He may only be tied for fifth-best-dressed billionaire, but evidently Steve Jobs is one serious agenda-setter. The man can set an agenda like nobody's business. Complex agendas? Ooooh, yeah-- the agendas he sets would turn your hair white, were you ever fool enough to consider trying to set them yourself. And talk about quality of agenda-settitude! Steve's agendas, once set, stay set; that's it, game over, there's just no unsetting them. Yessirree, if you bring the man an agenda, and he deigns to set it, no matter how complicated an agenda it may be, that's an agenda that's set for life.

We have no idea what we're talking about right now.

Seriously. It's got something to do with what faithful viewer Kioto pointed out, which is Silicon.com's Agenda Setters 2003 awardesque-thing. Apparently a panel of, um, panelists put their heads together to determine who the "agenda setters" are, by which they apparently mean the folks with "global clout and longevity" who "drive the tech industry." Fair enough. We suppose, then, that Steve Jobs ought to be pleased that he was chosen as this year's leader, the agendiest of all agenda setters everywhere. This is his first year at the top of the agenda-setting heap; previous bests include sometime Simpsons guest star Rupert Murdoch, CD-ROM-as-ubiquitous-free-coaster pioneer Steve Case, and Vodafone's Chris Gent. (Yes, if you hadn't clued in yet, this is a British thing.)

That's right, Steve-o is number one this year, up from 15 in 2002-- largely for steering "a relative minnow in the IT industry" into uncharted waters such as online music sales, but also just for being "enigmatic." Who knew that being a man of mystery was such an important part of the effective setting of agendas? Poor Bill Gates, stuck in the number two spot; maybe next year he'll have better luck if he wears an eyepatch.

For what it's worth, Silicon.com also lets you vote for your own favorite agenda setter, with results to be collated and published later-- and they allow write-ins. We're torn; should we go with our gut instinct and reinforce their opinions by voting for Steve, or should we start a grass-roots campaign to elevate Captain Caveman to Agenda Setter status? Decisions, decisions...