Think different

I’m a special needs kind of guy. In a company employing 43,000 people, probably at least half of them use a computer as part of their jobs… a PC kind of computer. So in a sea of over 20,000 Windows machines, I’m the only one using a Mac, or so I’m led to believe by the IT people who don’t support my OS X Snow Leopard operating system. That’s okay. I don’t mind having special needs, because there is no one else in the company (of whom I am aware), who does what I do. When it comes to creative media, most other groups and corporate entities within Air Liquide largely rely on outside vendors, who, I might add, use Macs to produce those creatives.

I’ve been using a Mac in this job since day one. In fact I started many years ago with the second generation machine known as the “Fat Mac” because it featured a whopping 512K memory. My, how far we have come. Up until last week, in my job here, I was on my third machine; one desktop followed by two MacBook Pro laptops. The second laptop, was five years old and beginning to give me cause for concern that it wasn’t long for this world. I’d requested approval to buy a new MacBook Pro, but as one might surmise considering this iffy economy, those in approval seats were somewhat reluctant to signal thumbs-up on a machine costing over twice the price of your basic, no-frills Dell.

Beside the usual truth in the adage, you get what you pay for, Macs rule… in the graphic arts community. Last year I went on a press check to see our 400-page product catalog roll off of a multi-million dollar web press. The monster press was controlled by a sophisticated built-in computer running custom software, but guess what the pressmen (and women) used to view digital proofs at their control stations. Yep, Macs. I might add that a Mac was used to view and process the color photographs contained in the catalog, to write all of the copy, to create all of the graphics and to build the layout. Only a single PC, belonging to the Project Manager who pulled the entire project together, was directly involved in the project.

Okay, so a Mac is a premium computer selling at a premium price. I liken it to the products that I use my Mac to help market to customers. In many cases, Air Liquide makes premium specialty gases that command premium prices. There’s nothing wrong with that. A premium product should rightfully command a premium price. But you have to be careful not to link premium price with added (and unnecessary) cost. You have to cast proper grammar to the wind and… “think different.”

I’m writing this on my new 17″ MacBook Pro because, happily, there are many in this company who understand how the price of something does not necessarily reflect the true cost of using it. This is where value comes in, but more on this later.