On Internet Business

Googles 9 principles of Innovation

Posted by Michael under SEO Conferences and Exhibitions

It is impossible to know what the future holds. It can’t be predicted. There is radical uncertainty.

During the two hour discussion on Tuesday between a group of EO members and Google’s Robert Swerling  I learnt what principles Google uses to stays ahead of the competition ?

1. Innovation, not instant perfection.

Launch and improve. Never come out of Beta. I remember Tom Peters referring to this as “Ready, Fire, Aim.” Some programmers like to code for months or even years and hope they will have built the perfect product. That’s castle building. Companies work this way, too.  The problem with this approach is that if the users don’t like the product all the time spent on the product has been wasted. If the idea doesn’t work it is better to find out sooner rather than later.  
‘The Googly thing is to launch it early on and then iterate, learning what the market wants–and making it great.’ The beauty of experimenting in this way is that you never get too far from what the market wants. The market pulls you back.”

2. Ideas come from everywhere

At google they accept ideas come from anywhere external or internal. Since the meeting I have read, they have an internal list where people post new ideas and everyone can see them. It’s like a voting pool where you can say how good or bad you think an idea is. Those comments lead to new ideas.”

3. A license to pursue your dreams.

“Google is engineering company” and to retain the best engineers, it lets them pursue their dreams.  An engineer’s time is split 70% /20%10% between main, adjacent and completely different projects. Engineers spend 20% of their time working on whatever they want, and Google trust them to build interesting things.

4. Morph projects, dont kill them.

Any project that is good enough to make it to Labs probably has a kernel of something interesting in it, even if the market doesn’t respond to it straight away, there maybe a way of commercialising it. If users don’t take to the product morph it into something that the market needs.”

5. Share as much information as you can.

Everyone can see what everyone else is working on. Collaborate and over communicate! Google has sophisticated systems including their intranet that shares information across the company, employees have insight into what’s happening with the business and what’s important. To reduce duplication every Monday, all the employees write an email that has five to seven bullet points on what they did the previous week. These are then collated into a giant Web page which is indexed.

6. Users, Users,Users.

Google believes by focusing on the users the money will eventually follow. In a virtual business, if you’re successful, you’ll be working on something that is necessary. Subscribers or advertisers will eventually pay for it.

7. Data is apolitical.

Some companies think of design as an art form. Google treat it as a science. It all comes down to data. Run a test and whichever design does best is chosen. Google have an academic environment where data is king.

8. Creativity loves contraint.

People think of creativity as this sort of unbridled thing, but engineers thrive on constraints. They love to think their way out of that little box: ‘We know you said it was impossible, but we’re going to do this and that to get us there.’”

9. You’re brilliant, were hiring.

Cultural fit is a key part of google success. Googlers want to work on big problems that matter, wanting to do great things for the world, believing that we they build a successful business without compromising on standards and values. Google is extremely focussed on ensuring that only the smartest and most committed people make the cut and become employees. They use rigorous recruitment methods to ensure only those who can thrive in Googles environment make the cut.

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