Does Google Need Managers?

Google Tech Talks
June 11, 2008

ABSTRACT

You read all the time about Google’s engineering and product development prowess and seemingly omniscient strategies in the businesses it chooses to enter. However, those of us who know and love the real people who make Google work are aware of the the culture of controlled chaos that exists in the world’s flattest multi-billion dollar company. Runaway success aside, we admire Google for its otherwise enigmatic management and organizational structures. By using the logic and tea-leaf reading we hear our clients apply and by liberally applying out own humorous hyperbole, we’ll be arguing pro and con to answer the question: Does Google need managers?

Management Innovation Group is a strategy consultancy that specializes helping our clients demystify the changes that are rapidly changing their industries and understand how to compete in an a less certain future. Our clients include the Nokia, British Telecom, the New York Times, Reed Elsevier, Rodale, and many other companies who wish to remain anonymous because they don’t want you to know that they are afraid of Google.

Speaker: Scott Hirsch
A leading authority on innovation valuation and process development, Scott’s passion is helping companies realize their creative potential at all levels of the organization. His management philosophy is based on empowering people — experience he acquired during six years as a social entrepreneur designing innovative youth service programs.

Immediately prior to founding MIG, Scott launched the business strategy and valuation practice at Adaptive Path, the premier user experience consulting firm. He has helped clients in a variety of industries — including Network Associates, Blogger, PlanetOut, Hitachi Data Systems, and Dow Corning — gain a deeper understanding of their markets and technology and more successfully leverage their strategic investments.

An avid inquisitive, Scott was lead researcher and principal author of “Leveraging Business Value: How ROI Changes User Experience,” an in-depth study of how five global companies financially value their design investments, done in collaboration his alma mater, the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, from which he received his MBA. He lives in San Francisco, CA but has a vivid mental map of ancient Greece.

Speaker: John Zapolski
Part strategist, part visionary, and part coach, John works with clients to co-create new ways of growing their businesses and executing on their strategies. Utilizing broad experience in research, design, strategy, and organizational development, John’s methods help executive teams envision the future, generate possibilities, and take action on their innovation intentions.

Prior to founding MIG, John held management positions at Wells Fargo and Yahoo!, where responsibilities included developing customer insights to drive growth and enterprise integration. He has also provided strategy and product development consulting to Fortune 500 and startup clients in the media, financial services, health care, and telecommunications industries.

A former filmmaker, technologist, and designer, John believes that (to modify the famous Churchill quote) we build our products and thereafter they build us. He lives in San Francisco, CA and doesn’t surf nearly as well as he’d like to.

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