Wk5, Day 2 @ Harvard Business School: Outrageously innovative..

For many of the senior business managers, making a product business case is nothing new, it's actually quite simple

1. You come up with some practical product idea,
2. You make a case to get basic dollars funded, 
3. You then set out to make prototype
4. And you go ahead and create the complete product.

Of course,  your plan must be innovative - who does not like innovation !

When I look at Google, I begin to think, what would a conversation between the idea proposer and the manager sound like.

Early morning the manager has settled into his plush chair, having his early cup of coffee and looking forward to a peaceful week ahead. In comes his favorite employee, flashing a set of documents and face flushed with excitement !!

"Boss, I want $230M to build a product, that will map EVERY single square feet of this planet". 

On yet another day, another one pops up .. 

"We need to build a car, (car - really? we were software company right ?) that does NOT need a driver, and here is how we can do that."

Some days later, another bright spark says, 
"Lets map every muscle, every neuron, every bone in our body, so that doctors can see through 3D models"
"Keyboards and eyes a passe, lets make a searchable NOSE !!"

"Let's build a system, that has records, of all the travel points, that all the human beings on this planet has ever been to - for every human being !!!"

And what can be worse than the concept of such ideas - The fact that these ideas actually got approved.  Can you imagine the courage you need to have as a manager to approve such  fantastic projects, and then to rally the entire organisation behind it. That is what Google does so efficiently. 

That, in my humble opinion is Google's core business. To be "Outrageously Innovative", as an organisation.

Some of the ideas, actually see the market.

• Google Dashboard - You do not know about it, but it already there. If you are a Latitude customer, you also have access to this kind of data, you can check exactly at what point of time, where you were.(Any day for the past 5 years),  Or how much time you spent where (wow !! ... ooops !!) or for that matter, how many flights you have taken when. Scary !!
• Google Maps - Incredible success story, read about the tremendous growth and the future it holds.
• Google Nose - Still a bit futuristic. This is designing a "Smell based" search engine. 
• Google Glass - Yesterday, the final specs were released of this product, due to hit the Shelves on Sep 13. More than 1200 such prototypes have already been released in the wild !!
• Google Body - Was given away for adoption, after birth. This is mapping the entire human body.
• Google Cloud Robots  - Coming soon, sooner than you think!
• Google Self driving cars - Product is past prototype.

What did I learn today ?
1. There is a direct relation, between slack in the system and speed of execution.
2. When you want/have to give free giftaways - items with telescopic values, have more value... (hmm... something to think about... )


Alok Sinha