Googles 9 Principles of Innovation

Want to know what’s Google’s secret sauce?
Google’s Chief Social Evangelist dishes out the tech giant’s Success recipe.

From Fast Company 20 Nov 13 enhanced by Peter/CXO Wiz4biz

Ever wonder what makes the Google so dominating and creative? There’s no magic in the drinking water at the Mountain View, CA company. The tech giant draws from what Google’s chief social evangelist, Gopi Kallayil, calls the “9 Core Principles of Innovation. Kallayil shared his insights at this week’s” SalesForce.com’s Dream Force conference in San Francisco. Here are the 9 rules that any enterprise, large or small, can use to adopt Google’s innovative culture.

1. Innovation comes from Everywhere It can come from the “top down” as well as the “bottom up”, and in other places you least expect. For example, a medical doctor on Google’s staff argued persuasively that Google had a moral obligation to extend help to those typing searches under the phrase “how to commit suicide.” He ignited the charge to adjust the search engine’s response, so that the top of the screen reveals the toll free phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. The call volume went up by 9% soon thereafter. The same change has been adopted in many other countries.

2. Focus on the User first – Worry about the money later, because it will eventually follow. Google improved the speed of its search capabilities with predictive analysis so search suggestions come up after the user types a few keystrokes. This Instant Search feature saves the user a few micro-seconds with each entry. Google Sales Reps were concerned that this shortened the time customers would view ads, but the company went ahead and believed that it was worth the risk.
The Results. Thanks to Instant Search, Google estimates the time saved is equivalent to giving back mankind 5,000 years after a year of collective use. “Create a great user experience and the revenue will take care of itself,” says Kallayil. In addition, more customers will be attracted to your product’s increased benefits.

3. Aim to be 10 x better. If you come into work thinking that you will improve things by at least 10%, you will only see incremental change. If you want radical & revolutionary innovation, think 10 times improvement, and that will force you to think outside the box. For example, in 2004, Google started its Google Books project and set forth a challenge to organize all the world’s information and digitize all the books ever printed in history. Google co-founder Larry Page built his own book scanner, and the initial process required having someone manually turn its pages in rhythm, one at a time, according to the pace of a metronome. Google has now scanned 30 million of the 130 M books they first set out to scan, and dozens of libraries around the world are participating in the project.

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