On being Googley
Tim recently posted about being Googley, and as much as I admire Google and all, I decided to read into the list for profound underpinnings.
As it turns out, these are good traits, no matter if you work for Google, want to be a good citizen, or simply want to change the lives of young people.
To paraphrase,
- Focus on people,
- KISS,
- Engage,
- Innovate,
- Design for those outside your reach*,
- Plan for today and the future,
- Be worthy of our trust,
- Human touch.
I think #10 is most important. It’s that #6 I want to spend just a couple sentences on, however.
Their #6 is design for the world, but I changed it slightly. When I design things in my job (a screencast, an after-school class, or a writing I do) I look beyond its immediate use. I don’t intend it just for my immediate, intended audience, but instead, a far-wider, far-reaching net.
After all, what I publish invariably ends up online. But shouldn’t we all aim higher, and take the extra effort, to make world-class things? If you speak of it another way, “Well for us here, I only would have to…”, you dumb it down.
I think one of the more important things I can do is share the fruits of my labor with more than just the 220 employees who are in instructional positions. Someone once said of me, “You’re always willing to share, you put so much of what you do out, online, for others to use.”
That’s right. I’m aiming for those outside my typical reach. And shouldn’t this be something we all go for? How are we to compete for the recognition of our ideas in an Internet-accesible age when our ideas aren’t good enough for a wider audience?
Be Googley. It can’t hurt.