maandag 23 maart 2015

The Google Garage: A Great Place To Go Gaga

Google it: innovation doesn’t necessarily concern products. It can also reveal itself in, among other things, new approaches to stimulating creativity on the work floor. This is exactly what Google Inc. has decided to try. Now, before you start reading on, I invite you to look at this two-minute video, which presents an example of how Google attempts to innovate their business culture.
The Google Garage was created as an environment to encourage Googlers – yes, this is what their employees call themselves, geeky, I know – to work on their own wild and crazy ideas, virtually without any restrictions. This way, Google tries to stimulate cross-pollination between different departments. People from Marketing, Corporate Engineering, People Operations, etc. get to meet and exchange their thoughts in the Google Garage. This is, in my opinion, a very effective and innovative way of improving overall employee satisfaction, as well as an original technique to create an open and relaxed corporate culture.

By giving employees time to work on their personal projects, Google shows their genuine concern for its workforce. I personally believe this is one of the reasons why Google, with its renowned culture of experimentation, is also known to be a fun place to work. 

What do you think of Google, their corporate culture and ideas like the Google Garage? Would you like to work for the American search engine? I know I would!

If you want more information about The Google Garage, just google it (duh), or go to http://lmgtfy.com/?q=google+garage.



2 opmerkingen:

  1. This would be an excellent way to make sure cross-pollination happens between several university departments as well: the Linguistics and Communications department, for instance, are actually often interested in the very same things, but simply because they hardly ever meet (Blandijn - Korte Meer), there is no interaction! More Googleness at UGent, I say!

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  2. Agree! If only there were some kind of credit system for this, where the projects would be considered equal to a 3-credit course, for example.
    I do fear, however, we will have to wait for a change of economic climate first. I don't see the university injecting money in projects like these on the one hand, whilst simultaneously pushing through serious budget cuts on the other.

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