Google's 9 principles for innovation

Google's VP of search products and user experience Marissa Mayer shares the rules that gives the search company its innovative edge.

* 1. INNOVATION, NOT INSTANT PERFECTION

"'The Googly thing is to launch it early on Google Labs and then iterate, learning what the market wants--and making it great.' The beauty of experimenting in this way is that you never get too far from what the market wants. The market pulls you back."

* 2. IDEAS COME FROM EVERYWHERE

"We have this great internal list where people post new ideas and everyone can go on and see them. It's like a voting pool where you can say how good or bad you think an idea is. Those comments lead to new ideas."

* 3. A LICENSE TO PURSUE YOUR DREAMS

"Since around 2000, we let engineers spend 20% of their time working on whatever they want, and we trust that they'll build interesting things."

* 4. MORPH PROJECTS DON'T KILL THEM

"Any project that is good enough to make it to Labs probably has a kernel of something interesting in there somewhere, even if the market doesn't respond to it. It's our job to take the product and morph it into something that the market needs."

* 5. SHARE AS MUCH INFORMATION AS YOU CAN

"Every Monday, all the employees write an email that has five to seven bullet points on what you did the previous week. Being a search company, we take all the emails and make a giant Web page and index them. If you're wondering, 'Who's working on maps?' you can find out. It allows us to share what we know across the whole company, and it reduces duplication."

* 6. USERS, USERS, USERS

"We believe that if we focus on the users, the money will come."

* 7. DATA IS APOLITICAL

"We think of design as a science. It doesn't matter who is the favorite or how much you like this aesthetic versus that aesthetic. It all comes down to data. Run a 1% test [on 1% of the audience] and whichever design does best against the user-happiness metrics over a two-week period is the one we launch."

* 8. CREATIVITY LOVES CONSTRAINTS

"This is one of my favorites. [...] engineers thrive on constraints."

* 9. YOU'RE BRILLIANT? WE'RE HIRING