Why Google Is Going to Get There First

I believe Google is going to get there first. Why? Just because they have a development model that lets them move very quickly and get stuff out the door faster than Microsoft or Yahoo. Why do I believe that? Past behavior. Google had its new UI out months before Microsoft and Microsoft had its new UI out months before Yahoo. - Robert Scoble, "Yahoo’s new pretty maps are doomed (and so are Microsoft’s)"

Hugh thinks this is Robert's best post in a while. Robert continues: "We don’t know how to thrill influentials. Google does. Maybe by accident. Maybe by plan. I don’t care anymore." Robert speculates: "How did they do it? They didn’t do it by doing committee meetings. By doing focus groups. By studying millions of users. They did it by understanding the leading edge of users and serving them well."

In case you do care how Google does it internally, here are my notes on Google's product development process (download notes: GoogleProductDevProcess.pdf)  from a presentation given by Marissa Mayer in 2003. Marissa is on the cover of Fast Company this month (congrats!). (Cover story)

(So Robert's mostly right...but they do statiscally compare and study millions of their users using one feature versus another set of millions using a different implementation. Read on for yourself (they're notes, but hopefully you can glean enough from them.) Another tidbit useful for startups: Free pizza and lots of observation of Stanford students using Google without instruction were involved in early user studies.)

One thing that stands out in my memory of this presentation is all the people whom asked questions as if this was a rigid step-by-step formula. (Mayer was visibly perplexed too.) Verbatim copying is never a formula for success.

I've presented these notes to eager executives at a large corporation. That's eager on the onset. "That's too Silicon Valley," they say deflated. "We can't do that here." (Which echoes the comments that Ricardo Semler gets when executives came to see how his successful company operates: "Perhaps. This could only work in Brazil.")

But I think this crowd will gobble this process up. Enjoy.

p.s. What I'm up to... I thought Jon Krakauer, author of best-selling Into Thin Air and Into the Wild, was a slacker when he said he sent out ten query letters a week to break into writing (just ten?). That's after he learnt how to type (brief interview about his unlikely career transition into writing). I'm heads down working on landing some sponsored blog gigs and magazine and/or newpaper bylined articles in place before I take off to Asia on this backpack journalism vogage (Tsunami Anniversary TARA Trek FAQ, continually in progress).

And working on a blog essay on regeneration and phoenixes rising from ashes (what does Web 2.0 rising from the rubble of dot-com bust and folks resurrecting a year later from a major international disaster and Bob Dylan have in common?)

And working on microfund and fundraising "stuff" (very generally speaking and beyond solely for artisan journalists. For instance, what about Katrina folks? Hat tip to Brian whom spurred even more innovative thinking on that front).

Warning: Posting may be light on originality for a few days as I'm writing so much offline.

p.p.s. Continue seeking bottom up, grassroots leads-resources-tips-inspiration. Thanks to everyone, the microfund is a bit over 25% way to goal. Donations accepted via tipjar on upper right and here. Checks to: Evelyn Rodriguez, PO Box 490, Mountain View, CA 94042 (by Dec 1st latest).

tags product development entrepreneurship product management google design agile software web 2.0 software development marketing innovation

Comments

[Jack Yan]

How true. I remember giving a presentation on branding in Asia, and my audience wanted a step-by-step guide on how to get rich overnight. But you can only tell them principles and hope they’d customize it. Sadly, in 2002, they didn’t get it. Or they weren’t willing to. Let’s hope, for their sake, that they do today.