The success of Google has been based on the fact that technology drives its train. Technical success is the most-sought value.
This is becoming a problem.
In many of the new businesses Google has launched, technical values (while important) are not going to be the sole drivers of success. In blogging, in RSS, in Google News, in Google Desktop, in Google Local, and in other areas, other skills are required.
Business skills. Marketing schools. Journalism skills. Political skills. Artistic skills.
Leonardo DaVinci (celebrated above) could not get a job at Google today. In a well-rounded company, his genius would find a place.
The need for these various skills will only increase with time. Google must find a way to recruit these skills, and to reward these skills, without giving the people with these skills control of the company.
This will not be easy.
Yahoo has not been the same since it gave control to the marketing department in the late 1990s and became what it now calls "a media company." This was, in fact, Google's opening. Yahoo dropped the ball on the essence of its business -- search -- and Google's better mousetrap rushed in. )(So much for first-mover advantage.)
I am not saying Google should get in bed with Barry Diller.
I'm saying, instead, that they need to hire people like Seth Godin (left, from Joi Ito), and people like Mike McCurry (or Ari Fleischer), then listen carefully to what they say within their areas of expertise. They need to find people who know what Google doesn't know right now, pay them what they're worth, and give them the appropriate authority.
There are many kinds of intelligence out there, other than technical intelligence. A well-rounded company harnesses all these kinds of intelligence. A well-rounded technical company does it while keeping the technical people firmly in charge.
That's the way out for Google.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for over 25 years and has covered the online world professionally since 1985. He founded the "Interactive Age Daily" for CMP Media, and has written for the Chicago Tribune, Advertising Age, and dozens of other publications over the years.
1. Jeremy Keith on April 22, 2005 02:55 PM writes...
I find it interesting that you pulled this post from the front of your site:
http://www.corante.com/mooreslore/archives/2005/04/20/why_google_is_faltering_on_rss.php
In it, you further berate Google for continuing to employ Evan Williams... despite the fact that he left Google months ago.
What *is* on your front page is a post that exhorts thusly:
"Whatever you wish to be -- a scientist, an artist, an entrepreneur, a preacher, an economist, a politician -- you will go further if you have a journalist's basic tool set.
Research thoroughly. Ask good questions. Listen carefully. Write clearly. Explain simply."
Physician, heal thyself. And by heal, I don't mean delete embarrassing posts and comments.
There's another tool in the journalists basic tool set: accountability.
With all due respect, I don't think you're practising what you're preaching.
Permalink to Comment2. James on April 22, 2005 05:16 PM writes...
Umm, what crisis at Google? This is a bizarre post.
Permalink to Comment3. Bill Kruse on April 25, 2005 02:34 PM writes...
I've often felt that, like "The Scholar", it's high time Google suggested to its legion PHDs that they "pause from learning to be wise".
Bet it and they don't, though.
BB
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