Innovation @ Google

This is based on Talk by Dr.Prasad Ram -Head Google India @ CII meet at Bangalore on 23rd Jan 2009

There is a myth that Innovation is only for particular type of company. He was with Xerox. He said, if you recall Mouse, Computer, Ethernet etc every major technology used in PC was from Xerox. But Xerox has completely missed out the opportunity for commercializing these inventions.

It is not that Google has a unique Innovation process. Nothing is rocket science! We just focus on user; we are working for stake holders, driven by monetization. If you focus on user, the money will just flow and the stake holders will be happy.

Basic philosophy is:

1. Fast is better than slow
2. You can be Serious without a suit !
3. Sending e-mail from the CEO to every Googler about what's happening in the company"
4. CEO meets every Googler quarterly and religiously"
5. Everyone has an important role to play.
6. It does not follow any hierarchy where any one fall in HR ladder nine Rules of Innovation

1) Everybody must understand what the company is :(From CEO to Cooks in the canteen). It flashes the Vision of the company at least twice a day!

Mission - We are about organization information - which includes video, audio, contents, data bases etc. If anyone comes up with an idea - It makes up the mind of the initiator whether it fits the company's vision or not!

2) Hire the best:
They have unique method and every hirer is looked upon by Larry page and their package too. "One bad apple, would rot the whole basket of apples". This is the most important job to be done and this is very much Top Driven, Mr. Prasad said, being the Head of the R&D. He does not have a freedom to hire single candidate. But he can introduce them to the process. The success of the company is that, they could hire some of the best in the industry.

3) Share all Information:
Suppose an Acquisition is happening, every employee understands it. The CEO shares what happened in every board meeting. Everybody including founders, knows every quarter what is his objective (This is a learning from Intel). Setting a very ambitious goal and attaining 30% is also encouraged. Integrating KRA's is part of the system. Everyone gets to know what others are doing, so that there is a better understanding between groups! Snippets: Everyone sends a six point snippet on what he has done in this week.

4) Innovation is collaboration:
How has the "Google Map" come about? We all know the fact that 70% of the world does not have maps. Because there is no financial incentive to develop, especially in countries like India. Where does the business opportunity lie in this? One engineer took the initiative to come out with a Wiki based product. Everyone knows the places where they move around, where they eat, pray, bank etc. The online business group said that we have an idea of Hyderabad. Let us see whether we can map Hyderabad.

5) Morph Ideas- Build on the Ideas:
Engineers by just writing a two page article on what they are going to do, get unbelievable support across Google. Researcher, user designers, specialist in the area approach by means of the published article. Morph ideas do not kill the ideas.

6) We encourage people to fail.
Sometimes failure is not a very bad idea. Leverage the idea and materialize it into a product. Launch early, do not wait at building up the best product. Even Google has not build the perfect product yet. Launch early and iterate. Do not wait for every feature to be there and release.

7) User Interface:
Do not make user to get confused, The Google's user interface amazingly is not much different from its launch in 1994 and now. Identical search boxes, but search results have changed in terms of videos, images etc. We did lot of changes in the back end through research and understood by mining user data.

8) Data is everything:
In Google, we have the two screens- one of course is for the presentation. We do not just trust by the citations but use the second screen to show the data from the site and how it is concluded. Not based on intuition. At Google it is religiously practiced. For Example: From the data we have analyzed in "Orkut"- A popular social networking site by google for younger group ,that if the birthday notification pops up in a user's group, Immediately, he will respond through posting a "Happy Birthday" message in window (called scrap). This was entirely based on understanding the user.

9) Think out Side the Box:
Disney allows 20 % of employees' time for thinking outside their routine job. Google Map, Orkut, Many of the features of Gmail / search is from this.


The Conclusion is:

There are around 20,000 + people in Google:" Innovation is not about having an environment for it, like good food, place or having 20% time for it. It is all about making time to think differently and creatively." Talk to people as many as possible to get more ideas on the same " Build a prototype to really see the potential of the product.

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, require creative imagination and marks real advance in science.
Albert Einstein

INDIGENOUS DEVELOPMENT - An energy drink to The Nation

The imperativeness of the indigenous technology is that it catalysts the economic growth of the country along with demonstrating our technical superiority. The initiative towards the indigenous technologies also helps the organization as well as its nation in attaining self-reliance. An initiative towards indigenous technology development provides excellent opportunities for innovation and in revolutionizing our technological competitiveness.

The progression of indigenous technology development stimulates nation’s intellectual capacity building, thus creating a demand for home made products in the global market. Implementing a strategy for indigenous development provides the consumer with a set of alternatives and enhances the competitiveness in the global market. The indigenous technology development also plays an important role in minimizing the imports and also provides a better bargain in Intellectual property or technology market.

The strategic alliance between the various technology developers would offer:
Benefit from mutual technological, managerial and financial strengths.
Setting up of realistic specifications, reduction & optimization in development
Minimizing the time to market
Encouragement for the development of spin-off technologies
This will significantly raise the value chain for the products in domestic market.
Effective cost control on products could be implemented.
There could be bright opportunities for creating Intellectual property and uplift the company’s Intellectual capital through its exploitation.

To promote indigenously developed technology it is necessary to have a focused and sustained effort. We as techies must get passionate, demonstrate our capabilities every time on the new challenges of the futuristic business environment. It is imperative to commit oneself to the core of technology development through continuously update the knowledge in the given field of technology. The indigenous development demonstrates our command over the ever changing technology. Thus it boosts our confidence in risk taking.

Recent, successful launch of Chandrayaan-I made the whole world to open their eyes for the technological capabilities of the mother country. Chandrayaan-I with an un-insured budget of Rs.386 Crores has demonstrated the superior potential of techies in exercising critical missions with a passion, a commitment and a pride for the nation.