Memo of "How google works"

Here is my memo note about the book, "How google works", which I happened to find and finish to read last week. The book is written by Erick Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg, who have made Google as it is, together with founders, and the book is about the way of working and management of 21th century with smart creatives, which is what they have figured out to be necessary since they joined Google. In the Internet century, old style management does not work out because it worked for old type people who grew up without the Internet. There are a lot of sentences which I thought is important to remember. Therefore, I tried to list up them with some my interpretation.

• Smart creatives have deep technical knowledge and plenty of hands-on experiences, and don't just design a concept, but build a prototype. Smart creatives are not afraid to fail because they think failure is usually something important which they can salvage.

• The environment is also one of the important factors. Failure is not criticized, but appreciated for exploring possibilities.

• Once you identify the people who have the big impact. then give them more to do. When you put more responsibilities on your best people, and trust them. They will keep doing well. The old quote is true, if you want something done, give it to busy people.

• No is a tiny death to smart creatives. Saying yes begins things, and it is how things grow. Saying yes leads to new experiences, and the new experiences will lead you to knowledge and wisdom.

• A venture capitalist will always follow the maximum of investment in the team, bot the plan because the plan is wrong. Since the plan is wrong, the people have to be right. Smart creatives spot flaws in the plan and adjust.

• Henry Ford said that if he had listened to customers, then he would have gone out looking for faster horses.

• Anyone who stops learning gets old, whether 20s or 80s. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest in life is to keep your mind young by learning.

• If you think your ability is fixed, you'll set for yourself, what is called, performance goals, but if you have a growth mindset, you'll set for learning goals, which will drive you to take risks without worrying how you look like.

• Being a good interviewer requires understanding the role, reading the resume, and the most important thing is to consider your question.

• Supporting every opinion should come with data or empirical observation. Otherwise, it's not trusted at all.

• A candidate's original resume should be kept as it is, so everyone can see the typos, and formatting errors. By doing this, interviewers can see what kind of reports can be expected from the candidate if he or she is hired.

• If your people tell you that they are going to leave for starting own new business, then ask them for their elevator pitch, which is a venture capital word by asking "You have 30 seconds to impress me by your plan". What's the strategy ? Would you tell me if I were your investor ? If the answer is not good enough, then they are not ready to leave.

• Prepare your own elevator pitch for your job. Let's say, you run into your CEO in the hallway, and he or she asks you what you are working on. What do you say ?

• We don't seek to convince by saying "I think", but we seek to convince by saying '"Let me show". Visual reasoning usually works more effectively when relevant information is presented together.

• Conversation is still the most important and valuable form of communication, but the technology makes it happen rarely.

• For something to be innovative, it needs to be new surprising and radically usefull.

• This is by Derek Sivers in TED talk. When creating a movement, attracting a follower is the most crucial step. The first follower is what transforms a loner nut into a leader.

• Too many people are stuck in the old limited mindset. "They are not thinking big enough" is replaced by Larry Page to "Think 10x".

• Coming up an idea is not good enough, building a prototype is necessary to attract people to follow.

• I keep my attention on the question which I need to ask so that I can catch the issue of the future.

• The question to ask is not what will be true, but what could be true. Asking what will be true entail making a prediction, but asking what could be true entail imagination.

• Ask yourself what could happen in your industry in the next five years. What could change most quickly and what will not change at all.

Those are just memos for me to recall the contents of the book. There are a lot to things for me to remember for the 2015. Thinking about them does not make sense, and taking actions based on thouse is necessary actually.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Google-Works-Eric-Schmidt/dp/1455582344