5.15.2009

An assignment: See the world as Google sees it

Jeff Jarvis' book What Would Google Do? is about "seeing the world as Google sees it, finding your own new worldview, and seeing differently." He says, "It's hard to name an industry or institution [...] that should not be asking What Would Google Do?"

The book is fantastic and I highly recommend you read it. A quick scan of the chapter titles in the first half of the table of contents tells us that Google is about:

- new relationships
- new architecture
- new publications
- new society
- new economy
- new business reality
- new attitude
- new ethic
- new speed
- new imperatives

Now, there's a ton of great background info in the book, but we all know Google. We are what Jarvis calls Generation G (not all of us, maybe, but many of us. Anyone who instinctively searches rather than navigates the web.) We all have a sense right now, right here, what at least some of these "new" things Jarvis describes are all about.

In the second half of the book, Jarvis delves into specifics of what a Googley world might look like - looking at industries as diverse as advertising, manufacturing, service, utilities, public institutions, and retail. It's all visionary and practical at the same time (like Google itself!) - right up my street, of course, and happening all around us... I giggled to myself reading the chapter on aviation, where Jarvis describes planes with wifi - gotta love GoGoinflight, which I experienced for the first time on a Virgin America flight to San Francisco a couple of weeks ago and which is now going to be on ALL Air Tran flights. It's all happening, man. So cool. Radical!

So, rather than post a simple review of the book, blogger bud Jeff De Cagna and I were chatting and thought it would be fun - in fact, totally awesome! - to try this exercise for our association industry. We're going to coauthor an article on this... but we want your help. We want to be Googley about it. We want to know what you think:

How could associations be Googlier? What might the Global Google Association look like?

How would it operate? How would it make money? How would it harness the wisdom of its members? What kind of structure would it have? How would its members be defined? What would its internal structure be like?

WWGD? - The PowerPoint
View more presentations from jeffjarvis.


If you haven't read the book yet, look through this slide deck summary. You can also find lots of great examples from all the various industries Jarvis looks at in his blog, the Buzz Machine. Have a scan through that, then think about it, and come back and let us know in the comments or via email (maddie [at] socialfish.org). Give us a few practical ideas or just one. We'll put everyone's responses together in our article.

This is going to rock. Have some fun with it. Google forth and prosper!



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2 comments:

  1. I always thought the greatest revolution in the way Google did things was to take things that people were already doing, and use them to create value. For example, Google uses the fact that people link to stuff they find interesting and useful as a way to decide what stuff is most important -- that's how PageRank works. Same thing with AdWords -- people are searching for stuff, so why not let people who want to advertise to people who are searching for that stuff do it directly, rather than bugging the zillions of people who aren't looking for that stuff at that moment.

    The principle I'd boil this down to is, respond to behaviour. What is it your members like to do? Where do they like to like to hang out? What do they do in their spare time? Once you have enough information, respond to that by leveraging the things they are doing and enriching those experiences. That's being Googlier, IMHO.
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  2. First order of business--the employee culture of a Googled-out association.

    From "The Google Culture"
    http://www.google.com/corporate/culture.html

    1) "Our commitment to innovation depends on everyone being comfortable sharing ideas and opinions." Is this how most associations are staffed? Methinks not. Associations place value on title and rank and silos--unless all that changed, it would be impossible to Google-ify them.

    2) "No one hesitates to ask Larry or Sergey a pointed question"--how many of us have worked at associations where the exec director barely acknowledge anyone who is not a director or above? Certainly I'm not talking from personal experience or anything here....but come on--the artificial sense of importance that embodies senior staff at some associations? Not very Google-y.

    3) "Our hiring policy is aggressively non-discriminatory and favors ability over experience." Just like associations, right? Sadly, not. Associations would need to put their money where their mouths often are and get serious about diversity--and I'm not just talking about support staff. How many people with different color skin tones did you see at the last ASAE conference you went to? And how many top-level association execs are not old(er), white men?

    4) With regard to number 3 above "favors ability over experience"--associations definitely do not roll this way. Associations are about staff who rise to the level of their incompetence, then ride it out until they retire.

    Sorry if this sounds bitter--I'm the first to admit that I am. Associations are awesome and do so many great things and represent so many great issues. But it's a horrible shame how much of their effectiveness is slashed because of their silos, slow-to-change ways and emphasis on the non-important (title and rank) over the important (passion, willingness to work hard and vested interest in success).
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