Help...

Due to a mixup with my girlfriend and her flatmate today, I'm locked in a house in Paris that has a front door which requires a key to open from both the inside and out. I don't have a key. Even with a key, the door can be very tricky to open.

Some french girl, that I do not know, who does have a key, just tried to open it from the outside but failed.

All the while I tried to explain to her in what little French I know that I am trapped inside and I don't have a key while she tried to explain to me in equally limited english, that she does have a key, but the door is too difficult to open.

After about 10 minutes of failed attempts to open the door and communicate, I finally conceded defeat and let out a feeble exclamation for "help" to which she responds, "I'm sorry, it's too difficult, I have to go now…" and left.

What a bizarre situation.

nary a bad idea in sight.

per a friends recommendation, tonight, i found myself at my first google sponsored event. a schmooze fest i guess and i walked away with the following non-distilled impressions.


first, nary a 'bad' idea in sight.




instead, i'd say it was nothing but buds for conversation. conversation that continuously flourished in every which direction.




not unlike google's product portfolio, right?..




and that got me to wondering too. wondering how such an organism fecund with new ideas keeps from being smothered or buckling under the pressures of its own creative forces and byproduct.




it seems it may all have to do with keeping tabs on scale. measuring everything. having a visceral sense of SCALE.




and boy, oh boy, does google stretch the human notion of scale. they gave a few riveting examples. for instance, the feature that buffers pages at the top of your search result, the results presented prior to actually clicking on the link of your choice, this feature alone saves humanity (at least those whom choose to use google as the search engine) a whopping 13 man years per day. 13 man years per day! wow.


that's just one example.


you might think, when making considerations on scales like that, who would have a necessity for a microscope?




well, from an outsiders view (like myself) a microscope may actually be the most useful thing to begin to understand my initial wonderment - how google has scaled so well from small/successful to BIGger and still remain successful; i.e. not get mired by products, egos, corporate stuff, etc.


btw - they still consider themselves a mid sized organisation. hmmm.. something to think about.




scale.




in their big screen(s) presentation, google distilled a core set of elements that need not require a microscope to understand what drives it: think big, start small and constantly measure. measure everything. while qualitative hunches may actually point the way forward, all things google seem to remain backed by constant quantitative analysis of the data.


match that philosophy with abundant financial resource, and i'd say that's a nice recipe for: innovation, creation and productivity.


in the short few hours i shared with the event goers, having the privilege to listen to google's presentation, converse with intelligent, open, and forward thinking individuals, i walked away with so many fun exciting ideas of my own, that i'm certain will keep me giddy for days to come.


could working for a company be so energizing and thought provoking on a day to day basis, or was it all just a bunch of buzz?




hard to say. but the beer (sierra nevada torpedo ale), the wine (sonoma dry creek and much, much more), the food (mini burger, fishy soup, crab meat, and much, much more) wasn't so bad : ) after all, who can resist free food and drink?