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Steve Jobs announced he was stepping down from his post as CEO of Apple (News - Alert). His example of building a company that would truly “change the world” has lessons for all of us working in the smart grid space.

Lesson 1: Intuition plays a critical role in technology innovation

A front page story — "Jobs’ Exit Ends an Era” — in the San Jose Mercury News describes Steve’s ability to “know intuitively what consumers needed in their lives, even before they themselves could put a finger on it.” That quality is true of many Silicon Valley innovators. The lesson for our industry is that the killer apps of smart grid will require that same ability to make intuitive leaps. Quantitative research cannot anticipate future trends.

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