Friday, September 15, 2006
Google's Dev philosophy - a brief from Kaifu Lee's visit to CUHK
Today I went back to the CUHK (The Chinese University of Hong Kong) campus to attend several talks given by one of the hotest executive in China, Dr. Kaifu Lee from Google. While listening to his speech on googles dev philosphy, i was inspired and some confusion and questions arise out of my mind.
There is a term "20% time" in the Google R&D team, which means that engineers are authorized to spend 20% of their work time to work on stuffs they 'd like to, needless for their boss to issue any approval before they kick start, and that's an interesting policy which is new to those software company~ At least, i didn't regconize such policy in MS R&D...:P. And yes, they said that engineers are given the freedom to think and realize their thought which can improve the internet and in their broader term, to change the world. That sounds really amazing to engineers, isn't it?
And my picture of such scenario would be like, there are tons of idea floating on the Google's office, and amongst them, some of those good ideas become realized and now serving the ppls on the internet, or i 'd say serving the ppls in the world. So, my question is what is the vital characteristics for those ideas to succeed to become the one to be realized. I was really likely to ask such question today, but sadly i wasn't given such chance...and that is still a mist in my mind..
Another points that i am really agreed with them is "Don't monetize the idea too early", Yes, i know that, we should focus on the UI, robustness, stability, putting those software quality attribute in a higher priority then money, and yeah it sounds great!! But, what is meant by "too early" is the question i am or will be facing, i don't know, maybe it is a statement that can only be speak out from an executive from a gigantic company like Google. I can't imagine how i/we can survive without thinking monetization of the idea, and also i have to admit that thinking of money too early would kill the app. , but i think it is always hard to define what is meant by that "too early"
"Listen to the user", this is the most undoubted one amongst those, it is good to software dev., and i will be doing that on my project(s).
There is a term "20% time" in the Google R&D team, which means that engineers are authorized to spend 20% of their work time to work on stuffs they 'd like to, needless for their boss to issue any approval before they kick start, and that's an interesting policy which is new to those software company~ At least, i didn't regconize such policy in MS R&D...:P. And yes, they said that engineers are given the freedom to think and realize their thought which can improve the internet and in their broader term, to change the world. That sounds really amazing to engineers, isn't it?
And my picture of such scenario would be like, there are tons of idea floating on the Google's office, and amongst them, some of those good ideas become realized and now serving the ppls on the internet, or i 'd say serving the ppls in the world. So, my question is what is the vital characteristics for those ideas to succeed to become the one to be realized. I was really likely to ask such question today, but sadly i wasn't given such chance...and that is still a mist in my mind..
Another points that i am really agreed with them is "Don't monetize the idea too early", Yes, i know that, we should focus on the UI, robustness, stability, putting those software quality attribute in a higher priority then money, and yeah it sounds great!! But, what is meant by "too early" is the question i am or will be facing, i don't know, maybe it is a statement that can only be speak out from an executive from a gigantic company like Google. I can't imagine how i/we can survive without thinking monetization of the idea, and also i have to admit that thinking of money too early would kill the app. , but i think it is always hard to define what is meant by that "too early"
"Listen to the user", this is the most undoubted one amongst those, it is good to software dev., and i will be doing that on my project(s).
# posted by HongLun @ 11:32 AM 
