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Google Video Customer Service

Posted on August 21, 2007  Comments (1)

Google Video sold digital videos that were controlled by Digital Rights Management DRM (so the purchaser didn’t buy something they bought the right to view the digital media according to a set of constraints. I, and many others find these DRM deals a bad deal for customers. I think Google realized that DRM made their Google Video a bad business (though maybe they decided it was a bad business for other reasons).

Well Google’s original method of existing the business left many people upset – with good reason I think. Google has wisely reacted to that feedback by improving the exit strategy (including full refunds and the ability to play videos purchased for the next 6 months). This improvement is evident for customers but also is an improvement from the perspective of the other stakeholders too. An update on Google Video feedback

When your friends and well-intentioned acquaintances tell you that you’ve made a mistake, it’s good to listen. So we’d like to say thank you to everyone who wrote to let us know that we had made a mistake in the case of Google Video’s Download to Own/Rent Refund Policy vs. Common Sense.

To recap: we decided to end the Google Video download to own/rent (DTO/DTR) program, and are now refocusing our Google Video engineering efforts. The week before last, we wrote to Google Video DTO/DTR program customers to let them know that videos they’d already bought would no longer be playable.

We planned to give these users a full refund or more. And because we weren’t sure if we had all the correct addresses, latest credit card information, and other billing challenges, we thought offering the refund in the form of Google Checkout credits would entail fewer steps and offer a better user experience. We should have anticipated that some users would see a Checkout credit as nothing more than an extra step of a different (and annoyingly self-serving) kind. Our bad. Here’s how we’re hoping to fix thing…

Related: Dell Listening to Customer – other companies refuse to listen – Google: Good Service not Arbitrage – Dell, Reddit and Customer Focus – Discover Card Dis-service

Data Based Blathering

Posted on August 17, 2007  Comments (2)

Ok, this is one of those posts you might want to ignore or you might enjoy. Before blogs there is little chance this would reach you. But I am tired of seeing the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) promoted as if it were some encouragement for better management when all it seems to do to me is encourage superficial, non data based claims. And since it my blog I can rant if I feel like it.

ACSI: Flat Customer Satisfaction Suggests Continued Weak Consumer Spending

That is the title of the news release. Are they kidding!! They think a flat American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) reading is going to lead to weak consumer spending? I doubt it. I really doubt it. What data, or theory is that based on? Jeez this whole thing just makes me crazy. Trying to use a index to promote the “importance of quality principles” (ASQ is one of the “sponsors” of this effort) and customer focus in this way – ARGH. It does the opposite – showing people how to misuse numbers. How to overreact to variation. How to compare one dot to another dot and make claims from those 2 dots. I am sure I will make mistakes in my statements but the ACSI has bugged me since it was started with the way it ignores sound quality practices and promotes the opposite of what people like Dr. Deming taught.

“American automakers are narrowing the gap with Asian manufacturers, but they’re still coming in last,” said Prof. Fornell. “Though foreign nameplates just passed domestic cars for monthly sales, Detroit’s Big Three might have an opportunity to take advantage of Toyota’s difficulties in maintaining quality as it increases production. When you make more cars, chances are quality is going to slip.”

I suppose it it possible their was a statistically significant change in the actual consumer satisfaction in favor of the Big Three versus Asian Manufacturers, though I doubt it. But fine, lets say it isn’t just random variation. And heck for a sentence or two lets even accept this measure of “satisfaction” is even meaningful. Why would making more cars mean your quality is going to slip? This seems like trying to say something about numbers when you don’t really have anything to say. Toyota will make more cars next year, most likely (unless there is a large recession), so is your prediction that their ASCI is likely to slip? Please read Practice and Malpractice in Management Research v 6.0 by Paul R. Carlile and Clayton M. Christensen.

Making a prediction and testing it out would at least be applying some semblance of the PDSA cycle (granted I probably shouldn’t even bring that up as it is such a stretch from a what PDSA really is) – but the concept of PDSA is that it is a learning cycle. You make a prediction based on your theory and then test out your theory. The claim is making more cars means your quality is going to slip (which in the context I take them to mean is equivalent to the ASCI number slipping – otherwise the quote is basically a non-sequitur)?
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Great Marissa Mayer Webcast on Google Innovation

Posted on August 9, 2007  Comments (4)

Marissa Mayer speech at Stanford on innovation at Google (23 minutes, 26 minutes question and answers). She leads the product management efforts on Google’s search products- web search, images, groups, news, Froogle, the Google Toolbar, Google Desktop, Google Labs, and more. She joined Google in 1999 as Google’s first female engineer. Excellent speech. Highly recommended. 9 ideas:

(inside these are Marissa’s comments) [inside these are my comments]

  1. Ideas come from anywhere (engineers, customers, managers, executives, external companies – that Google acquires)
  2. Share everything you can (very open culture)
  3. You’re Brilliant. We’re Hiring [Google Hiring]
  4. A license to pursue dreams (Google 20% time)
  5. Innovation not instant perfection (iteration – experiment quickly and often)
  6. Data is apolitical [Data Based Decision Making - this is true but as an operating principle requires people that really understand data. See: Data can't lie.
  7. Creativity loves Constraints [process improvement and innovation]
  8. Users not money [the opposite of what business school's teach business case]
  9. Don’t kill projects morph them

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Hiring: Silicon Valley Style

Posted on August 6, 2007  Comments (3)

Interviews on how to hire in Silicon Valley. I especially like Guy Kawasaki’s comment – “the key to getting great people to work for you is to have a great product. That is why Google does so well. That is why Apple does so well.” I agree with the concept that a huge part of hiring good people is offering them a place where they feel proud of what they are working on. This is even more true when you talk about great software developers that have more choice than most in how they choose to earn a living.

via: How Are Companies in Silicon Valley Hiring?

Related: Interviewing and Hiring Programmers – Google’s Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm – Google Exceeded Planned Spending on Personnel

Google Exceeded Planned Spending on Personnel

Posted on July 19, 2007  Comments (1)

Often people have trouble understanding Dr. Deming’s disapproval of arbitrary numerical targets. What he was trying to prevent is what many see every day, such as managing to quarterly earnings targets. There are several problems with numerical goals but in here lets focus on one. The change from managing for what is best for the business to managing to hit a target. Google Profit Trails Analyst Estimates; Shares Slide:

The company hired more people than expected last quarter, Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said on a conference call. Google added 1,548 jobs, mostly in sales, marketing and engineering, bringing its total to 13,786. “We overspent against our own plan on headcount,” he said. “We decided it was not a mistake. The kind of people we brought in were so good that we’re glad we did this.”

Great statement. And if more people could manage that way, one of the problems with numerical goals would be eliminated. But with so many organizations tying huge bonuses to meeting arbitrary numerical targets you will have a great deal of difficulty getting managers to hire 3 extra people this quarter, who will help the business, but will ruin their chance at a bonus. Or even if they just take a hit on their performance appraisal compared to the other managers that meet the headcount target – even if it meant turning away talent the organization could have benefited from greatly – and then the manager that missed their target loses out in the next promotion opportunity.

I am happy to own a tiny portion of Google and glad they are making decisions like this. Now just because I think there is a good case to be made for exceeding the targets that doesn’t mean that hiring more people is necessarily good. It is perfectly possible Google is hiring too many people and making a bad prediction about how these people will benefit Google in the long run. I am just saying I strongly support not tying yourself to short term numerical targets, if you predict a better decision requires taking actions that will cause the target to be missed.

Google increased profit by 28%, from the second quarter last year, to $925 million (and down from $1.0 billion in the first quarter of 2007). Lest you think personnel can’t really cost Google that much can it, just the stock based compensation in the second quarter reduced earning by $242 million in the quarter (an “expense” that wasn’t reported just a few years ago). Google had 13,786 full-time employees as of June 30, 2007 (up 1,548 in the quarter) – so that is over $17,500 per full time employee. If anyone at Google wants to talk I am open to considering an employment offer.

Funding Google Gadget Development

Posted on June 28, 2007  Comments (4)

Google Gadgets are small tools and toys that integrate with iGoogle. Google is funding developers to work on creating gadgets through Google Gadget Ventures. Great idea. They offer:

1. Grants of $5,000 to those who’ve built gadgets we’d like to see developed further. You’re eligible to apply for a grant if you’ve developed a gadget that’s in our Google gadgets directory and gets at least 250,000 weekly page views. To apply, you must submit a one-page proposal detailing how you’d use the grant to improve your gadget.
2. Seed investments of $100,000 to developers who’d like to build a business around the Google gadgets platform. Only Google Gadget Venture grant recipients are eligible for this type of funding. Submitting a business plan detailing how you plan to build a viable business around the gadgets platform is a required part of the seed investment application process.

Google continue to make good moves to manage in a new world. With this program they are not investing in creating an infrastructure to develop software, support software, hire staff… Instead they get to tap the drive and capabilities of those developers working on products which increase the value of iGoogle through small cash incentives. Previously they offered Google Gadget Awards. They also fund Google summer code – to support software developers creating open source software and reducing computer waste (where they didn’t stop with improving the servers they use but to making a broader impact on society). They really do a great job of leveraging their efforts well.

Related: Google Innovation and Entrepreneurship – Google Custom Management Improvement Search Engine – Experiment Quickly and Often – Innovate or Avoid Risk

Eliminating Quarterly Earnings Guidance

Posted on May 25, 2007  Comments (1)

It is good to see more people understand the bad practice of excessive short term focus on quarterly profits. It is also a bit amusing to see the Chamber of Commerce pushing an idea Deming was called unrealistic for pushing.

The right way to handle a surprise:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is calling for companies to halt “earnings guidance,” or coaching analysts, toward a precise target for quarterly profit. “The incentive to meet that number is an incentive to manipulate,” says Robert Pozen, head of the MFS mutual funds. The negative surprise comes in the end: Remember Enron.

Roughly a quarter of the companies in the S&P 500 have stopped giving guidance (or never started), including Berkshire Hathaway, Coca-Cola and Google. Check the investor-relations area of a company’s web site to see whether it plays what David Hirschmann of the Chamber of Commerce calls the “fool’s game” of earnings guidance.

Related: Management: Geeks and Deming – Deming’s Seven Deadly Diseases of Western Management – Goodbye Quarterly Targets? – Distort the System

Reduce Computer Waste

Posted on May 24, 2007  Comments (6)

High-efficiency power supplies for home computers and servers (pdf) by Urs Hoelzle and Bill Weihl – Google:

Most likely, the computer you’re using wastes 30-40% of the electrical power it consumes because it is using an inefficient power supply. It’s difficult to believe that something as basic as a power supply could be responsible for that amount of waste, but it’s true.
…
The opportunity for savings is immense — we estimate that if deployed in 100 million PCs running for an average of eight hours per day, this new standard would save 40 billion kilowatt-hours over three years, or more than $5 billion at California’s energy rates.
…
The net result of these changes is a dramatic improvement in efficiency (including the power supply and the regulators) to about 85%, at virtually no cost. In other words, you won’t have to pay more for a higher-efficiency PC, because the power supply is actually getting simpler, not more complicated. By spending another $20 or so extra, it is possible to use higher-quality components and achieve efficiencies well over 90%.

Google has adopted the technology for their servers. And they are working to have the technology adopted by manufacturers; so when we buy computers they will use this technology to reduce waste. This is good since not many of us cannot eliminate this muda ourselves (since we don’t build our own computers – as Google does). It is also an example of a company with a higher purpose that makes a good deal of money. Google definitely understands the concept of eliminating waste.

Related: Cost of Powering Your PC – How Google Works – Engineers Save Energy – Innovate or Avoid Risk

Google Customer Service

Posted on May 14, 2007  Comments (1)

Google and Ice: A service story:

“Ice.com has been very vocal with its criticism. It’s a classic case of a dissatisfied customer. So from a PR dimension this was a problem for Google.”
…
“We got a call from Google in February asking us what they could do to help us,” Gniwisch said. He said Google put together a team of people who flew to Ice.com’s headquarters in Montreal. “We were also on the phone with them two to three times a week for the first three weeks,” he said. “These folks put a lot of time into fully rebuilding our philosophy about AdWords from the ground up.”

Good reaction. Better to have avoided the problem in the first place, but still good to react at some point. The question I have is if they have improved the system to avoid the problems the customer experienced. And have they put in place measures which might indicate a problem (say a significant decline in customer spending) so they could intervene more quickly in the future. The last couple of paragraphs are not a great sign – but it is no surprise, Google (and any other organization) would have plenty to improve.
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Google Software Engineering

Posted on April 11, 2007  Comments (2)

An interesting series of posts on Google NYC, Top Google engineer talks to NYC software industry:

Google NYC is not a specialized engineering operation, its 300 engineers work in teams of three on the full gamut of Google products and services. Currently, Google NYC engineers are working on about 100 different projects.
…
Of Google’s 8000 employees worldwide, approximately half are engineers. Warren stressed that Google pro-actively seeks to keep an engineering-centric culture and does all in its power to avoid undue influences from the likes of biz dev, VC and marketing folks.

Google continues to stress the importance of letting engineers pursue customer delight. It seems to be working pretty well, even if some don’t like the primacy of engineers at Google.

Google Engineering: The REAL story

The Google agile development process begins with “upfront ideation,” Rechis said, and “story creation” follows. Once “stories are in place,” a highly managed “weekly sprint” development cycle is set in motion, with multi-functional teams working to meet supervised deadlines. Development teams typically are comprised of a Project Manager, a User Experience Engineer and a Technology Lead prioritizing workflow. Project schedules are set and reviewed for compliance in regular and frequent team meetings:

Engineer finishes task, Produces build for User Experience approval, Engineer releases into build, Build QA’d. Build stage for release…

The Google “weekly sprint” methodology enables flexible iteration integrating user feedback during the development process, Rechis indicated. As is the Google rule, he concluded, “focus on the user and all else will follow.”

Related: Stretching Agile to fit CMMI Level 3 – Agile Management – Google New York Speaker Series

Interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt

Posted on April 9, 2007  Comments (0)

This interesting interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt covers many topics:

Sergey gives this nice speech about what is the biggest cost to Google. And everybody assumes it’s like engineers or something. He says, ‘opportunity costs‘
…
The trick is to have everybody participating in the decision and make sure everybody has been heard. The book Wisdom of Crowds (by James Surowiecki) says that you have to have two things to make better decisions in groups. One is you need a deadline, which someone — at the end of the day is me or some external factor, and the second is that you need a dissident. There needs to be one person who will sit there in the room and say I disagree, and then the person next to him or her will say, “Well, yeah.” See, everyone waits for the first person to be the dissident, and then they pile on, and that’s how you have a healthy argument.

The culture of challenging ideas as done in the academic environment seems a key cultural component of Google. So many other organizations may talk about striving for the best solutions but so much actual activity is driven by who says what not by what is best. Even at Google that is certainly true to an extent, but Google seems much more committed to the best solution. The culture is one of finding the best engineering solution.

Related: Eric Schmidt podcast – Meeting Like Google – Google Shifts Focus – Google Management – Innovation at Google

Google Website Optimizer

Posted on April 7, 2007  Comments (3)

Google’s Website Optimizer allows for multivariate testing of your website.

Website Optimizer, Google’s free multivariate testing application, helps online marketers increase visitor conversion rates and overall visitor satisfaction by continually testing different combinations of site content (text and images).

Rather than sitting in a room and arguing over what will work better, you can save time and eliminate the guesswork by simply letting your visitors tell you what works best. We’ll guide you through the process of designing and implementing your first experiment. Start optimizing your most important web pages and see detailed reports within hours.

Google provides an online slide show with audio (a good example of one way to share online information sharing in my opinion). This tool seems to have limited experimental options to what is on the page (it does not appear, for example, that one variable could be current customer v. new visitor…). Still it looks like an very easy way to do some simple multi-factorial experiments. Google offers a list of partners for those interested in consulting and more advanced features (and for those experts reading this you can apply to be a partner).

Related: Design of experiments posts – articles on multi-factorial experimentation – Google: Experiment Quickly and Often – Data Based Decision Making at Google
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Using Google to Eliminate Some IT Costs

Posted on March 24, 2007  Comments (0)

Computer Science 101: A Case Study In Google Applications:

Sannier plans to shut down the university’s own e-mail servers later this spring. When that happens, thousands more will move over. The portal provides access to other functions of Google Apps, including calendar (which users can now share online, something they couldn’t do before), instant messaging, and search. Within the next two months, Sannier expects to offer personalized home pages and Google’s Docs & Spreadsheets applications combo.

The cost to ASU: zero. The university had been spending a half-million dollars a year on servers and storage for its open source e-mail system, including administrative support costs. More important is the faster pace of innovation. “Now we’re on Google’s development curve, not ours,” Sannier says.

Google’s efforts with Google Apps have fairly quietly become quite significant. I find gmail excellent (and Google talk and Google calendar are good but hopefully will be improved significantly). I must say I find Open Office very good and so don’t quite see the value in Google docs but maybe I am missing something (for those few documents that benefit from collaboration Google’s model sounds interesting – though a wiki seem like the best option in that case). Seems very possible Google Apps are an example of Clayton Christensen’s concept of disruptive innovation.

Eric Schmidt Podcast – Google Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Posted on March 20, 2007  Comments (1)

iinnovate podcast interview with Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google.

“Normal sales quotas” – oops maybe Google can learn from others in this area. I found it interesting that Eric Schmidt teaches at Standford even while being the CEO of Google, because as he says he learns from students questions. The podcast series, done by 2 Stanford students, has quite an impressive list of, I guess, visiting speakers at Stanford: Andy Grove, Alex Counts, David Kelley…

via: Eric Schmidt Interviewed On Entrepreneurship, Management and More

Related: Innovation at Google – Google Shifts Focus – Chaos Management (by design) at Google

Google Millionaires

Posted on January 9, 2007  Comments (1)

Last week, in Google’s Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm, I mentioned Google’s turnover was only 4%. This is the context within which I thought that was impressive: O Googlers, where art thou? by Verne Kopytoff:

For Google, the departures present a new hurdle. Enticing as many old-timers to stay as possible is a priority because, with each farewell party, a piece of the company’s institutional knowledge and culture is lost. “We take a lot of time and care, in particular with our old-timers,” said Stacy Sullivan, Google’s human resources director. “It’s so important that we are paying attention to whether they’re being challenged.”
…
Google’s initial public offering immediately minted more than 900 millionaires at the company, by one estimate. Even many rank-and-file employees became instantly wealthy. The total has grown over time as its shares have catapulted in value. Financial freedom gave the former Googlers in this article wide latitude in deciding what to do with their lives. The reasons for leaving are many: Alack of new challenges, ambivalence about the company’s growth and a desire for a career change are just a few.

Google was named the best place to work in America (this is a horrible web site by the way – forcing a new click for about every sentence of info).

Competing On The Basis Of Speed

Posted on January 8, 2007  Comments (1)

Competing On The Basis Of Speed (webcast) by Mary Poppendieck discussing complexity, queuing theory, and constant innovation. Google posts presentations given at the Googleplex (including this one). In this one, Mary presents lean ideas as they related to software development.

Related: post on software development – lean software development – articles by the Poppendieck’s – Competing on the Basis of Time

Google’s Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm

Posted on January 4, 2007  Comments (5)

Google Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm. First, from a “what should I do,” view, I believe, Kevin Meyer’s advice is more appropriate: The False God of the Almighty Algorithm. But Google can do some things well that are unwise for others to try.

Desperate to hire more engineers and sales representatives to staff its rapidly growing search and advertising business, Google — in typical eccentric fashion — has created an automated way to search for talent among the more than 100,000 job applications it receives each month. It is starting to ask job applicants to fill out an elaborate online survey that explores their attitudes, behavior, personality and biographical details going back to high school.

They are comparing this to answers provided by Google employees (who were asked to fill out 300 question surveys). I can’t see this as an effective strategy for most companies. And even for Google, I don’t see it as a great idea, but trying ideas that might seem crazy can be an effective innovation strategy. Google experimenting in this way, seems fine to me – though I think it will fail. Better: Google’s brain teasers – but that effort probably will not scale to meet Google’s needs.

Interested in management improvement jobs. Try out Curious Cat Management Improvement Jobs. Those looking to hire can post announcements for jobs in lean manufacturing, six sigma, quality engineering, customer focus, process improvement… for free.
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Management Improvement Search Engine

Posted on October 25, 2006  Comments (0)

Google has launched a nice new feature that allows users to create customized search results. I have talked about this idea before: Improve Google. Last year I posted about Rollyo, which allowed what Google now does (using Yahoo for the underlying search). I liked Rollyo but the new Google offering is better, so I have switched to using Google.

Try our Management Improvement search engine

This searches, using Google technology, over 50 management improvement web sites that I have selected. Sites include: (this blog, Curious Cat Management Improvement Connections, Curious Cat Management Library…) and the best management improvement sites (in my opinion), including: The W. Edwards Deming Institute, Lean Blog, Panta Rei, Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement, Superfactory, Got Boondoggle?, In2:InThinking Network, Peter Scholtes, Center for Quality of Management, and many more. I will also be adding more; please share your suggestions.

Add the Management Improvement Search box to your site.

Google Shifts Focus

Posted on October 7, 2006  Comments (0)

It appears Google has decided it is time to put more resources into improving their many existing products (Gmail, News, Video, Maps, Picassa, Spreadsheets, Checkout, GoogleTalk, AdSense for Radio, GoogleReader, BlogSearch, GoogleGroups,…). That makes sense to me.

When Google had few other products I think it was likely wise to push a bunch of stuff out the door quickly. Now that they have a bunch of decent, but not really great products, adjusting and taking the opportunity to improve those product makes sense. In my opinion they have always been very focused on search and AdWords (The 70 Percent Solution) though even that could be improved some as Google has acknowledged.

Google Puts Lid on New Products

Co-founder Sergey Brin is leading a companywide initiative called “Features, not products.” He said the campaign started this summer…

This change while significant I believe is just an adjustment. Google will continue to march to its own tune: which is a good thing.

Related: Chaos Management (by design) at Google – Google: Experiment Quickly and Often – Google: Ten Golden Rules

Meeting Like Google

Posted on September 29, 2006  Comments (1)

How to Run a Meeting Like Google, offers good advice like agendas distributed ahead of time, having a note taker…

Instead, she encourages such comments as “The experimentation on the site shows that his design performed 10% better.” This works for Google, because it builds a culture driven by customer feedback data, not the internal politics that pervade so many of today’s corporations.

Also definitely read: Most Meetings are Muda and meeting advice from 37 signals

Related: The Team Handbook – Google Management Methods – How Google Works – Innovation at Google

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