With all the hubub about the launch of Google+ yesterday, there are two things I think that are striking. Here’s the first.
An 1878 painting by Albert Bierstadt hanging in the office is Google’s metaphor and inspiration for the future of their business. Emerald Sea has been the code name for Google’s most recent effort to incorporate the social element into their business with what we now know as Google+ emerging as the heart of the system. The thought behind the name is not only interesting - it’s the way all businesses should think about their future. However, few are working this way.
“We needed a code name that captured the fact that either there was a great opportunity to sail to new horizons and new things, or that we were going to drown by this wave,”
- Vic Gundotra, Google SVP of Social
Wired talks through how Google seems almost scared for the future of their business, or in my mind the potentially fickle nature of keeping search as the core of their business without the active and live element of social integration that is sweeping our digital networks, mobile devices, and on the horizon with connected TV.
This is a fair concern, but look at the numbers! Google is doing great (*cough RIM), there’s no reason to pour piles of money into to initiatives with this kind of property… right RIM?
Here’s the stack-up:
Google: $30 billion in revenue (2010)
Facebook: $2 billion in revenue (2010)
Most traditional corporations would sit on their laurels, but as usual Google is hard at work. Wired continues to report that Google feels like their situation and efforts with Emerald Sea and Google+ are a “bet-the-company” kind of move. Good for them.
About a year ago I had the chance to talk with Stewart D’Rozario of Barrie D’Rozario Murphy. During the talk with our class, he said something like,
“Always live your life at about 30% risk.”
Google’s got it. They’ll do just fine. Their feverish dedication to innovation is astounding. Win some, miss some, they will persevere.
“It is not the strongest…nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptive to change”
- Charles Darwin
