Dan Lyons, a.k.a. Fake Steve Jobs and a senior editor at Forbes, gave one of the Web 2.0 Expo keynotes this morning.  Dan was both hilarious and thought-provoking.

So how does someone become the Fake Steve Jobs?

Dan asked, but Forbes wouldn’t let him start a blog.  Apparently Dan was “old media” and Forbes didn’t have confidence in his “new media” abilities.

So … Dan started Fake Steve Jobs (anonymously of course). 

Within six months he had 90,000 readers!  One of them was the publisher of Forbes who regularly emailed Fake Steve with comments and ideas.  He also offered a reward to anyone that could find out who Fake Steve was in real life.

“Oh crap!

What now?”

Once again, Dan asked Forbes if he could start a blog.  For a second time he was told no. 

Hmmm?

Back in his NY hotel room Dan emailed Forbes (as Fake Steve Jobs) and asked the publisher if he was interested in having Fake Steve work for Forbes.  As you would imagine the publisher was thrilled.

Dan’s identity ultimately came out and he came clean with Forbes.

What a story! Dan didn’t take no for an answer, proved himself, and simultaneously learned a ton about a medium he had never used before.

I hope Forbes learned something too!

Dan’s closing remark: “We focus so much on destruction that we lose sight of what’s springing up around us.”