Last week, I had the pleasure of attending a keynote session by Chris Sacca, former Head of Special Initiatives at Google, during the ASAE Technology Conference. Boy was it fun to hear about what it’s like to work at Google, Google’s core values, the perks, and the future of search. I was so inspired by Chris’ words that I decided to follow him on FriendFeed. I’m relatively new to FriendFeed, but it feels like I’m stalking Chris Sacca. I can now follow this guy’s tracks as he views, posts, comments, and bookmarks across the Web. Do I really want all this information about one person? Even for me, this is starting to feel like TMI (too much information).
But first, let me tell you about Chris’ speech, which was terrific. Among the things he talked about:
- What is Google’s secret sauce? Chris says that Google has become a powerhouse because they take really talented engineers, present them with really big problems, and then give them lots of computing power to solve those problems.
- The 20% Rule. Evidently, everyone at Google can allocate 20% of their time to whatever they want, so long as: they log their actiivities in the projects database and they present their work to their peers every few weeks. If a project is deemed worthy, the responsible staff will be given more staff time and computers.
- You only get laughed at when your ideas are too small. Google leaders Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin and Larry Page want all Google staff to think big and use their brains and computers to solve really big problems.
- The 150 feet rule. In addition to having over a dozen cafes on the Google campus, there are snacks every 150 feet to feed the body, feed the mind, and encourage socializing and networking.
- Search is going to get a whole lot better soon. Although the Google home page looks the same, the search technology behind it is getting better every day. Google now tracks what we click on when we search; in the future, the search results for the same keywod may be different for you and me, based on our individual preferences and past history.
- Google Trends is not only cool, it’s surprising what we can learn from search patterns. Chris says that Google Trends can predict the box office success of a movie and where the flu will hit.