
The Google Way: Give Engineers Room - bootload
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/jobs/21pre.html?_r=1&ex=1350619200&en=7aba0c5610fd1563&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin
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phony_identity
20% time is really great. But my God, look at what some of the programmers are
doing with it:

"Consider the collection of engineers who wanted to promote 'agile
programming' inside the company. "

How could your soul be so dead that you _want_ to spend your precious 20%
hacking time to evangelize a Methodology? Can you imagine such a person?

And our author is one of them: "In my 20 percent time, I started the Testing
grouplet." Yep, he means software testing.

I guess it's good news for us startup founders that Google has an infestation
of Agilists, burrowing into the company with their sharp little teeth. Still
makes me sad, though.

~~~
bootload
_"... How could your soul be so dead that you want to spend your precious 20%
hacking time to evangelize a Methodology? Can you imagine such a person? ..."_

Also laughed at this one. But not for the reason you might think. The
engineering guys are google are smart right? I think the reason why some take
up the _"evangelism hat"_ is out of sheer necessity. Google has what 15,000
employees. I'm not sure of the numbers for those at the sharp end. With this
number of smart people working on their own projects. Fierce competition for
recognition would be required to get your project above the noise of others
all competing for a place in the google platform, process and dollars.

Therefore it's not unreasonable to expect someone figured out it might be a
good idea to market or spruik. Anything to let those above, beside or below
consider that my process, product or idea is better than the next. In startups
this process is essential and is turned into a real art form by the likes of
Winer, Spolsky and Graham who write, blog and speak where required ~
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=70863>

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karzeem
Twenty percent time is great, and obviously it has paid off nicely for Google.
But was anyone else taken aback that the Times would run this? It's a
bit...puff piece-ish. It's good, obviously, to report on good ideas that
companies have pioneered. It's just a little irresponsible to let an employee
of one of those companies write the report. It reads a lot like a press
release.

~~~
bootload
_"... By BHARAT MEDIRATTA; as told to JULIE BICK .... Bharat Mediratta is a
software engineer at Google. ..."_

If you read carefully the NY TImes writer was Julie Bick who most likely from
the byline at the top of the article. The story teller does work at google.
But it it probably the best plain language description of the 20% rule I've
read.

_"... It's a bit...puff piece-ish. ..."_

Could be viewed this way but it's a first-hand story from a google engineer.

~~~
karzeem
The byline is inconclusive, and Mediratta doesn't use the first-person until
about a third of the way through the article--the first time it's clear that
we're hearing from an insider.

Anyone who reads the whole article will realize by the end that the author
works at Google. The thing that annoyed me was that this article differs in no
way whatsoever from what you'd hear in a Google recruitment video. When a
publication wants to tell its readers about something--even if that thing is
good--there is an obligation to explore the issue. Literally letting your
subject write the story is an abdication of that responsibility.

~~~
bootload
_"... The thing that annoyed me was that this article differs in no way
whatsoever from what you'd hear in a Google recruitment video ..."_

True, that made me laugh.

_"... When a publication wants to tell its readers about something--even if
that thing is good--there is an obligation to explore the issue. Literally
letting your subject write the story is an abdication of that responsibility
..."_

Good point.

Maybe you are right. Maybe it is a submarine (
<http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html> ) because I found the same post over on
the Monster job section of the NY Times ~
<http://jobmarket.nytimes.com/pages/jobs/> captured here ~
<http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/1685017453/>

~~~
karzeem
Hmm, good eye. I wonder if they'll respond to the question you sent them.

~~~
bootload
_"... I wonder if they'll respond to the question you sent them. ..."_

They have. A copy of the email text can be found here ~
<http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/1685662827/> Here's the response:

    
    
      Thank you for contacting NYTimes.com.
      This article was published in the NYTimes.com Job Market section.
      Article is by Bharat Mediratta; as told to Julie Bick.
     
      The Job Market section is essentially equivalent to a 
      help wanted section of a paper.
     
      Regards,
      Eric Winston  
      NYTimes .com
      Customer Service
      www.nytimes.com/help
    

A sub I guess. Thanks karzeem for being so critical. I'll be restricting the
urls next time to tech or the main page of NYT. So another way to check for
Submarines is to check both the location of the article in the paper (ie: is
it in Tech, news or Jobs) and if the format, layout and bylines smell
_"funny"_.

~~~
karzeem
I think it was a good submission, so you did the right thing by posting it
here. It sparked some good discussion.

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dzorz
In most of the cases I've heard of it's more like 20% out of 120%. Some
managers like it to be very formal, so you have to dedicate a whole day in the
week to your 20% work, which is (almost) impossible to do if you are working
on a product that has to meet a deadline.

~~~
amichail
It's hard to work on more than one thing at a time. However, from what I
understand, you can accumulate your 20% time so that you can work on your own
project for a month at a time say.

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mynameishere
_"Testing on the Toilet," and the idea stuck._

This I think stems from another cool googly initiative to have the highest-
quality toilets in the industry. Basically, the seats are so generous and
comfortable that googlers sometimes stay as late as 9 or 10PM so they can pass
waste at work rather than at home. Fits in nicely with the catered meals and
other homey accomodations.

Supposedly, they're going to start have cool group "bathroom times" so that
engineers can discuss cool new projects and initiatives during moments that
would otherwise be spent only on body functions.

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joeguilmette
The idea of using their 20% time like that is pretty cool. Do you guys know of
any other companies that use a similar approach, or is this unique to Google?

~~~
bootload
_"... Do you guys know of any other companies that use a similar approach, or
is this unique to Google? ..."_

I know Zuckerberg (un-official) take on this is to encourage employees to
_"hang-our"_ together to foster better communication. _"Educators Corner, From
Harvard to the Facebook with Jim Breyer (Accel Partners), mp3 1Hr, 26Mb"_
[http://edcorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=156...](http://edcorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=1567)

Not exactly as left field as google. Maybe they cannot afford it or the
culture is different?

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zandorg
Sounds simple. But they need a Fixit for Google Groups right now.

