Driving Change

About a year ago, Google Drive climbed past 1 billion users per week. That means Google Drive was our eighth product with more than 1 billion users, after our search service, Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, Chrome, the Google Play Store, and Android. It’s the outcome of our innovation thinking, called 10x.

There are many ways to be innovative. From arranging a meeting where a small team discusses different ideas, to an open source innovation system. For us, we strive to do 10 times better. Innovation is about risk-taking. Not every idea will end up as the next big thing. Or, as our colleague Astro Teller would say: “Leaps of innovation require a bravery that borders on absurdity”.

Research has identified some stimulating and some inhibitory factors for innovation. Autonomy, frequent feedback, collaboration and an open flow of ideas are all examples of what works as catalyst processes. Open source multiplies the speed and impact of innovation in a way that’s unimaginable for scarcity lovers.

Elements of the work environment for creativity:

In essence, employees at Google can view each other’s work from every position in the company. Or, as our CIO Ben Fried recently said: “Any engineer at Google can look at the source code of almost anything going on in the engineering department”. This system is efficient for collaborating and sharing different ideas, without too many complications in between.

If you’re curious about what can come from an open source innovation strategy: take a look at Google X, our Moonshot Factory. It’s basically an innovation factory. In X, we create radical new technologies to try and solve some of the world’s hardest problems. Just like those who explore the world, we don’t stay in a safe place, but continue to develop and create. We work closely together with inventors and entrepreneurs to create the best version of a thought solution. Not 10% better, but 10X better. In other words:

Two more examples of companies that have an interesting innovation strategy are Nike and Samsung Electronics. Their co-innovation strategy is focused on generating, converting, and evaluating ideas that come from all sources such as internal R&D, collaboration and open source. The primary strengths of such an innovation strategy are:

• Generating a continuous flow of ideas across boundaries, space and time
• Developing a large pool of knowledge by sharing IT-supported data analytics
• Creating a new innovation culture through shared vision and goals
• Designing a tacit knowledge-based convergence filter which is unique and difficult for other firms to imitate

By sharing ideas, companies create more and often better, innovative ideas and therefore are better able to be competitive now and in the future.

A relatively new way to be innovative is to act upon fast data. Not historically, but in real-time. Seeing someone looking at a certain advertisement and instantly saying: ‘Hey, here’s a nice discount!’. Or in the delivery sector, not only reacting to external events, but also embracing customers desires. Effectively changing the delivery process to comply with customer’s needs. For example, Amazon is busy with a new pilot using fast data: delivery to a location that moves. This way customers don’t even need to be at home anymore to receive a package. All thanks to using fast data.

According to scientific research innovation creates value through five different processes:

• New products, services or ventures (projects)
• Redesigning the end-to-end value chain architecture for greater efficiency
• Reinventing the customer value, from utilitarian to hedonic to experience
• Redefining the customer base including e-market, global market, and blue ocean
• Reformulating business models using new ICT’s such as the Internet of Things

The purpose of all organizational efforts is to increase efficiency in the areas mentioned above. Or, as Astro says: