Today, in the wake of Steve Jobs’ passing, I find myself reflecting on how much his genius has given birth to the ingenuity of many small business owners. Through the technology he helped create and perfect, there are a multitude of companies in varying and diverse industries who are working faster, more efficiently and very creatively.

Steve’s genius empowered people to use a “cell phone”  as much more than just a phone. We have small, mobile devices layered with an extremely easy to use interface and powerful applications which have revolutionized the way businesses look at their processes, presentations and publications.

Over the past several years, I have gotten to see many small businesses use the innovations that Steve Jobs’ company created, to expand how they run their everyday business.  Through the brain child of Steve Jobs, I have seen how X-Rays are transported easily from one office to an expert miles away, allowing for collaboration and patients to get relief and resolution much faster.

Many businesses were able to revolutionize their publishing because of what Steve Jobs did. Audio and video companies transformed the world using small computers to accomplish what only could be done previously through expensive studios.

Due to Steve Jobs’ innovation, I personally have witnessed business owners bringing first class tools to enable top of the line presentations, with the ability to bring electronic contracts with signatures to close deals at the end of those presentations. We are giving small businesses the ability to “go green” by filling out paperwork on the fly and having the ability to send it immediately to servers through email.  Not only that, but at the end of a transaction where contracts are signed or services are performed, the small business owner can take payment electronically right there on the spot, eliminating extra paper bills, mailing of invoices or the expense of non-swiped credit card fees.

Language barriers are being removed in diverse work settings with simple to use applications where we can do speech to text in any language and with a touch of the screen, have that translate to another language.  Businesses are able to pull down up to the minute inventory, pricing and customer records.  Through innovation being introduced, everything is working simply, powerfully and immediately to get business results that were previously taking a few days to a month from beginning to completion.

The healthcare industry used to consist of hospice and long term care or case management to be required to keep tedious paper files and carry them around from home to home.  No longer! Steve Jobs’ brought applications mainstream, easy to use and scale that now allow for work flows where patient data is easily accessible, always legible along with powerful tools to know prescription drug interactions, health status updates and easily accessible reference guides.

Steve Jobs has empowered people to think about things that were not possible even five years ago. Through a life of excellence, he is inspiring others to excellence in their corner of the world.

Steve Jobs said, “Don’t live someone else’s life. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

I believe that Steve Job’s ingenuity and relentless pursuit of excellence has allowed a wide breadth of people to build on the concepts he had and achieve their own success.  He has helped others’ businesses continue to make a difference in the world long after Steve is gone.  He will be missed.

She loves working with health care professionals and showing them options for using an iPad for providing better quality care for patients.  She thoroughly enjoys working with financial professionals to help them provide better services in financial planning for their own clients.  As part of AT&T’s small business sales, she gets to work with 200-300 accounts in small businesses to grow.  “They can do so much more at a fraction of the cost now,” she says proudly as she discusses the state of mobile technology today.

To Amber, AT&T provides the ability to “deliver the whole pie,” or provide a comprehensive service to small businesses.  No longer do small businesses have to go to different vendors for all the parts needed in a solution.  With AT&T services, her customers have a “one stop shop” for their mobile needs.

Amber will add a lot of insight into what is being done with small business customers, particularly in mobility.  It will be very educational to read her insights.  We welcome her aboard Networking Exchange Blog.