A Look at Life Inside Google and Twitter After working for the two tech titans for nearly 15 years, Karen Wickre has a lot to say — and all of it is worth hearing.
Silicon Valley. Vadim Kurland Karen Wickre is an author, editor, columnist, and communications consultant. She spent nearly 15 years in editorial roles at Google and Twitter. Here’s our conversation about her time working for two of the biggest tech brands in the world. We begin in 2002, at Google’s Silicon Valley office.
Karen Wickre. Photo by Helena Price Karen Wickre: Google in 2002 consisted of about 500–600 people. It was a scrappy place: people were jammed into fairly small areas in several rented suburban office-park buildings in Mountain View, which is about mid-point in Silicon Valley. There was nothing fancy about the decor; it was fairly messy in all the open areas where people worked. But even back then Google was recognized as having a superior search engine, so there was a sense of camaraderie and pride that came from knowing your work mattered. The team was committed to making all the world’s information useful. AC: When you started at Google, was everyone already techforward? KW: Yes, in the sense that there was (and remains) great optimism about technology ultimately improving work and life, broadly speaking. As far as work tools, everyone had to be comfortable with personal computers, of course, and the search experts who were mathematicians and computer scientists were certainly making use of whatever the latest tools were. From the start, Googlers felt as if they could make better tools than existed at the time. This is what led to developing Gmail in 2003 (it launched in 2004) and to acquiring Writely in 2006 (which became the basis of Google Docs).
AC: You built the Google blog platform. Tell me about your biggest hurdles back then, in terms of moving the company forward? KW: Google acquired the Blogger platform in 2003, so we had a good argument for the company making use of it. But I don’t think anyone imagined that it would become such an established source of company information and news. (I did, because I knew a blog was an easy and fast way to publish!) Initially we had to run everything by legal for approval, but it didn’t take too long to limit their review to topics that were about policy and government affairs only. There was a bit of a longer road to establishing the collective edit-and-review process so that everyone knew how and when to sign off, and what to critique or leave alone. But we got there, and it’s now very well established. AC: To many young people reading this, Google has always just been Google. Tell them what it takes to not only be an industry disrupter, but to become one of the most famous, most used brands of all time.
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KW: Part of Google’s success is due to timing – the rise of a good search engine paralleled the rise of websites that made search all that much more vital. So how great it was to be the absolute best at good search results! Beyond that, the indomitable spirits of co-founders Larry [Page] and Sergey [Brin], their sense of ethics and humility, of wanting constant improvement, being technically brilliant and quirky instead of conventional — these all helped Google continue to grow in value (defined every way). They didn’t have a playbook; they created one, and did so at a time and in a category where it could make a huge difference. I should add that for years, there was very little marketing at Google. Its reputation grew via quality products, smart PR and happy users. The best way to become famous, perhaps. AC: What are the top three lessons you learned during your years at Google? KW: 1. Collaboration is everything. Ask for feedback and don’t be afraid of it. Expect to work across disciplines, teams, and areas of expertise. 2. Nothing is permanent. Changes will occur as the ground shifts. But the “failures” are valuable to learn from, and are not viewed as reasons for “punishment.” 3. Be authentic on the job. Have a sense of humor, of compassion, and bring all your interests and passions.
“Twitter was always hard to explain to newcomers, and employees had a hard time articulating what it was. That fact affected a lot of strategy and product development over time.”
AC: Tell me about your move to Twitter in 2011, a year where a bunch of new features were added to the brand, including “followers,” if I am not mistaken. What were your challenges at the time? KW: Twitter had a very different history than Google, and I had to understand why its trajectory was different, even though the employees, org structure and values were similar. One challenge: there wasn’t an overarching mission (as “all the world’s information” had been). Twitter was always hard to explain to newcomers, and employees had a hard time articulating what it was. That fact affected a lot of strategy and product development over time. AC: In big companies, why do you think it can be so tough for them to move forward in terms of technology? Is it people? Fear? Something else? KW: I’ve worked inside or with tech companies for many years, so I haven’t experienced a lot of resistance to adopting new technologies. However, I have seen people resist a new application that takes time to learn and that’s different from what they’re used to (say, Salesforce or an employee feedback tool). The difference between acceptance and none acceptance has to do with buy-in from the upper levels that the new thing is better, plus generous time and effort put to training and troubleshooting a new tool. Those two things can be the difference between success or failure.
“Any company that is afraid of technology, or that is slow to adopt it, is simply out of step, and will lose employees, recruits, and mindshare as a result.”
AC: Tell me in no uncertain terms what will happen to companies that do not embrace technology today? Don’t hold back! KW: Personally I can’t imagine working for any company that is resistant to technology. Technologies literally ARE the work tools today. I would never want to work without Google Docs and its collaborative and review and comment features, for example. I would never want email without an excellent search function. I couldn’t imagine having work and resources only available via stand-alone applications and not in the cloud, or be streamable. Any company that is afraid of technology, or that is slow to adopt it, is simply out of step, and will lose employees, recruits, and mindshare as a result.
JeanTessier. Google 2005 AC: If you were starting a company today, what would your philosophy be towards adapting to new technology? Would you put someone in charge? Make sure it was in your budget? Continually look for new tech? KW: Yes to all of these. You want a CTO and/or CIO who not only oversees these functions but has people on their teams who are always
on the lookout for newer, better, smarter tools and processes. (At Google, this was often done by deploying a team to build a new thing rather than adopt a standard tool.) You have to have smart and resourceful technical and engineering talent who aren’t dazzled by a bunch of a features and understand what will really work best for a given company and culture based on its people and task needs. And future plans!
Twitter office 2008. Andrew Mager AC: What feature or app or tech is indispensable today that you could not have predicted back then? KW: I admit to a bias here, but (a) I would never have predicted the incredible real-time value of Twitter, and how indispensable it is to news gathering and reporting, and (b) the massive value Google search continues to have after nearly 20 years — which I fully expect to continue. Beyond that, the fact that mobile phone development essentially leapfrogged PCs in the developing world seems obvious now,
but wasn’t less than 10 years ago. And the rise of live video (especially on phones) is not something I imagined capturing this much attention. AC: What are a few things you are pretty sure will be indispensible next year or in 10 years? I am secretly hoping you’ll say AI… KW: Of course, AI applications as well as robotics — both are growing areas of influence and promise. I also think all kinds of crowdsourcing, whether for product development, fact-checking and reportage, funding, charitable giving and even protesting, is an important new tool in our collective arsenal. AC: I learned a lot from this interview, Karen. I appreciate your time and the work that you’ve done and continue to do. And, of course, a resounding YES to AI and robotics becoming indispensible! Karen Wickre created KVOX Media in 2016 to help business clients with their communications strategy. A long-time news obsessive and media consumer, she is a co-founder of Newsgeist, an annual unconference supporting new approaches to news and information. Karen is also a board member for the International Center for Journalists and the News Literacy Project.
Tagged in Tech, Startup By Ava Chisling on May 8, 2017. Canonical link Exported from Medium on August 18, 2017.