Innovation and Outsourcing

May 13, 2010

Patrick ChanezonDeveloper Relations Manager, Googlechanezon@google.comhttp://twitter.com/chanezon

Monday, May 17, 2010

I’m an API guy

• Bill Joy: "Innovation happens elsewhere"

• Google innovates a lot with products

• Innovation happens at the edges

• Huge leverage to help external developers innovate on top of our Platforms

• From 1 to 70 APIs in 5 years

• Ads, Mobile, Geo, Cloud, Browser, Social,...

• http://code.google.com/ for the list

• cf @timoreilly Internet OS blog posts

• My job: Build an ecosystem around the APIs

• User's choice: get their data out, Data Liberation Front

Monday, May 17, 2010

These days I fly in the clouds

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Monday, May 17, 2010

What is a developer advocate?

• Influencer

• Connector

• Communicator

• Techie

• Business savvy

• Makes things happen

• Responsible for the reputation of the product

• Responsible for growth of ecosystem

Monday, May 17, 2010

1. Evangelism: "selling the dream"

5Thx @guykawasaki to let me reproduce the imageMonday, May 17, 2010

2. Partners: building the ecosystem

• Developers! Developers! Developers!

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cf image at http://i.zdnet.com/blogs/ballmer3.jpg :-)

Monday, May 17, 2010

Defining the ecosystem

• Be Comprehensive

• Developers but also....

• VCs

• Startups, ISVs, Large companies

• Outsourcing firms

• Platform vendors

• Consulting firms

• Analysts

• Training companies, book writers,

• Tool vendors

• Ad agencies, media companies, brands

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Monday, May 17, 2010

What role should outsourcing firms play in innovation?

• Early adopters

• Partner with platform providers inventing new technologies

• Help ecosystem get started, reap benefits when it grows

• reputation, lead in new markets

• Apply technologies to new business problems

• What I’m looking for in outsourcing partners for innovation projects

• Google-like Corporate Culture favoring innovation

• Investment, shared risk taking

• Diverse skill pool

• Fast turnaround

• Flawless execution8

Monday, May 17, 2010

Traits of Google Enterprise Culture for Innovation

• Infrastructure Culture

• Universality

• Design Principles

• Inspiration driven by data

• Risk

• Agile

• Open Source

• APIs

• Googleyness

• The world is flat

• Do no evil

• Getting the right People

• Strategic patience

Monday, May 17, 2010

Infrastructure culture

Monday, May 17, 2010

Universality

Monday, May 17, 2010

What makes a design "Googley"?

Monday, May 17, 2010

Inspiration driven by Data

Monday, May 17, 2010

Fail often, fail quickly, and learn

Monday, May 17, 2010

Agile Development Processes

Monday, May 17, 2010

Open Source Culture

Monday, May 17, 2010

API Culture

Monday, May 17, 2010

Googleyness

Monday, May 17, 2010

The world is flat

Monday, May 17, 2010

Getting the right people

Monday, May 17, 2010

Strategic patience

Monday, May 17, 2010

Harvard Business Review article

• “Reverse Engineering Google’s Innovation Machine”, HBR april 2008, Bala Iyer and Thomas Davenport

• http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbsp/hbr/articles/article.jsp?ml_action=get-article&articleID=R0804C

• They got it right

• Indentified many aspects of what makes Google culture work well for innovation

• And provide a process to help you adapt some of its elements to your business

• More details about Google Innovation culture athttp://www.slideshare.net/chanezon/google-innovation-culture

Monday, May 17, 2010

Bad Story

• Real life example:-)

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Monday, May 17, 2010

Good Story: Globant + Google

• Google Checkout

• testing the API, traditional outsourcing job

• did it so well we gave a talk at JavaOne with them about the framework they built

• OpenSocial

• Involved from inception

• Participated in standard discussion and Open Source project

• Hired by social ningetworks to build their implementation

• Hired by first large consumer company to create their own social network

• Developer events together worldwide

• Cloud: created a practice24

Monday, May 17, 2010

Other examples

• Impetus in India

• Ported Apache Shindig Java to Python/App Engine

• SFEIR in France

• GWT, Android, Google Apps, App Engine, Wave

• enterprise cloud apps

• Their CTO, Didier Girard, became a Guru in dev community

• Cap Gemini

• Google Apps, App Engine

• Valeo, first enterprise apps in the cloud

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Monday, May 17, 2010

Trends to explore in 2010

• Cloud computing coming to the enterprise

• Google Apps marketplace

• Mobile apps

• Android market

• Social

• From apps to ActivityStream: Facebook, Twitter, Buzz

• Decentralization of social networking use: FB Social Graph, Google Friend Connect

• Browser

• HTML5 mainstream this year: Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera

• IE9

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Monday, May 17, 2010

Conclusion• Innovation involves risk

• takes guts, need solid management team willing to take risks

• need the right corporate culture

• Innovation is like surfing

• You want to be at the wave’s crest, in the foam

• This is where you will acquire most speed

• If you catch the wave at the right time, it’s hard for others to follow you!

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Monday, May 17, 2010

Monday, May 17, 2010