Apple has spent years developing the image that they are cool, their products are cool, their services are cool and so are their customers.

Recent ad campaigns have highlighted the differences between Mac-cool and PC-nerdiness. 

What happens when the nerdy reality hits the Mac road?

Apple’s iPod was launched with much fanfare and some of that fanfare came from their infamous Duke iPod campaign, convincing the university to provide iPod’s to incoming freshmen.  That was almost 6 years ago.

These days some of those students have graduated and moved into the workforce.  The lecture like podcasts they received from their professors to ’study’ at school are now being adapted to the corporate world.

Podcasts are meeting the corporate rank and file coming to them in their iPod ear buds.  Podcasts training employees on the routine and mundane lectures on safety.  Podcasts relaying the latest financial results or quarterly company pitch.

The idea is that employees can listen to their iPods while they are doing ‘whatever’ and continue to accomplish the mission.  Defining that ‘whatever’ time however is where things could fracture the Apple mystique.  Does the average worker want to listen to a training lecture about Driving Safety while they are commuting home from work?  Is that even safe?

The podcast has a significant potential to help companies get the message out, quickly, effectively and on the cheap.  Employees however are already feeling the personal time pinch.  Just because an employee is ’salaried’ does that mean they should fill their every waking hour multi-tasking.

If employees reach their multi-tasking angst tipping point, will the backlash be felt by the employer or will they take their anger out on the messenger and shoot their iPod?

The Wall Street Journal covered this blurring of the lines between work and leisure time in their article The Boss Puts The iPod to Work by Anjali Athavaley .  In that article, they discussed the perk of getting a free iPod balanced with the bossy bug in their ear, providing instructions in their free time.

At the end of the day, most employees in the short term will probably enjoy the perk.  They will probably also enjoy the reduction of boring lectures and training sessions in employee packed rooms and cafeterias.  In a few years though, what will they think of this technology after the old way has disappeared.  Companies need to start working on redefining their mix to help their employees maintain a work life balance otherwise the iPod will suffer less than the employer when the tipping point is reached.

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