Back to the business - out of the business

It has been a while since I have been writing on my blog. One key contributor to the lack of late stories has been the fact that I have been intensively working for my lovely employer. I also spent 6 months in china, and most of the times an access to blogger would mean higher hacking capabilities which I don´t own.
However, the past year has been surely an educational one, teaching me a lot of modern business and strategy creation as a whole. I have learned to know that in addition of a good design, one truly needs good product management to be able to be competitive on global markets. Product creation is truly a team effort that needs all contributors to be a commercial and profitable success.
I have lately been following Apple with a sharp eye. It is just amazing that how they can manage a successful product after another. I have been wondering that is it only the magical way they can combine a modestly stylish design into a magnificient user experience, or could it also be so that they just happen to be just the right size, with a right amount of products done by right amount of people. Of course the management style of Apple is very much straightforward and relying on key people, like Steve Jobs, but still I think that they are doing many things right. I also think it comes down to the culture of the company and the greater vision of implementing only good products, no matter what the consequences are. but thumbs up!
As I have lately been doing a very little design work (read: non) I would say that I am a bit out of the business at the moment. Of course I interact with designers very frequently but still it is different to actually hold the pen.. However, the interest is still there and keeping a very intense relationship with all new things very much a daily exercise. As a product maker, one is however in the very center of it all ;)