MKJ (00:00.59)
Hey, hey, CEO Mischief Makers, welcome back to the conversation. MKJ here and my amazing guest, Andy Cunningham. Andy, you ready to dive into this messy middle part, this innovation thing that I talk about?

Andy Cunningham (00:01.898)
Hey.

Andy Cunningham (00:14.196)
Yes, the messy middle. My whole life is the messy middle.

MKJ (00:19.354)
Every time you wake up and you’re like, yeah, I’ve got this routine set and I’ve got all these appointments, but man, things all of a sudden happen in the middle of everywhere, don’t they? okay. So, right. If you have not listened to our first conversation and unpacked Andy’s mindset journey, the amount we could go through in about 15 minutes, please go back and listen to that because we are going to now take it deeper.

Andy Cunningham (00:27.323)
Absolutely.

MKJ (00:47.266)
and talk about innovation. Now, Andy dropped a couple of things in our last conversation where she was able to work with Steve Jobs himself. so Andy, you kind of bring us through that process? You already told us how incredibly fortunate you were and how incredibly honored you were to be able to work, to be in the right place at the right time and have the, not just the knowledge,

but the excitement and the understanding of technology so that that showed. I mean, I’m imagining that’s why people said, you need to do this. They knew you love tech. So they gave you those kinds of opportunities that the previous agency that you worked with. When you got here to Silicon Valley and you started working with Jane, I think you said her name was, one other person.

Andy Cunningham (01:29.44)
Yeah.

Andy Cunningham (01:34.773)
Yes.

MKJ (01:44.274)
to try and figure out the PR strategy for the Apple, was it the Macintosh? Yeah. So you get into this process and tell me how that went. Tell me how did you innovate PR? You came with your previous experience in Chicago and also in Silicon Valley when you got here. And how did that impact? How did the way you look at technology?

Andy Cunningham (01:49.664)
Back in touch.

MKJ (02:13.914)
How did that impact the PR strategy you created for the Macintosh?

Andy Cunningham (02:17.846)
Well, you know, it was a really interesting thing that we ended up doing. So it was very obvious to everybody who worked in the Macintosh division, which this was a different kind of computer from what had been out there before. And I remember asking Steve one day, how do you hire people? Because he had this quota of, only going to have 100 people working in the Mac division. And each of us got a special badge. If you were working in another part of Apple, you were not allowed in this building. This is the building with the pirate flag, all of that.

And I said, how do you hire these hundred people? What’s your criteria? And of course they had to get through the HR thing first, but as soon as they got through the HR thing, then they got a chance to meet Steve. And he said, I sit them down at this desk. He had like a fake office set up in the building in order to make it look like a business computer. It’s where he did demos. And he would sit a person across from him with Macintosh and he’d just sit there and say nothing and do nothing. And he said, and what I would do is I would watch what they did.

And the first thing they did was pick up the mouse and start to play with it. That was very positive because no one was using a mouse back then. And the second thing is if their eyes started to sparkle when they could see what was happening, he said, then I know they’re right for my team. None of this was about skills or what you’d done before or your degree or any of that. It was all about, did you have enthusiasm for the product? So Jane and I figured out that if we’re going to get the world to write about Macintosh,

We’re going to have to have them experience the product, all these journalists. So we went, we chose 100 journalists, and we created a day for them at Apple. And they came out individually. They did not come together. Apple did not pay for them to come. And we invited them to spend a day. So they had a whole day at Apple where they got to play with the computer. They got to sit with Steve Jobs. John Scully was the CEO at the time. They spent time with John. They went to the Mac factory. They met the design team. They met the programmers.

They had a whole full -on day with Apple, a hundred of these people. And that was the magic of it. When you have something new and different, people have to try it. It’s not just about saying great things about a product. It’s about giving somebody the opportunity. And by the way, we had key messages that we had written and we kept pounding them into the journalists when they were there, when we sent out the press kit, when we followed up with them. And they all said it. And the magical moment for me,

Andy Cunningham (04:42.548)
was after the launch happened, it was at De Anza Center in Cupertino, and after the launch happened, I turned on my radio in the car and I heard the announcement. And the words they were saying were all the words that we had written, exactly like we wrote it. And it was like, wow, this really works. It was my first real experience with how you can influence people.

if you do it the right way. So I wouldn’t call that innovating PR, I would just say that we figured out what great PR could be.

MKJ (05:15.596)
No, I’m going to tell you right now I disagree with that because I do think you innovated PR, not the structure of it, not the process of it, but the way you look at it, the way you, like you said, experiencing it. Of course, most, many, many technology companies now do that very thing. They invite you in, look at Tesla. They have the big day when you come in and you can look at the cars and you can check them out. And it’s the same concept. But from a computer standpoint,

Andy Cunningham (05:23.306)
Yeah.

Andy Cunningham (05:30.186)
Yeah.

Andy Cunningham (05:38.432)
Yes.

MKJ (05:45.24)
That was completely new. was, that was no one was doing that. So you saw that and I, that is when Steve, when you, when you explained that and Steve jobs looks at people, I’ve had that experience with a

Andy Cunningham (05:46.89)
Yeah, nobody would know when was doing that. That’s true. Yeah.

MKJ (05:58.796)
a program that I was using. It’s ManyChat and it’s a chat bot program on Messenger, Facebook Messenger. And I was involved in the very beginning of this using it as an agency owner. So I was invited by the CEO to experience a new update, a new thing that they were doing. And he just put the computer in front of me, same exact process, put the computer in front of me and just sat there. And I’m like,

Andy Cunningham (06:00.831)
Really?

Andy Cunningham (06:23.04)
same thing.

Right.

MKJ (06:27.98)
Okay, what exact same process and it was so it’s so exciting because

Andy Cunningham (06:31.221)
Wow.

MKJ (06:34.572)
Each person experiences things and explores things and uses their curiosity in different ways. And that’s all he was looking for. How do you use your curiosity? How do you look at something and experience it? Do you sit back and wait for someone to tell you what to do? Do you just dive in and start breaking things? I mean, are you not afraid to just dive in and figure it out? That’s innovation.

Andy Cunningham (06:41.354)
Yes.

Andy Cunningham (06:45.29)
Right.

Andy Cunningham (06:52.512)
Right.

MKJ (07:01.752)
that’s where we take our previous experience and apply it to this new thing. And if we’re very afraid and we sit and we’re like, no, we can’t touch anything because someone has told us that we can’t and that that’s a bad thing, then we’re just going to sit there. But if if we don’t listen to those people who tell us we can’t do that and we do it anyway, then then yeah, we’re going to have an amazing experience. It’s it’s it’s weird.

Andy Cunningham (07:11.456)
Right. Right.

Yeah.

Andy Cunningham (07:21.962)
Right.

MKJ (07:27.702)
when I had that. It was very strange to sit and have somebody watch me. And I know he had the computer set up so that it was recording everything I did, everywhere I looked, right? I know that it was watching my eyes and where I went and all my movements. It was really amazing to have that opportunity to just have a glimpse as to how technology innovates, you know? Very different.

Andy Cunningham (07:39.646)
Wow. Yeah. Wow.

Andy Cunningham (07:52.214)
Yeah, yeah, no, it’s, it can be magical and if you were the type of person that could just jump in and start playing with it, you know, he knew that you were right for his team, which was amazing, you know?

MKJ (08:06.958)
So how do you take that experience that you saw? And now let’s dive in because you were still working for an agency then. And then you mentioned Steve got fired and you did something different at the same time. So take us through that little story if you could.

Andy Cunningham (08:21.108)
Sure. yeah, so Steve, actually Steve got fired because Macintosh wasn’t selling. That’s the real bottom line reason why he got fired. Now he got into a fight with the board and got into a fight with John Scully about it. But he wanted to save the product and Apple was failing because the product wasn’t selling. And he had spent millions of dollars on it. So anyway, he got fired. And I thought this was a great time for me to start my own agency, which I had kind of wanted to do. I had mentioned before I wanted to start.

company and this was a great opportunity to do that. So I ended up leaving Regis McKenna. Regis, by the way, was wonderful. He let me use all of his equipment and the office in the evening. So after people would go home, he said, you can come in and use the copiers and the computers, whatever you need. So he was great. So I started my own thing and literally two weeks later, I get a phone call from Steve Jobs who says, I’m having a press conference in my backyard. Can you come and help? And I’m like,

Now he said, yes, yes, I’m having it right now. So I drove over there and his, his yard, he was at his home in Woodside, California. And it was just crawling with business press people all over the place. And, I kind of, you know, get through them all. knew them all because I’d done work with them with Apple. And I walk into the kitchen and Steve is sitting on the floor with seven people and his lawyer. And there was no furniture in the house as you might’ve heard that about Steve.

And they were all sitting on the floor. So I’m now above them because I’m standing. And they’re all on the floor. And I say, so what’s going on, Steve? He goes, well, I’m going to have a press conference. And I’m going to announce this new company that I’m founding. It’s going to be called Next. I’m taking these seven people with me from Apple. And I am going to also tell people what I really think of John Scully, that he’s, you know, I’m not thinking real positively about John. And I want to tell the world that.

MKJ (10:11.502)
not a very nice person. Yeah.

Andy Cunningham (10:14.07)
So I looked at him and I looked at his lawyer assuming that the lawyer would say something like anything like, what are you talking about Steve? And he didn’t. So I said, Steve, I really don’t think you should have a press conference to do this right now. think you’re so fresh out of Apple, you really haven’t even done your deal with Apple yet. are stealing these seven people. You don’t have a product. Yes, you have a name of your company, but you don’t have a product. Like, what are you going to announce? And he kind of

leans back and he folds his arms like this and he says, all right, I won’t do it, but you have to go out there and get rid of everybody. So I went out and I just told everybody the truth. just said, here’s the, it’s been 10 days. He doesn’t have a product. I know you all want to talk to him, but he doesn’t really have anything to say. And it would be bad if he did say anything. So I’m telling you all that as soon as he does have a product, believe me, we’re going to, we’re going to reach out to each and every one of you. And they mumbled and grumbled, but they left.

And so, and then I ended up working with Steve again, again on and off for several more years.

MKJ (11:22.414)
from your own agency now.

Andy Cunningham (11:23.946)
From my own agency, right. So now I have my own firm. And the reason that he didn’t call Regis, by the way, because a lot of people say, why didn’t he just call Regis? Because he had a conflict of interest with Regis because Regis was running the Apple account. And now he was no longer at Apple. So that created a conflict of interest for Regis.

MKJ (11:42.554)
So you, mean, here again, the choices that you made in this timeframe, if you had stayed with Regis, he would not have been able to call you.

Andy Cunningham (11:53.14)
That’s true. That is true. Yeah, no, I, it good decision I made. Yes.

MKJ (11:55.854)
period.

MKJ (12:00.268)
right? And that, again, those choices, those that pathway, opened you up and allowed you to continue to innovate with a master innovator, obviously, and, and change the world.

Andy Cunningham (12:17.462)
Absolutely. what I do want to say, one thing about what I did with my own agency that I wasn’t able to do at Regis McKenna or at Burson Marsteller, which was I told everybody who came to work with us that our vision is to redefine public relations. And we’re going to redefine it as a core business strategy, not as this adjunct that lives 17 layers below the marketing people. This is going to be a primary function, and we are going to be the change agents that are going to enable that. And that vision.

alone gained me so much loyalty from so many people who wanted to make a difference in our industry. And I had the best people that ever worked at any agencies. And I think I told you I had about 260 people. I had many more over the course of the whole time I had the agency, but the peak was about 260. And they were fabulous people. many of them have gone on to do their own agencies.

MKJ (13:04.985)
Yeah.

Andy Cunningham (13:14.516)
I keep in touch with a lot of them. They’re just, they’re innovative people who want to make a difference.

MKJ (13:19.478)
Yeah, well, that’s, yeah, that’s, I really had to take a second and kind of break that down for for all of the wonderful mischief makers out there listening, because this is that’s why I love your book, Get to Aha. I love I love the way you you break down what you do. This is not PR and I’m doing quotes, air quotes, people, if you can’t see me, this is not

Andy Cunningham (13:33.983)
thank you.

Andy Cunningham (13:41.386)
Right.

MKJ (13:43.33)
Once you say, let’s say, because I don’t think of you in PR, I did not even think of you having a PR agency or anything, because you don’t identify that way. And that’s how you’re different. Same with Steve Jobs. He was different, not just better than some other category that’s already done. If you haven’t read the book Play Bigger by the category Pirates,

Andy Cunningham (13:51.088)
right, yeah.

Andy Cunningham (14:01.824)
for sure.

MKJ (14:06.542)
They talk about this whole idea of being different and having a unique point of view and what you stand for and against and all those, and you do that. I never thought of that. If you had told me in the beginning, yeah, I have a PR agency, then in my mind and everyone else’s mind, we put you in that block. We put you in that little room and you’re PR and that defines you. You don’t do that. You don’t do that.

Andy Cunningham (14:23.307)
Right.

Andy Cunningham (14:28.158)
Right. No, I don’t. And by the way, just a sidebar comment about PR as it was for many years is it’s so different now because journalism is so different. We now have control over so many channels of communication ourselves today that we don’t need the press like we did before. We needed them before because they were our only channel to speak to the outside world with credibility. It was that.

and advertising, right? And advertising doesn’t have any credibility. So if you wanted credibility, you had to work with the journalism community. Today, you can do this, most of this yourself. You don’t really need to talk to the press. It’s good to do some of that at the end once you have your story and your digital footprint out there, but it isn’t required anymore. So.