Category Archives: Google

Inside Google

Posted on December 26, 2005 by John Hunter

A View Into Google’s Inner Workings [the broken link was removed] by Dan Farber: Merrill listed the following attributes of Google’s development culture: Hire smart people who are nice to work with Flat management structure No silos, open communications Ideas mailing list 20 percent (time spent on personal projects) Small projects Iterative design, constant improvement Server-based deployment (AJAX) Test, don’t guess “Innovation doesn’t happen ‘on the way by,’ it must be design into everything we do,”

Posted in Google, Innovation, Management | Tagged ,

The 70 Percent Solution

Posted on December 10, 2005 by John Hunter

The 70 Percent Solution [the broken link was removed] by John Battelle, an interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt: We spend 70 percent of our time on core search and ads. We spend 20 percent on adjacent businesses, ones related to the core businesses in some interesting way. Examples of that would be Google News, Google Earth, and Google Local. And then 10 percent of our time should be on things that are truly new. An example there would be … Continue reading →

Posted in Google, Innovation, Management, quote, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Innovate or “Play it Safe” to Avoid Risk

Posted on December 8, 2005 by John Hunter

The Xooglers blog has some really interesting posts. In one, “But, but, that’s just crazy talk!” [the broken link was removed], Doug Edwards discusses a great example of what true leadership is about. In my defense, my background conspired against me. Past public relations debacles had taught me always to evaluate worst-case scenarios before considering the possible benefits of any new initiative. “First, do no harm” had become my mantra. This is the reality of many people. There are many … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Google, Innovation, Management, quote | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Data Based Decision Making

Posted on December 6, 2005 by John Hunter

Acumen visits Google: As a first step, we hope to collaborate with interested Googlers to find better ways to learn what works around the world. Identifying powerful solutions to poverty that are useful to people in different settings, and that are market-driven, scalable, and sustainable, is our greatest challenge. Second, we’re hoping to strengthen how the world measures both social and financial returns to investments in delivering critical goods and services to the poor. Like Google, we hold a deep … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Google, Management | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Google: Ten Golden Rules

Posted on December 5, 2005 by John Hunter

Google: Ten Golden Rules [the broken link was removed] by Eric Schmidt and Hal Varian: At google, we think business guru Peter Drucker well understood how to manage the new breed of “knowledge workers.” After all, Drucker invented the term in 1959. He says knowledge workers believe they are paid to be effective, not to work 9 to 5, and that smart businesses will “strip away everything that gets in their knowledge workers’ way.” Those that succeed will attract the … Continue reading →

Posted in Google, Innovation, Management | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Google: Experiment Quickly and Often

Posted on November 25, 2005 by John Hunter

Google Thinks Small by Quentin Hardy, Forbes: Brin and Page have created a corporate organism that tackles most big projects in small, tightly focused teams, setting them up in an instant and breaking them down weeks later without remorse. “Their view is that there is much greater progress if you have many small teams going out at once,” Schmidt says. The mission overall: to collect “all the world’s information” and make it accessible to everyone. “It’s a cause.” … Hundreds … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Data, Google, Innovation, Management, Process improvement, quote, Software Development | Tagged , , | 12 Comments

Googlebombing

Posted on September 22, 2005 by John Hunter

The Google blog has a new post on: Googlebombing ‘failure’ Basically they explain that Google is not making a judgment that the result top results for “failure” represent Google’s opinion of who is a failure. The top result is the Biography of President George W. Bush [the broken link was removed] on the whitehouse.gov web site, and the second result is Michael Moore’s home page. As Google explains: By using a practice called googlebombing, however, determined pranksters can occasionally produce … Continue reading →

Posted in Fun, Google | Tagged

Google Talk

Posted on August 24, 2005 by John Hunter

Google is at it again. They have announce Google Talk [the broken link was removed]: Google Talk is a simple and free way to talk with and send instant messages to your friends. Like Gmail, Google Talk uses Google’s innovative technologies to help people communicate more effectively and efficiently. Think of it as Google’s approach to communications. Google Talk is easy and intuitive to use. All you need to make free calls is an Internet connection, a microphone, and a … Continue reading →

Posted in Google, Management

Google: Good Service not Arbitrage

Posted on May 16, 2005 by John Hunter

My comments on: Seth on Arbitrage from John Battelle’s Searchblog Thanks for the great blog. I have to disagree with this post however. First, I think Google chooses not to disclose more to investors mainly because the founders don’t go along with conventional wisdom. They would rather examine whether something is a wise use of management resources, and if not, don’t just do something just because most everyone else does. I don’t think the keeping trade secrets has much to … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Google, Management | Tagged

Google and Acquiring Tiny Companies

Posted on May 12, 2005 by John Hunter

I like Google and enjoy reading about the company. Even so I find the number of articles about the minor moves they make strange. At some point this fascination with the minor moves Google makes will stop but for now it is hard to miss stories about Google anywhere I look. The post on John Battelle’s Searchblog (a great bog) about Google buying Dodgeball was a great example. The entire post: News is here. What is Dodgeball? I dunno, but … Continue reading →

Posted in Google, Investing, Management | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Web Search Improvements

Posted on January 30, 2005 by John Hunter

Topic: Internet – Search Improvement I have been waiting for Google to provide a way around an obvious problem with their search results for a long time. They choose to provide results that do not display matching content when you click on the result link. Since this was such an obvious failure to meet the needs of web search customers I figured a solution would be quick. After a time I decided I should tell them I don’t want “results” … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Google | 1 Comment

Google Photo Management Software – Picasa

Posted on December 20, 2004 by John Hunter

Topics: Freeware – Photos I am a big fan of Google, the search engine, and the company. Google bought Picasa, digital photo management software, a few months ago and decided to give the software away as freeware. I just got around to downloading Picasa. My initial reaction is that this is a wonderful product. I suggest you give it a try. It can automatically inventory all the images on your computer and it does a great job of organizing the … Continue reading →

Posted in Google, Travel photos

Google index reaches 8 billion

Posted on November 10, 2004 by John Hunter

Google Blog reported that the number of documents included in the Google index now exceeds 8 billion. “Today that number nearly doubled to more than 8 billion pages.”

Posted in Google