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The Malta Independent | Thursday 19 November 2015
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The Malta Independent | Thursday 19 November 2015
Technology
Google searches itself to build more productive teams ■
Martha Mendoza and Michael Liedtke
Google coddles its employees with free food, massages and other lavish perks, yet some of its best engineers still grouse about their jobs and bosses as they struggle to get assignments done. The Internet company tackled the puzzling problem with a study that concluded how teams work together is more important than who is on a team. That’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s an example of how companies are spending more time trying to understand how to build the most productive and cohesive teams. It’s a high priority because the best products and ideas increasingly are springing from people working together. “It’s becoming difficult to think of companies that aren’t depending on teams,” says Amy Randel, a professor of management at San Diego State University. “And usually nothing is more important than having a goal that inspires and organizes people’s efforts.” Google’s study, based on data analysis, found that teams work best when their members feel like they can take risks, can count on each other, have clear goals and believe their work matters. Some of those findings were reinforced by a recent study published in the Academy of Management Journal by Jasmine Hu, an assistant professor of management at Notre Dame University and Robert Liden, a management professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. That analysis of 67 different
teams working at six different companies found employees excel when they feel their work will help the colleagues, customers and community. “The social aspect of teams is very important because many times people are just not motivated to work for money alone,” Hu says. “They want to have the opportunity to achieve a positive impact on the lives of others.” All of Google’s 60,000 employees work on at least one team, and some are on two or more.
Google itself was born from one of technology’s most famous partnerships between former Stanford University graduate students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. They followed in the footsteps of other legendary duos such as Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen and Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Today, Google’s teams range in size from three to 70 people and are usually project oriented. For two years the company has stud-
ied more than 200 teams, identifying what motivates the most effective groups while looking for the ideal mix of traits and skills. Although most industries are embracing teamwork, Silicon Valley is at the forefront of the trend. Technology firms are typically more collaborative, in part because people writing different parts of software code or building machines need to do one part of a larger project. Google’s first workplace study, which it released in 2014,
showed effective managers are good coaches who empower rather than micromanage. That research, called Project Oxygen, is now taught in MBA programs and has been adopted by companies hoping to emulate the innovative culture of Silicon Valley. The research released Tuesday has already reshaped Google’s workforce through training, reviews and new standards. The transformation is helping to enrich Google, already one of the world’s most profitable companies. The revenue produced by sales teams, who market advertising, apps and partnerships, varied by nearly 50 percent based on their own reported feelings of psychological safety, according to Abeer Dubey, a Google director. “So is this a Google truth or a universal truth?” asked Dubey. “We personally feel this is fungible.” In a region where innovation is driving a booming economy, retaining and motivating the workforce is critical to business, and because engineers almost always work in teams, understanding how to boost their performance is crucial. “Team work matters, and if you want to have the best team of employees possible, you will manage them intelligently,” said Lindy Greer, who teaches at Stanford University’s business school. “If you just put people together they’re going to crash and burn unless they have conflict resolution training, a manager who can coordinate roles and opportunities to learn with one another.”
Police stop Google self-driving car for going too slowly A car built by Google that drives itself around city streets had a brush with the law for driving too slowly. A police officer in the tech giant’s Silicon Valley hometown pulled over the prototype car Thursday because it was going a traffic-tying 24 mph in a 35 mph zone. The officer spoke with the person in the driver’s seat but issued no citation, according to the Mountain View Police Department. Though the car was driving itself, state law requires a person to be able to intervene when the technology is tested on public roads. The officer wanted to “learn more about how the car was choosing speeds along certain roadways and to educate the operators about impeding traffic,” according to a department blog post. The bubble-shaped prototype has two seats. Its top speed is 25 mph. “Driving too slowly? Bet humans don’t get pulled over for
that too often,” Google’s self-driving car project wrote in a blog post. It said the cars — outfitted with high-tech sensors and computing power — have never received a ticket. Other self-driving cars that Google has been testing on California roads and highways were involved in 17 minor collisions since May 2010, according to the company. Google has said all the collisions were minor, were not caused by its cars, and happened over 2.2 million miles of testing, including nearly 1.3 million miles in self-driving mode. Representatives of Google’s self-driving car project have said that in recent months they’ve been trying to program the vehicles to drive less like robots and more like people — in part to reduce the number of times they are hit by other drivers expecting certain driving behavior. Mountain View police say they regularly meet with the tech giant to make sure the vehicles are operating safely.
The Malta Independent ICT Feature startApp 2.0 – Open Call using earth observation & geo-spatial data
MITA Innovation Hub Islands can prove to be real labs for ICT-driven innovation. They are small and flexible. This means they can test ideas fast and implement only the best of them. Islands are confronted with specific needs, whether due to their remoteness, their vulnerability to climate change, or the scarcity of their resources. Such challenges call for creative solutions, Big data, connectivity and location technologies, including those based on satellites are some of the building blocks of such a digital economy. This and more was discussed in a conference organised by the Malta Council for Science and Technology on how island economies can leverage Europe’s investments in satellite services to boost their economy and live up to current environmental and socio-economic challenges. During this conference MITA Innovation Hub with the collaboration of MCST launched an App challenge which will award two €15,000 Grants for two proofs-ofconcept outlining two innovative
applications that have the potential to fulfil a market need in Malta or elsewhere, as identified by the competitors’ own market research. The proofs-of-concept should assume the use of at least one satellite-derived dataset in combination with data from other sources and satnav and/or LBS. Start-ups of minimum 3 and up to 9 people, in business for less than 5 years, are eligible to participate. The Startups eventually selected to receive the grant will experience transformation of their idea into a tangible prototype for testing in a real life scenario. While doing so they will enjoy the benefits of ongoing interaction with a reputable organisation appointed by the European Space Agency to assist in the
transformation and interpretation of the data. Depending on the technologies chosen to support the proof-of-concept, the MIH will also liaise with any multinational partner interested in providing technical mentorship or resources of relevance to the project. Those who are interested to participate to this call are encouraged to attend to an Information and Networking session which is going to be held on the 26th of November at Smartcity Malta. Registration for this session is now open and can be accessed from the MITA facebook page or from the MITA Innovation Hub website mitainnovationhub/startapp or from www.malta-appchallenge.com
MITA Communications and PR Team MITA Innovation Hub with the collaboration of MCST launched an App challenge which will award two €15,000 Grants for
two proofsof-concept outlining two innovative applications that have the potential to fulfil a market need in Malta or elsewhere. All ICT Features are available on www.mita.gov.mt/ictfeature