In the early 2000s, most of my colleagues who often travelled on work were used to lugging around a heavy laptop. It required fishing out a weighty laptop and a clunky way to pull emails to their inbox. And going through security was a nightmarish experience. That’s when BlackBerry introduced its revolutionary smartphone which had superb security and reliable email.
It instantly made lives easier. It gave access to highly secure enterprise-class emails at a time when companies were not willing to risk their data security. It also introduced the iconic ‘qwerty’ keypad on a phone. People no longer had to struggle to use little squirrel keypads. They could use opposable thumbs.
You could hear people tapping away on their BlackBerries at airports and cafeterias. It became a symbol of success. I remember companies handing out BlackBerries to employees of a certain rank. If you had a BlackBerry it meant you made it. Everyone wanted to have one.
Blackberry inserted itself into the lives of people
Everyone trusted BlackBerry. It was so secure that it was the first choice of the many Presidents in the US. Michael Dell and Jack Welsh were early adopters of the handset. It created such a buzz that even rich and famous celebrities outside the business world started buying them.
The era of BlackBerry has come to an end and it will go down in history for its success and failure story. It will join the ranks of Kodak and Nokia as the mother of all disruption stories. But it is a stellar example of how companies can gain trust by playing the right roles in their customers’ lives.
It’s a story of how a product became a signficant part of people’s lives. That’s a story that leaders can learn from and share with their people.
About The Author
Vinod Krishna is founder and storytelling coach at DustyPaths. His work focuses on forging new paths in storytelling, communication and leadership development.
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