Module: Design Management Assignment 1

M.Des 1.1

Name: Harshal Desai

Lecturer: Dr Kelvin Lee

Date of Submission

7/21/2011

Word Count: 4335

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Abstract

With the current rate of progress in technology, there has been a huge growth spurt in terms of global

information. Innovations in design and technology seem to be appearing in the market every few

years. One of the most prominent aspects of business is to collect, organize and effectively use this

information. Economic assets are secondary in the market and now an organization’s true value lies in

its intellectual capital. With the aid of Knowledge Management techniques, corporations strive to

achieve a competitive advantage in today’s global economy by managing the vast amount of

information available to its maximum potential.

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Table of Contents

Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 1

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 3

About Knowledge Management. ............................................................................................................ 4

What is Knowledge Management? ................................................................................................. 4

Role of Knowledge Management ................................................................................................... 5

Core Concepts of Knowledge Management ................................................................................... 6

Role of a Knowledge Manager ....................................................................................................... 7

Knowledge Management in a nutshell ............................................................................................ 7

Google Inc. .............................................................................................................................................. 8

Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................ 8

Corporate Philosophy. ..................................................................................................................... 9

Branding and Marketing of Professional Services ........................................................................ 10

Entrepreneurship and innovations ................................................................................................. 12

Design Process and Management ......................................................................................................... 14

Google’s Design Philosophy ......................................................................................................... 14

Google’s Corporate Structure ....................................................................................................... 15

Apple Overtakes Google as the World’s Most Valuable Brand ........................................................... 16

Management of Creative Professionals ................................................................................................. 18

Product Management .................................................................................................................... 18

Design & Quality Management .................................................................................................... 19

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 21

Works Cited .......................................................................................................................................... 22

Image References .................................................................................................................................. 24

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Introduction

Since the dawn of the 21st century, one of the most prominent aspects of business is to concentrate on

collecting, organizing and effectively making use of the information and knowledge that surrounds us.

Achieving a competitive advantage in today’s global economy has always been a goal of all major

organizations. While earlier, a corporation’s tactical advantage in the market focused solely on the

amount of physical economic assets, now their success depends highly on a corporation’s knowledge

or intellectual capital.

Peter Drucker, well renowned writer and management consultant, claimed that as we enter the

information age, basic economic resources are no longer assets. Now it is knowledge. (Drucker, 1993,

p. 3)

The industrial revolution has passed by and now is the steady rise of the information age; the age of a

knowledge-oriented economic revolution. Knowledge has become a “strategic asset” (Narasimha,

2002), a “critical resource in the determination of competitive advantage” (Dunford, Steane, &

Guthrie, 2001). From this need of effectively using information to reach maximum potential, the term

Knowledge Management was born.

Our primary goals in this paper are to explore the role of Knowledge Management in modern-day

organizations, particularly in Google Inc. Through a brief analysis, we will find out why Google was

the top valuable brand worldwide for four years and explain their design processes and management

structure.

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About Knowledge Management.

Before we understand knowledge management we must first be familiar with one of the most

frequently used terms in the modern day… and that’s what does it mean for an organization to be

called as a ‘learning company’

Watkins and Marsick define a learning organization as one that keeps up with modern advancements

and continuously keeps learning and transforming with time. According to them, a “learning

organization must capture, share, and use knowledge so its members can work together to change the

way the organization responds to challenges” (Watkins & Marsick, 1997, p. 4)

What is Knowledge Management?

Knowledge Management, or KM, has always played an integral role in organizations. While there are

several varying definitions of this term, the general concept is to describe, improve, regulate, and

exploit an organization’s collective knowledge base.

So when any member claims to have implemented KM in their organization, what exactly does it

mean?

The commonly used (and simplest) reference is that KM is a business strategy proposed to manage

an organization’s knowledge and expertise.

Dr Andrew Flanagin described KM as the prevailing strategy to distinguish and develop technologies

for the “capture, storage retrieval and dissemination of explicit knowledge.” (Flanagin, 2002)

A corporation must know how to extract their employee’s knowledge, compile it in a layout and

location that is easily accessible to others within the company; and to ensure that the knowledge is

credible and utilized to accomplish the goals of the organization.

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Role of Knowledge Management

Referring to the quote of the assignment,

Knowledge management has become the latest technique, an essential part of the learning

company. It is about databases and communication.

Companies that abide to this definition generally make effective use of information and

communication technologies to their maximum benefit.

However, as times change, so do definitions. When people consider just databases and

communication they assume it means getting software that will organize and share the compiled

information within the company.

Currently KM does not mean just utilizing technologies to your benefit, it also requires adapting the

organizational beliefs, encouraging sharing of information in the workplace, and interaction with the

people. Therefore, the quote above needs a slight modification,

Knowledge management has become the latest technique, an essential part of the learning

company. It is about databases, communication and effective interaction and collaboration

with people.

Another practice of KM is to keep track of the frequently ignored small-scale ideas, and manage this

information for quick and easy access. We can achieve this by using a centralized database or internal

servers that stores documents for easy access, along with additional options of accessing external

sources such as e-papers and journals. University libraries are a prime example of such type of KM.

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Core Concepts of Knowledge Management

The fundamental principle of KM is knowledge itself. The issue is when people refer to ‘knowledge’,

what they are really suggesting is ‘information’. Therefore, it is a common occurrence for a company

to underestimate and overlook the practical data. Databases do not capture this type of knowledge

easily.

To differentiate the meaning of data, information, knowledge and wisdom, we refer to the figure

below:

Figure 1: Data, Information and Knowledgei

Here we see the actual workflow that takes place for converting raw data into knowledge. There is a

perfect hierarchy visible, specifically telling us that data is essential but inadequate to produce

information unless it is collected, organized and summarized. Similarly, information is essential but it

cannot produce knowledge unless its analysed, combined properly and used for good judgement

(decision-making).

Knowledge exists within us, not in computers, and communicating knowledge is an intricate

procedure of reading and interpreting a person’s tone of voice, facial expressions, body language etc.

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It is not just a simple “transfer” of information from one person to another. (Walsham, 2002, pp. 267-

273)

Information and communication technologies help keeping knowledge organized but the human factor

of interpreting and interacting with knowledge is the real key for effective KM.

Role of a Knowledge Manager

For any successful form of KM, there lies an effective Knowledge Manager. Their goal is to identify

the corporation’s implicit (or tacit) knowledge and, after sorting out the valuable information, makes

it explicit to help everyone within the organization in exercise better judgement. Knowledge

Managers figure out how to go about making the knowledge explicit, fine-tuning the process and

combine externalized knowledge (knowledge taken from outside the company’s resources) to create a

successful amalgam of information helping the corporation make improved decisions and increase

work productivity.

Knowledge Management in a nutshell

From what we have learned so far, we can define Knowledge management as

- Applying the combined knowledge of the entire organization to achieve company goals

- Ensuring that people have accurate knowledge at the correct time and place

- Establish an environment where individuals are encouraged to create, learn, share and apply

knowledge gained as a cohesive unit.

- A way to prevent information overload, sorting through only credible sources and providing

clear access to information that’s required most.

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Google Inc.

One of the leading global corporations that incorporate KM within their company is Google Inc. The

corporation has been dominating as the world’s most valuable brand for the last four years, until

Apple Inc. overtook them in May 2011. (Costa, 2011)

Our study will show the inner workings of Google, talking about their idea of branding, the various

services offered, in-depth analysis of their design process, company infrastructure and more as we

figure out what made Google successfully stay at the top for four years and why it fell to second place

this year.

Executive Summary

Google Inc. began as a research project by two Stanford PhD graduates named Larry Page and Sergey

Brin. Their research project, titled “BackRub”, made use of a program that followed the links in a

webpage and analysed all the results produced. In 1997, the duo registered their program under the

domain google.com and by 1998; Google became an official privately owned corporation.

Currently, Google Inc. is a global technology leader determined to unify the world’s information

and make it universally accessible and beneficial to people.

With its widespread investigation on automated search algorithms and using the latest technological

innovations, Google quickly established itself as the leading search engine on the Internet and as one

of the most recognized brand in the world.

While other search engines kept adding more popup advertisements on their homepages, Google

focused solely on consumer satisfaction, ensuring them security and allowing them to produce

relevant results on what they are looking for. In contrast, their competitors (Yahoo, Microsoft) flood

their search engines with various elements that, at times, become an unwanted distraction. Google has

a simple user interface that boasts of classic elegance and instantly sends a message to their user

stating they are here to give you exactly what you want.

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The figure below is a collage of screenshots taken from the Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google search

engine to show what we just stated in the previous paragraph.

Figure 2: Search Engine Comparison, From L-R: MSN, Google, and Yahoo.ii

Google’s success has come as a direct result of concentrating on people’s needs. As they quoted,

“focus on the user and all else will follow” (Google Company )

Corporate Philosophy.

Co-Founder and CEO of Google Inc. Larry Page stated his search engine has always focused on

precision, accuracy and speed. The company’s mission statement is wide enough to encompass any

method possible to unify information. To organize the world’s information and make it universally

accessible is a bold statement and, in reality, quite impossible as some data is private whereas some

data may not be defined in a computerized format. However, even though their mission statement is

not exactly feasible, it is still motivational and a long lasting endeavour, projecting a larger long-term

goal than most companies do.

As technologies advance, completely changing the face of the web, Google Inc. continues pushing

their limits to provide the best of customer satisfaction and they have noted down ten core principles

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that they abide to. The most important one being, Focus on the user, and all else will follow. Google

does it best to ensure providing the most satisfying user experience possible, putting the needs of their

consumers at the top.

To practice these principles not only requires a clear dedication towards the company but effective

use of KM to find out about the latest trends and needs of the consumer, and to guide their

employees in the correct direction of achieving their goals. (Google: Our Philosophy)

Branding and Marketing of Professional Services

Over the years, Google has stuck to its brand strategy while creating its products, which is: Brand +

Descriptive Word = Product Name. Google realizes the importance of a brand image allowing its

consumers to quickly identify the products and understand it instantly. For example, naming a product

Google Desktop establishes itself in the consumer’s mind that it is a product by Google for PC

Desktops.

Google used its KM skills to understand and identify their consumers’ mind-set, finding out the

most positive method to market their brand. From their research, Google concluded that they could

appeal to a wider audience if they kept the term “Google” which was already quite popular courtesy

of their search engine, and branch out into a variety of different products.

Unlike rival companies such as Microsoft which branched out their brand name into various sub-

brands such as Windows, Office, MSN, and each further subdividing into their own brands, Google’s

primary strategy is built on focusing on one global brand name with a vast array of complementary

products. Each of their products increase brand awareness in their consumers.

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Figure 3: Google Branded Productsiii

These various products doubled up as a clever marketing strategy, amplifying Google’s advertising

potential and expanding their corporation. Every time a person uses a Google product, they strengthen

their brand identity, making Google a highly successful brand name. (Morrow, 2009)

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Entrepreneurship and innovations

For any company to become and remain successful, they have to adapt the rapidly evolving

environment. The key to success is by keep producing new and improved creations to stay ahead of

their competitors. Google hires the best people from all over the world who have a broad experience

and even non-traditional talents, paired with a creative environment that resembles partly like a

college campus and partly like a playground, allowing an individual’s enthusiasm and creativity to

blossom.

Figure 4: Google's Innovation Formulaiv

It is quite clear that Google’s innovations in search engine technology have made it the dominating

search engine available today. Currently we find out that the expansion into using Google Adwords,

a method that allows people to auction for space to place their ads appearing alongside search results,

has been far more innovative and accounts for 99% of the company’s revenue. (Coy, 2006)

However, the multitude of Google Products (Adwords, Documents, Books, and Maps etc.) attribute to

only one section of technological innovations brought forth by the company. Despite their search page

still looking similar to its original style four years ago, behind the scenes there are constant upgrades

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made to the search algorithms. This ensures that Google always remains a step ahead from its

competitors in giving out quick, efficient, quality-driven results.

By catering to their consumers, Google search results can now be differentiated according to file types

(doc, pdf, ppt), or filtered to specific domain names, or even restrict the search according to a specific

date. With an addition of a toolbar, consumers now do not need to jump back and forth within the

web browser. Instead, they have a mini Google search bar permanently fixed in the corner of their

browser window for easy access. Incorporating several add-ons like the Google Calculator and

Google Converter allows a consumer to just type in a mathematical formula in the search bar and

instantly get the answer. (Chaffey, 2004)

On a more current note, Google has started to branch out from its “search engine” comfort zone and

has begun expanding the brand into other technological aspects. The more popular ones include

Google TV, a unique platform that combines TV programming with the internet, Gmail’s new priority

inbox that has a learning algorithm that recognizes the emails most relevant to you and arranges them

from a higher to lower priority. Google also tried to tap into the success of social networking sites

such as Facebook and Twitter by creating Google Wave and Google Buzz. Admittedly, both the

products failed to live up to their standards, Google learned from its mistakes, collected the

information from its consumers and recently launched a new product known simply as Google Plus.

Other than that, Google also has a separate section called Google Ventures for investors, specialists

and entrepreneurs to participate and to help expand the brand. Google launched Green Initiatives to

promote eco-friendly efforts to make the planet a better place. Their organization Google.org uses

information from the public to build new products and sponsor their policies on a global scale.

Google keeps up with the modern trends. It is always checking into the latest technological upgrades,

and the ever-increasing demands of their consumers. By hiring a competent and highly skilled

taskforce, Google continues producing innovations, learning from failed ones, and revamping their

methodology to best appeal their consumers. This is one of the key strategies behind Google’s

success.

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Design Process and Management

Google does not just apply its KM skills towards technology. Google is also famous, or to be precise,

infamous for its firm design processes and managing their creative teams positively for optimal

results. They stress on the need for User-centric Design. Google understands its consumers, it knows

what they want, and it knows the best way to give it to them.

In this section, we will explore the design process behind Google: their philosophies and their method

of managing design professionals, their product management and quality control. At the end we will

try to find out what caused Google to fall behind to Apple Inc. after establishing itself as the dominant

brand for over four years.

Google’s Design Philosophy

The Google User Experience Team has one clear objective: - To generate designs that are beneficial,

quick, modest, appealing, original, universal, lucrative, reliable, eye-catching, and personalized. The

designers and engineers at Google constantly challenge themselves to achieve a perfect balance of

these ten core ideologies. A product that manages acquires this balance is referred to as “Googley”

and will satisfy their consumers worldwide. When acting on these design principles, the team seeks

out the best balance within the time specified for the project. After that, they keep analysing,

innovating and improving with time. (Google User Experience)

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Google’s Corporate Structure

Figure 5: Google's Corporate Structurev

Google follows a standard management structure, segregated and grouped into areas of concern that

assist the corporation in managing its global presence. As the figure shows, depending on the location

and product market, small-scale entities are subdivided and paired under their individual groups. This

ensures centralized planning that is essential for multinational corporations and at the same time,

gives the smaller units enough flexibility to innovate like a small start-up company.

Google also hires administrators in exclusive positions such as Chief Internet Evangelist and a

Distinguished Entrepreneur to help recognize and enable new technologies, or a Chief Culture Officer

to preserve their distinctive start-up atmosphere. These managers guarantee the company remains

innovative (Morrow, Leadership Culture at Google Inc, 2009)

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Apple Overtakes Google as the World’s Most Valuable Brand

In early May 2011, global brand agency Millward Brown published a study of the most valuable

brands in the world. Their findings clearly showed, with the help of innovation, Apple Inc.

overtook Google Inc. ending Google’s four years of dominance at the top rank. The study attributes

Apple’s success to the innovation of the iPad and claims Google’s drop is mainly due to a decrease in

market capitalization (Neff, 2011)

However, as marketing gurus began to delve further into the issue, they found an inherent flaw in the

company’s design and knowledge management skills.

Figure 6: Top 5 Brands of 2010vi

MaryLou Costa from Marketing Week stated that Apple has built its entire brand on a promise it lived

up to. Its brand value has jumped up by 859% since its first appearance on the BrandZ charts in 2006.

As quoted by BrandZ director, Peter Walshe, “Apple plays a good profit story and by sticking to its

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pricing and innovation, it affirmed its desirability” (Costa, The most Valuable brands in the World,

2011)

David Cowell, Editor at Reuters, quoted Peter Walshe too where the latter stated, “It was Apple’s

attention to details, along with an increased presence using gadgets allowed it to behave differently

from its competitors. It allied itself with great products and a greater user experience.” (Prodhan &

Sharp, 2011)

The reason for Apple’s success does not lie just in its products, but more importantly in its design

process, the way it manages its creative teams to generate maximum output.

Google’s design process has become a little bit complicated over the years. We will explain it in detail

next.

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Management of Creative Professionals

To get the most productivity from a creative team, you need good open communication, leadership

skills and valuing different styles, methodologies, abilities and expertise of all the team members.

Pairing the right people, personalities and talent into groups will work well, showing higher levels of

trust and collaboration. Such management will stimulate the innovative results that corporations seek

out today. (Best, 2006, p. 134)

Product Management

Internally, Google is well aware of its innovation problems. Back in 2003, Google Product Manager

Marissa Mayer gave a presentation describing Google’s Product Development/Management process.

Google managed its creative teams very differently than present day. Earlier, Google accept design

ideas from everywhere, via use of forums online, email, asking all the employees via group meetings,

conducting brainstorming sessions every week. After that, the group leaders would combine all the

new ideas along with current funded on-going projects and rank them according to their usefulness to

the consumers, the level of effort required etc. The ones that score well get funding and work force to

begin the project.

So far, Google has maintained this system in present day. Here is where thing took a wrong turn.

Once the project received funding, Google formed a team of a 3-person unit of engineers and

designers. They could work on a project for a few months and then transition to a new project,

keeping the creative process fresh and dynamic. With over 180 highly skilled people, they could

easily work on 60 different projects at a time. Each project manager had around nine people within

their unit, governed by one leader. Larger projects were broken down into four teams of three people.

They kept the workforce small enough, and let it constantly evolve along with time. (Rodriguez,

2003)

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Currently, Robert Scoble, reporter for BusinessInsider interviewed the executives at Google and

found out that Google is having trouble keeping its teams small enough. Their last failed project,

Google Wave had more than 30 people working the team (instead of the usual nine people taskforce).

The mind-set has also changed as Google gives more resources to projects that are becoming

successful, paying less attention to products that are declining in the market. Small-scale social

products do not fit within their infrastructure anymore.

In contrast, Apple does not make large teams to work on their products. They pick a team of very few,

highly skilled people who can work on several projects at a time and move around as and when

required. Their engineers can move back and forth between various projects depending on when the

product is about to be released. Apple keeps its team size in check…something that Google used to

do when it first began its rise. (Scoble, 2010)

Design & Quality Management

Cliff Kuang, Editor of Fast Co.Design, wrote an article in early September last year talking about how

Google equates “design” with endless testing. The article condemned google for frequently talking

about “design” but rarely mentioning any designers involved in the process. He said, “the Google

design process seems to simply be creating a bunch of fairly obvious alternatives, and testing the hell

out of them.” (Kuang, 2010)

While this may sound exceedingly harsh, there have been many prior examples where Google has

shown to be overly critical for virtually irrelevant matters. The most notable case was testing the “41

blues” where Google’s engineers could not decide on a particular shade of blue for a website link so

they tested all 41 of them to see which appealed the most clicks. Eventually they settled on a shade

that was the average of all the blues used in hyperlinks.

Google Engineers have more authority over design and quality control than the designers and

they believe in testing out every combination before finalizing on a particular solution. Such a

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mechanical approach is bound to frustrate the designers. One of them in particular, Douglas Bowman,

Google’s former leading UI Designer and current creative director of Twitter Inc., spoke out on why

he decided to leave the company after the day-today ridiculousness of trying to design anything there.

He quoted in his personal blog, “I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5

pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that. I’ve grown

tired of debating such minuscule design decisions.” He further stated that if a company is full of

engineers, they eventually turn to engineering for an answer; reducing everything into simple logic,

taking out the human element and just testing the data. If the results are negative, then everything goes

back to square one. (Bowman, 2009)

However, Irene Au, Director of User Experience, insisted in an interview with TechRadar that there is

a clear logic behind Google’s inane approach. She stated that search engines are delicate interfaces

and even minor alterations in design, even at a pixel level can have dramatic influence on usage and

revenue. She acknowledged Google as being a ‘data-driven’ organization where the engineers vastly

outnumber the designers and that makes defining the actual role of a designer quite a challenge. She

says, “Google focuses on aggregating the data and presenting it to the users, so we don't want it to

feel editorialised. We want it to feel machine driven, so people understand that it's not like we're

presenting results with a certain point of view” (Lindberg, 2009)

While a data-driven management is efficient and reliable, in our personal opinion Google does need to

give their designers a bit more advantage.

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Conclusion

Google’s founders began the company with a distinct goal and the execution of that idea has been

very successful. The company’s success in the future largely depends on how it controls its

knowledge while staying true to that goal. Keeping their teams small and efficient worked in their

favour in the past. It may sound counter intuitive to take away people from a team in order to increase

productivity but this is truly a classic case of “Too many cooks spoil the broth”.

Google design process has focused more on thinking with data than with design. While Google

definitely became a successful global corporation, having a vast array of products, it did not adapt the

human factor in its management approach. Even though it is successful in the market, it has become

colder, devoid of human emotions.

Google still abide to their philosophies of giving consumers what they want in terms of optimum

results, but as times change, they failed to notice their competitor, Apple, giving people the same

results, with the added benefit of interacting with their consumers on a personal level.

Coming back to the quote of this assignment, “Knowledge management has become the latest

technique, an essential part of the learning company. It is about databases and communication”

This describes Google perfectly.

However, as mentioned before, times change and so do definitions. If Google wishes to climb back to

its dominant role of being the world’s most valuable brand, it will have to incorporate effective

interaction and collaboration with its consumers; it will have to “humanize” its management process.

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f

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Image References

i Data, Information and Knowledge. Retrieved 11 July, 2011 from http://www.nickfinck.com/presentations/bbs2005/03.html ii Search Engine Comparison, From L-R: MSN, Google and Yahoo. Retrieved 11 July, 2011 from http://www.msn.com , http://www.yahoo.com , http://www.google.com iii Google Branded Products Retrieved 13 July, 2011 from http://www.benmorrow.info/research/googles-strategic-direction/ iv Google’s Innovation Formula, picture based on actual text Retrieved 14 July, 2011 from http://evelynrodriguez.typepad.com/crossroads_dispatches/files/GoogleProductDevProcess.pdf v Google’s Corporate Structure Retrieved 14 July, 2011 from http://www.benmorrow.info/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/corporate_structure.jpg vi Top 5 brands of 2010 Retrieved 14, July, 2011 from http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/the-most-valuable-brands-in-the-world/3026256.article