An echo-chamber of ideas and opinions

-
A couple of weeks ago, someone said something that sounded really smart.

The idea seemed bold, incisive and very original....until I heard it again a little bit later from someone else... and then once more from yet another person. Each of these people seemed to imply they came up with the idea themselves.

Now there are very few truly original ideas. Most of us come up with stuff by applying what we've learned in another domains to a new one, or by building on the work of others. The most "original" ideas and thoughts can come from the conscious or unconscious application of standard tools, patterns, and frameworks to new field and applications. (A professor I had once said" Convert every problem to a nail so that you can use this hammer that you have") So variance in ideas can come from either applying different tools and patterns, or learning from different sources.

However, over time (especially in small groups where everyone gets really busy and everyone has similar backgrounds), there is the danger of everyone having access to the same sources of information/learning and using the same tools/methodology, and hence generating very similar ideas/opinions. In a company, this of course becomes harder to fight against, as people have a strong tendency to (knowingly or unknowingly) arrive at the same conclusion as people higher-up in the management chain.

Groupthink is always dangerous to any company. The kind of groupthink, where people don't even realize its happening is even worse. I don't think this is anywhere close to being a problem at Google as a whole yet. If anything, there are too many different ideas/opinions floating about .:) But it was interesting to me that I caught this.

In my case, I think my annoying default tendency to ask "Why could this be wrong?" every time someone says something protects me to some extent, but my tendency to be only too willing to concede a point to the other person leaves me a little vulnerable. I've also realized that since starting work the hectic schedule means the breadth of what I read and opinions I'm exposed to has reduced, as has the time I spend randomly surfing the net about stuff that seems semi-interesting, so that's something to watch out for...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The "Rescue Me" minisodes

-
I'm a fan of the FX show " Rescue Me " I was lukewarm when Dennis Leary mentioned the mini-sodes on his Daily Show visit. But, for the Rescue Me's particular situation it works really well. First the mini-sodes are actually good! they use characters from the story and tell a little anecdote they were clearly pretty cheap to produce through what seems like a little bit of complicated mess, they're distributing like crazy: YouTube , Crackle (Sony's site), the FX site (powered by Brightcove), Hulu These do exactly what they're supposed to do new episodes aren't coming till Spring 2009 , the fans need something to tide them over and keep the show in their memory: done potentially rope in new fans (short episodes, lower commitment to start watching the show) without freaking out old school media which is loathe to risk potential DVD sales by putting older episodes/clips online: done Its not completely clear to me how much this is by their own design, and
Read more

A short love letter to ~8 years on Google Search - 8 things I’m grateful for.

-
  After a few weeks off, I started a new gig within Google yesterday and it hit me that for the first time in almost eight years I won’t be working on some part of Google Search. Eight years ago, I told the team when I was interviewing that I was “looking for a place to call home for a while and grow there”. My experiences here more than met that need.  I used to write a regular “10 things about…” listy column for a while at a college newspaper. So in that style here’s 8 things (one for each year) I feel grateful to have experienced/learned in this time. Also, like that column which I banged out the night before it was due, this post is something that I don’t need to do, yet I feel somehow compelled to do (and so it’ll likely be longer and less crisp than it should be :-))    It actually is awesome to work on something so many people use and love, and that positively touches people’s lives. There’s a talk I give externally about Search and a line I often end up using is how the mission
Read more

Avengers Endgame: how trivial passions can nudge a career

-
Image
The Internets reminded me that today was exactly 2 years since Avenger's Endgame was released. I remember that day vividly for a few reasons I woke up before sunrise (way before the alarm went off).   I wore this (now that I think about it) borderline appropriate T-shir t and then..  .. showed up before 7:00am to watch that movie at Century Shoreline before going to work.  This is still the only movie that has a scene that can make me tear up consistently every single time (I know, I know - it's ridiculous).  That day was interesting from a work perspective for another reason. Along with a few other people at work (and with some crazy last-minute negotiating), we'd pulled together the Thanos Easter Egg on Search. It was typical of a lot of Easter Eggs on Search at the time, in that it wasn't really anybody's job, but we pushed it through because we loved the idea enough to do it. My day job on Media experience on Search helped me justify it a little bit I guess.
Read more