, but that consumers don’t really know what they want. He believed in what Alan Kay once said: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”    According to author Steven Johnson, also on the same show, Jobs understood that a product’s design incorporated usability.  It isn’t just what the product looks like; it’s how it can be used by the consumer.  Jobs’ genius according to Johnson, was that he believed that when designing a product,   “the totality of the experience of using the product” must be part of that design process.  So what do we, as Jewish educators and innovators take from this?

The iPod was created to fill a vacuum. Its creators saw what was trending in the business of music: (napster and clunky mp3 players) and created something new, thereby creating demand and changing the way we listen to and buy music.  This is the paradigm that could work for Jewish education.

When we design a Jewish experience, we need to remember that there is a delicate balance between the goals we set as educators for our constituents, and their desires and needs.  Franz Rosenzweig was right when he taught us that the periphery leads us to the center.  Whatever Jewish experiences we develop, they must relate to where our students and families are today. It can’t just look cool.  They need to be practical, useful and accessible. But therein lies the dilemma.  Do we, as Jewish leaders, design experiences that we believe will serve the purpose of (and forgive  me for using this phrase but it actually is apt) Jewish continuity, or do we develop models that may, in the short run, seem appealing, but in the end, add nothing to creating a  Jewish future?  Another way of asking this question is: Do we want to fill a vacuum (like the iPod did) or do we want to enhance the already existing empty space of ideas that lead nowhere?

Following Steve Jobs lead, what we design must be multifaceted, and  informed, though not determined by conventional wisdom.  Just because an idea is popular doesn’t make it The Truth or The Answer.  We are on a narrow bridge, and need to make sure that we don’t fall off into the chasm of irrelevance.  The subtlety is following the teachings of Steve Jobs in creating a synergy between what we design, how it works and our roles as leaders.

So we need to pay attention to what’s trending in our congregations and communities.  Parents are busy.  Kids are overwhelmed.  There is a drive to create models of juvenile Jewish education that can fit into our overscheduled families’ lives. The question is….will these experiments really lead to a Jewish tomorrow?  Is “fitting in” enough? 

Collaboration, construction of knowledge and finding personal meaning are all guidelines that need to shape what type of Jewish experiences we design.  We need to master the tools available to us in the 21^st century, both digital and experiential to make Jewish life to enhance the usability of the “product” we design. The role of a Jewish professional is to learn from conventional wisdom and then apply knowledge and experience to invent a new future. 

Variable Rates of Change

“A little rebellion now and then is a good thing”.  This little piece of wisdom was uttered by Thomas Jefferson in 1787. What does this have to do with Jewish education and social networks?  Everything. 

At the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) conference I was immersed in a sea of digital technology.  I attended classes and window shopped at the technology expo – an open market filled with vendors selling their wares, both hard and soft.  At one of the classes I attended, educator and author Dr. David Thornburg explained how we are in the midst of a revolution that is changing the social and cultural matrices that define our society.  He described how we are living in the third of a series of “disruptive technologies” that have shaped learning and teaching. The first took place thousands of years ago, with the invention of the phonetic alphabet.  In the 16th century the world was changed through the introduction of mass-produced books. The current “mobile revolution” is impacting the way our students (who will become the adults/parents/consumers of the future) look and interface with the world.   He stressed that we educators need to recognize the new “21st Century Literacies” of our age.  Another presenter, Lee Crockett, author, artist, and co-founder of the 21st Century Fluency Project, had his own criteria, which he not surprisingly called, “21st Century Fluencies”.  Both lists are more or less similar.  These intertwined concepts can be roughly called survival skills for the future. They define how our students view their world, and how those perspectives will shape what that universe will look like. They include the ability to:

• critically assess content and resource 
• prioritize between a myriad of stimuli
• participate and collaborate 
• seamlessly integrate the different types of digital and social networks and media
• engage in creative problem solving.

All these proficiencies are expressed within the context of living as global digital citizens.

The kids in our schools respond to a learning environment that is characterized by being relevant to their interests.  A structure has to be in place that provides the opportunity for students to create something that is their own. It also has to be authentic - touching upon their real lives. Learning happens when what is being presented matters to the student. If the kids don’t care, they won’t learn.  So we as educators need to foster a process of discovery that sticks to their souls.  To accomplish this, we must bring our school parents into the picture. We need to encourage them to participate and collaborate with their children to create a truly personal sense of Jewish engagement.  Our educational goals should relate to our families’ lives.  Lee Crockett put it best when he said that learning in the 21st century is not about the teacher - it’s about the learner. Our families need to care about being Jewish.  They need to be engaged in creating a Judaism that belongs to them.

So now we get to tachlis. How do we translate theory into practice?  Our students (youngsters and their parents) need to be comfortable with the idea that God can be found at the beach, in their neighbor’s house, on facebook, Google +, as well as in the synagogue sanctuary.  Teaching for tomorrow is defined as the art of curation and facilitation. Creating environments for self discovery, informed by our 4,000-year-old tradition as translated by Second Life and Apple, are the new roles for Jewish educators. There are no concrete answers and “how-to’s” to offer, because tomorrow someone may invent a new app “that does that” (whatever “that” may be).  That’s the point.  Change is constant.  It’s the rate that is variable.  That’s the paradigm for Jewish education today:  Adapting and designing for Jewish engagement that is consistent with this rate of change.  Let’s learn from Yochanan Ben Zakai, who was carried out in a coffin beginning the process that led to the writing down of the Oral Law, adapting Jewish life to a new post-Temple future. It’s no longer a question of what Judaism will look like next week. It’s what we, as educators, will do to make that change meaningful.

Disruption has always been the Jewish norm.  Rebellion to the Jewish status quo should not be a surprise or anathema. It’s what we learn from it that is important.  This is the challenge that will define our future.