English: The three biggest web search engines (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
My personal conviction is that their success is deeply rooted in Google's values and philosophy. They detail this philosophy on Google's corporate webpage:
- Focus on the user and all else will follow.
- That's the basic, for all successful businesses.
- It’s best to do one thing really, really well.
- This one can be challenged: Google has many many products... But I admit each and every of them does on thing (clear purpose) and usually really really well (think of google maps for instance: it's far better than the software of most expensive GPS devices).
- Fast is better than slow.
- Democracy on the web works.
- This one is essential and deeply controversial. Many people think that trolls discredit the web community. But that's the beauty of democracy: the majority wins, not the trolls. Having contributed to IETF work, I can tell you that democracy and meritocracy produce outstanding results and have tremendously contributed to the success of the Internet.
- You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.
- SoLoMo (social, local, mobile). That's not specific to Google.
- You can make money without doing evil.
- This one is essential too and deeply controversial. Some people would argue that you need to be a shark to succeed. Succeeding without transforming into a shark company is amazing and much more rewarding, but it requires innovation. That's also a root for Google's success.
- There’s always more information out there.
- The need for information crosses all borders.
- You can be serious without a suit.
- Judging on results rather than appearances... That's good for the business! I prefer someone who brings results and is poorly dressed than a play boy with no results.
- Great just isn’t good enough.
- This one is essential too and also quite controversial. Think about the notion of over-quality. For some people, providing a too good level of service means wasting money. But Google is smarter than this and that's a key to their tremendous and long term success.
To conclude, although Google displays 10 key principles, my personal opinion is that 4 of them are enough to explain Google's success:
- Democracy on the web works.
- You can make money without doing evil.
- You can be serious without a suit.
- Great just isn’t good enough.
0 comments :
Post a Comment