A recent article in Business Week was titled Managing Google's Idea Factory. The article listed specific steps that Google is taking to encourage innovations, which are crucial for Google to be able to compete with giants like Microsoft and Yahoo! as well as newcomers like Technorati.
What do we like about their approach?
Rigor and discipline It is nice that Google mentions that not only creativity is key to their success, but so are the rigor and discipline behind their approach. The company has eight brainstorming sessions each year with 100 engineers. Six concepts are pitched and discussed for ten minutes each. The stated goal is to build on the initial idea with at least one complementary idea per minute.
Lead from the top Google recognizes that it is not enough to allow anyone at the firm to post thoughts for new technologies and businesses to mailing lists. They have instituted supporting processes that are led by management. Marissa Mayer, the Director of Web Products at Google, has open office hours much like a college professor where employees can talk through ideas. Google's personalized home page came out of this process. Also, all engineers have one day a week to develop their own pet projects, no matter how far from the company?s central mission. Google News came out of this process.
Act like a venture capitalist Google is willing to look for great ideas not only inside the company but outside as well. In 2004, the company bought Keyhole, which allowed them to develop Google Maps with sophisticated satellite imagery and maps
A key question is whether Google can sustain and continue to nurture this "innovation culture" as they grow. We'd love to hear your thoughts.
Google's Culture of Innovation
Natalie PainchaudPosted by Natalie Painchaud in Comments (10)
Discussion
Posted: Monday, November 14th, 2005 - 7:00 am EST
I'd love to know more details on how they winnow down their ideas to a select few. Having a brainstorming meeting to discuss 6 ideas required selecting those ideas from probably hundreds of candidates submitted from within the company. It's that process I'm interested in hearing about.
Posted: Monday, November 14th, 2005 - 7:56 am EST
What exactly is so innovative about Google? I'm going through a list of their offerings in my head, and I can't come up with any that aren't just better executed "me too" ideas.
Search? Web-based email? Blog reader? Maps? Usenet aggregation? News? All of these were around long before Google.
I guess this makes sense though Technical execution would be the primary focus of a brainstorming session made up of 100 engineers--not innovation. Indeed brainstorming is itself a weak innovation technique, 100 is way too many participants, and including only engineers provides insufficient intellectual diversity to come up with anything surprising let alone innovative.
While better execution is great, execution is not innovation. And what example does this post offer us for the results of Google's innovation techniques: the "personalized homepage." I rest my case.
Posted: Tuesday, November 15th, 2005 - 8:12 am EST
It looks like Clayton Christensen, the author of The Innovator's Dilemma and the creator of the term "disruptive technology," is a big fan of Google. Inspired by a recent article that detailed the innovation process at Google, Innoblog (the public blog of Innosight, Clayton Christensen's consulting firm) has put together a list of the three major innovation drivers at Google. In addition to acting like a venture capitalist as it sources ideas from around the world, the company also puts tremendous emphasis on the rigor and discipline of its idea-creation process. At the same time, Google has created a culture where senior management often takes a lead role in the innovation process. Here's an excerpt from Natalie Pinchaud's blog posting: "It is nice that Google mentions that not only creativity is key to their success, but so are the rigor and discipline behind their approach. The company has eight brainstorming sessions each year with 100 engineers. Six concepts are pitched and discussed for ten minutes each. The stated goal is to build on the initial idea with at least one complementary idea per minute... Google recognizes that it is not enough to allow anyone at the firm to post thoughts for new technologies and businesses to mailing lists. They have instituted supporting processes that are led by management. Marissa Mayer, the Director of Web Products at Google, has open office hours much like a college professor where employees can talk through ideas. Googles personalized home page came out of this process. Also, all engineers have one day a week to develop their own pet projects, no matter how far from the companys central mission. Google News came out of this process." [pic: Everyday life inside Google]...
Posted: Tuesday, November 15th, 2005 - 6:39 am EST
The fact that Google is perhaps the single most important source of innovation in the American economy today is not lost on the daddy of innovation consulting and writing, Clayton Christensen, who wrote The Innovator's Dilemma and coined the term...
Posted: Tuesday, November 15th, 2005 - 7:02 am EST
A link to a recent Business Week article: “Managing Google’s Idea Factory”
The article highlights multifaceted Google’s innovation process, including regularly scheduled brainstorming sessions.
Source: Business Week Online -...
Posted: Wednesday, December 14th, 2005 - 6:56 am EST
I'm a BIG fan of Google.
Im' a BIG fan of innovation.
As a rich company, Google does an outstanding job of staying ahead on the innovation curb. And I hope and pray that they'll put the peddle to the metal and continually accelerate their innovated practices far into the future. I'll continue to champion their products and services and recommend them to everyone within my reach.
But I can't give the innovation crown to Google for one simple reason: abundance of money.
This is not anti-money. I want Google and its employees to keep getting rich as they keep innovating.
But,I have to save the crown for innovation for the people I've met in an impoverished area in Connecticut. About 2 years ago, I was thoroughly shocked at the variety of things they invented out of nothingness. Some of them couldn't help themselves. They couldn't stop twisting and shaping and gluing and coloring and arranging things that many of us would consider just "junk". I've been guilty of having a mind like that, glossing over human innovation. But now, I'm as happy as can be to have seen such display of imagination in very ordinary looking environments with very ordinary looking things with no financial assets to create and share their innovations.
My affection is still will the guys at Google.
But myy inspiration is tremendously stoked by the impoverished people who can't contain their innovation even in the midst of great odds.
Posted: Monday, February 13th, 2006 - 1:19 am EST
One thing that I wonder about Google is their branding strategy of being a "branded house." Compare this with Microsoft's leanings towards being a "house of brands." Branding is important if Google want to offer a defensive in response to a competitor's emergent disruptive offering, or one that they decide to introduce themselves. Google: master search, [New Brand Name]: education search, for example.
Posted: Wednesday, October 10th, 2007 - 8:08 am EDT
I am with the view that, google actually did NOT invented anthing!!! i don't beleive that google is top edge innovative company. I think their power is to create products with customer focus. Also they are very good engineers. The combination rocks my brother, do you see?
Posted: Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 - 1:42 am EDT
... Google is starting to suffer something that could have an equally significant impact: a drain of some of the entrepreneurial energy that drove its early growth and on which its unique culture depends heavily.” While Google “continues to suck in some of the best talent around,” and former Googlers “pay tribute to the intellectually stimulating culture, good pay levels and extravagant benefits,” for some early hires Google “has lost two vital ingredients: the anything-goes approach of a start-up environment and the chance to strike it rich.
From http://techwatch.reviewk.com/2008/04/google-faces-decline-of-entrepreneurial-energy/
Posted: Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 - 1:42 am EDT
... Google is starting to suffer something that could have an equally significant impact: a drain of some of the entrepreneurial energy that drove its early growth and on which its unique culture depends heavily.” While Google “continues to suck in some of the best talent around,” and former Googlers “pay tribute to the intellectually stimulating culture, good pay levels and extravagant benefits,” for some early hires Google “has lost two vital ingredients: the anything-goes approach of a start-up environment and the chance to strike it rich.
From http://techwatch.reviewk.com/2008/04/google-faces-decline-of-entrepreneurial-energy/
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