We all knew Google was a data-driven company, but a recent Forbes article revealed that the search giant doesn’t just use data analysis to drive its business plans. It also uses it in house.
Google has a reputation for taking care of its employees. The Forbes article pointed out the company has even quietly instituted an employee death benefit that pays the surviving spouse 50 percent of the employee's salary for a decade after the death, along with $1,000 per month per child until age 19. Oh, and any stock vests immediately if you die while employed.
That's generous by any measure, but what struck me most is that Google uses the same data gathering and analysis techniques it applies to other aspects of its business for its own internal requirements.
One of the methods Google uses to determine employee needs is a survey it calls Googlegeist. According to the site Human Resource Executive Online, Googlegeist was the brainchild of Prasad Setty, a Google employee who, according to the article, never expected to find himself applying his numbers-driven approach inside a human resources department.
Setty’s mission when he was hired at Google was to find a way to determine what's on the minds of Google employees. As part of this, he helped create the PiLab, where scientists and researchers have created the Googlegeist survey to figure out what employees are thinking and to build “people metrics.”
The Google Research blog reports that the PiLab team holds a summit once a year to share its approach with social scientists and HR executives and to figure out how to find answers to complex personnel issues inside organizations -- such as how to fight decision fatigue, or how to create incentives for creativity.
That Google placed this post in its Research blog shows that management sees this initiative in the same way it sees other Google research -- such as the mobile data site Google set up for users to build charts on mobile data usage, or the Google Transparency report.
O'Reilly explained that it wasn't better algorithms that achieved the greater accuracy that fueled Google’s car designs, it was the detailed geographical data obtained through the Street View research. O'Reilly went so far as to say that in the future, companies will be battling over databases instead of software algorithms as they do today. Putting it bluntly, he stated, "The guy with the most data wins."
In the Street View example, Google was clearly not doing right by its users in sacrificing their privacy in the name of data gathering, but it was using that ill-gotten data in very interesting ways nonetheless.
In another instance, just this week, the Federal Trade Commission slapped Google with a $22.5 million fine for bypassing user privacy settings in Apple's Safari browser. Google tracked users this way and served them ads based on data they gathered. This was the biggest fine ever imposed for a penalty of this sort.
It's clear that Google is an organization that lives -- and sometimes dies -- by data gathering and analysis. I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that the company applies those same techniques in-house to something like ensuring employees are happy.
Of course, Google isn't doing this just to be nice. It wants to get the best employees, and so it competes on bennies. And, as a friend of mine who used to work at Google told me, if they feed you dinner and offer entertainment and dry cleaning and so on, then you're less likely to leave and you'll stay and work all night, and it's set up to encourage the sorts of employees that would do that, who will make their life, including their social life, their work.
Does Google offer daycare? It wouldn't surprise me but I hadn't heard it.
I agree with you. You should appreciate the company for the good that it is trying to do while at the same time you may criticize it for any thing else that may appear to be wrong.
I came across this story this morning and it's further proof of Google's use of data internally. In this case, the NYT reported that Google is trying to understand how to recruit and retain more women. Quoting the article:
"Executives had been concerned that too many women dropped out in the interviewing process or were not promoted at the same rate as men, so they created algorithms to pinpoint exactly when the company lost women and to figure out how to keep them."
Of course this could be lip service in the wake of their highest profile woman employee leaving to become CEO at Yahoo! or it could be a genuine attempt to understand how to bring more women in the Silicon Valley, which has been traditionally dominated by men.
Yes, I was being silly -- but that management model really does endure, and always raises its head when the discussion turns to things like telecommuting, home-officing, etc.
Video: MIT Robot Plane Puts Autonomy Back Into Autonomous Flight
Many of the robotic aircraft ... often they fly a pre-programmed route and require an external source for their navigation...based on external sources of information while flying inside, such as motion-capture cameras.
In the real-world applications where these type of aircraft are expected to be used, it's unlikely these types of navigation aids will be available.
[...]
The engineers ended up using a pair of "state-estimation" algorithms to handle the computations on the fly.
Google is human, oh! sorry I guess I should be saying they are run by humans and necessarily get somethings wrong or it may be step on the bad side of the law.
Overall though I am impressed that they are clearly consistent (with the self-analysis) and also that they care so much for their employees. Are the still the best company to work for in the US?!
As a manager, I don't care how staff perform. What's important to me is that they show up punctually, dress properly, look busy, and agree with me in a suitably deferential tone.
(Isn't amazing that this management model is actually still with us?)
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Recently, the Obama administration has been of two minds where privacy rights are concerned. On one hand, you have an administration that vowed to veto CISPA and mandated open data for government websites. On the other hand, you have an increasingly out-of-control Department of Justice on a fishing expedition at AP and demanding legislation to let the FBI wiretap private, encrypted communications and levy fines if a company fails to comply.
These days, even some usually techno-friendly people have their hackles up about the potential of Google Glass to surreptitiously record video or take pictures. I've heard more than one tech savvy friend bring up "the creep factor," the ability of a weird guy to secretly record you.
Last year as you may recall, the Internet community rallied and prevented the passage of SOPA/PIPA legislation. CISPA, another piece of legislation that targeted Internet freedom, also died. However, one proposed law that failed in 2012 has been revived this year. And it appears forces are not now lining up against CISPA with the same enthusiasm as last time.
You might be surprised to learn that the FBI has generated hundreds of thousands of secret information requests since 2000, many of which go to Internet companies seeking information about individual users. You may be even more surprised to discover that in all those years, only one Internet company has challenged these secret requests.
Late Friday I learned I had been chosen to participate in the Google Glass Explorer's program, a group selected to take the first-generation of Google Glass out in the world and report back on how they're using the devices.
The quest for Webpage clicks and ad impressions is creating a market for sensational truths and lies in equal measure. How are we going to get to the bottom of any real issue online – like what's really going on with Carrier IQ, for example – if we can't separate hype from reality?
In the past, the most powerful brands became the products that they represented, whether it was Kleenex for tissues or Coke for colas. Super brands are no different on Internet. The techniques of branding might change, but the challenges to achieving super-brand status remain the same.
More companies are trolling social networks to find and vet potential job candidates. Beware the pitfalls of blurring the line between personal and professional lives.
Now apparently the mobile platform of choice, the Apple iPhone has benefited from its sound understanding of human factors and ergonomics – but is this reputation threatened by a looming avalanche of advertising?
The decision could discourage innovators looking to the past, and require companies to build from the ground up, leading to a new generation of stagnation in the IT world.
Nicole and Kim have heard the news that Google's new mobile OS, "Jelly Bean," has a voice assistant that's poised to defeat their precious Siri. It's time for another test!
Verizon's one-data-plan-for-all-devices could revolutionize mobile data by making it practical to have multiple devices share a plan, and thus encourage users to cellular-equip all their portable appliances.
Apple's newest commercial features actress Zooey Deschanel having her requests for weather, soup, and music easily fulfilled by Siri. Nicole and Kim are putting those same questions to the test.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
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