Inspiration Google!

I have several times set out in the morning to fix some little thing on the net, buying a ticket or canceling a subscription to a magazine. Then one link has taken me to the next and before I knew it I had spent half a day reading about some fascinating new subject. It is a privilege to have the time to just sit and suck up whatever information you find inspiring and to just let your mind go with the flow. I am getting lots of inspiration and ideas for the business that I hope to start one day.

I have particularly been reading a lot about Apple and Google, two companies that keep impressing me with the way they keep redefining the world that they work in. Apple with iTunes and latest iPhone, Google with their 'Cloud computing' concept. 

CLOUD COMPUTING

Googles basic ambition is to bring everything to the web: email, calendar, spreadsheets, presentations, photo galleries, web pages, blogs (guess who owns blogger.com); it is all there and it is all yours for free as long as you expose yourself to a few (usually relevant) advertisements. But most of us keep buying the corresponding Microsoft products for thousands of dollars.... because that is what we always have done. Listen to what the Danish entrepreneur Martin Thorborg has to say about it here and here (unfortunately only in Danish).

I am hooked on the Google idea of independence of time and space and I have started uploading my documents to Google Docs, so I can access them from any computer or phone in the world with an internet access. No need to constantly drag your own laptop around with all that follows of backups, virus protection, hardware security, etc. Instead you stay light, mobile and efficient!! According to Google themselves there is already 1 million business that have made that swap!

TRUST

I guess Googles largest problem must be TRUST. It is definitely already a recognized brand, but I guess we all about weary about trusting them fully with all our information. Personally I am not the paranoid type and I honestly don't believe that I have any information that anyone would find even remotely interesting or - for that matter - be able to use against me. And the day someone did, Google would be out of business! I am certain that they are painfully aware of that!

CUSTOMER FEEDBACK

Another thing that I admire about the Google way is their intimate feedback cycles with their customers. There is an entire communicate of users around each of the Google products who sees it as their finest task to help Google develop the products. On top of that new developments does not need to wait for months or years until the next version of the product is released or the next round of CD's are printed. No, the second it is available on the Google servers, that same second it is available to the users. And from that second Google starts receiving feedback on how well they did; both qualitatively from the community and quantitatively from the usage statistics. You cannot help asking yourself the question: How can it ever go wrong, when you basically have your customers telling you how to build your products step by step?

VISION

Googles 'modest' vision is to 'Organize all information in the world'. They are undoubtedly on the right track and while that may seem like a 'Doomsday scenario' for many that one company has such power, then one can only been impressed by the way they do it. They seem to have a lot of fun in the process and they just recently celebrated their 10th anniversary!