Man who came up with iMac name tells what the ‘i’ stands for

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Apple Inc.'s iMac

Alyson Raletz

Reporter- Kansas City Business Journal

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The mind wanders when contemplating Apple Inc.’s iconic lowercase “i.”

Ken Segall, the man who came up with the catchy iMac name concept that would help a slew of other products defy capitalization rules — iPod, iPad, iTunes and so on — said the little letter could evoke a sense of individuality or innovation when he pitched the idea to then-CEO Steve Jobs.

Segall recounted the pitch, which Jobs initially rejected, during his keynote address Thursday at ACG’s 2012 Mid-America Corporate Growth Conference in the Kansas City Marriott Downtown.

But what did the “i” really stand for? A member of the audience asked Segall the question after the speaker’s roughly hourlong speech, encouraging growing company hopefuls to embrace Apple’s philosophy of simplicity.

“I hate to make it sound less magical than it may seem,” Segall said.

It’s really about the Internet, he said.

He reminded the audience of days when not everyone had an email address and connecting to the Internet was a challenge for the everyday consumer.

The intent of the iMac was to take away some of this mystery and make the Internet more accessible, he said.

Segall previously worked with the Los Angeles-based ad agency TBWA\Chiat\Day, which handled Apple’s account in 1998 when it launched the iMac.

On Thursday, Segall gave the audience a recap of his recent New York Times best-selling book, “Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple’s Success.”

Here are the highlights:

• “Simplicity isn’t about dumbing things down,” he said — it’s about making things more elegant.

• Apple’s most powerful weapon is that it is made up of a smaller group of smart people — and zero committees.

• Take a cue from Jobs, and detest focus groups.

• “(Jobs) could not care less what his customers wanted,” Segall said. For him, it was Apple’s job to come up with innovative products that its customers didn’t even know they would want.

• Jobs rejected the notion that “businesspeople are a different type of of human,” Segall said. He advised to “think human” and speak and communicate in plain language.

Alyson reports about technology, entrepreneurship, and engineering and architecture firms.