The Google Story

I didn’t get quite as many books as Ewan did for Christmas. But I did get a copy of the Google Story which I quickly demolished in a couple of days. I found the book fascinating, particularly how its founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page built to company up from nothing into a multi billion dollar business.

Over the last dew days I have been starting to think how the Google business philosophy could be employed into schools. I have been particularly taken by the notion of ‘20% time’. This is where employers have to work on something that interests them for 20% of their time no matter if there is no financial reward benefit to the company.

It also seems to be a company that has got the basics right. For example every employee gets a free lunch. I have seen first hand from my time at Dunbar Grammar how free lunches can be a big boost to staff moral and how free evening meals can have an equivalent impact before a parents evening.

My new years resolution is to get ‘back to basics’.  Perhaps its time I employed this philosophy in my professional life as well as my personal life? Or are they really any different any more?

Good Wikipedia article on Google here and a Google video showing what its like to work at Google here. Now where do I get the money to order 50 lava lamps and 100 large colourful bouncing balls for MGS? And can you really buy shoes with springs on them?

Comments

[Ewan McIntosh]

20% time came in for some criticism for not really being innovative enough these days in the search business, but I think in education it could work really well. It also has to be accompanied by weekly open office policies of the entire SMT so that ideas can be brought and shown for, say, 7 minutes a time. It's no good giving people time if the SMT then ignore it or don't implement things because they demand time, money or other resources.

By giving people the room to get enthusiastic the SMT also have to be enthusiastic on the same level and not work on the "yes, but..." philosophy that, in almost every school, they are renowned for.

Where there is a will there is *always* a way.

[OllieBray]

Yes I agree. I think it would work really well within education. I think a positive start would be an in-service day when individuals could showcase 7 minutes of good practice to colleagues. I would love to see this more inbuilt into the school day (we just need to get rid of the fictitious 35 hour week!). Some of our departments at MGS (eg: maths and CDT) have started to use this showcase format for some of their departmental meetings – it’s been really successful. But if we are going to break down subject boundaries and encourage cross-curricular links we need to disseminate this information more widely. Any thoughts on the supplier of large bouncing balls? See you Monday! Ollie