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

Blessed Unrest

After seeing a super cool video on the internet (embedded in the end of this post), I decided to read a book called Blessed Unrest, by Paul Hawken. The book talks about the huge decentralised, democratic, global movement going on at the moment, led by more than 1 million organisations fighting for social justice and the environment, and what it represents in the context we're living in.

Below you can read the passage which inspired the title of the book. Enjoy it!

"There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable it is nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. [...] There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than others."

Martha Graham to Agnes DeMille at Dance to the Piper

Wisdom for the future

In this awesome video Gunter Pauli talks about designing a new system for the future, for

"The wisdom of the past is not the wisdom of today.
[...]
If we only teach our children what we know
they will only do as badly as we do."

Check it out!