Searching for HR innovation and community

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Judy Gilbert, Director, People Programs and Systems</span><br /><br />You might say that innovation is in Google's DNA, and we on the People Operations team strive to keep up with the high standards set by our technical colleagues -- we're always looking for new ideas. So last week, we rounded up<span> some of the most creative and successful people in human resources (HR) for an evening of brainstorming.<br /><br />Our panelists were leaders from Adobe, Cisco, Genentech, Intuit, Network Appliance, and Yahoo! -- the Bay Area companies featured in Fortune Magazine's <a href="http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2007/full_list/">list of the 100 Best Companies To Work For</a>. In the audience were <span>hundreds of HR professionals representing more than 100 companies. The group touched on everything from performance management to diversity to corporate culture.<br /><br />Before the last appetizer was consumed, people were asking, "When can we all get together again?" We're starting to plan the next event, but to expand the conversation, we've started a Google Group for HR professionals for those who want to seek kindred spirits to explore new topics. If you're interested, you can sign up for the <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/hr-networkBayArea">SF Bay Area group</a> or the <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/hr-networkUS">US group</a>.</span></span>

Searching for HR innovation and community

Posted by Judy Gilbert, Director, People Programs and Systems You might say that innovation is in Google's DNA, and we on the People Ope...

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To watch a guide-dog fly

<span class="byline-author">Posted by T.V. Raman, Research Scientist</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">From time to time, our own <a href="http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/raman/">T.V. Raman</a> shares his tips on how to use Google from his perspective as a technologist who cannot see—tips that sighted people, among others, may also find useful. - Ed.</span><br /><br />You might well wonder what interest I might have in image search given that I cannot see. You might be even more surprised to learn that I own a digital camera. :-) I acquired one a few years ago because the cost of taking photos with a digital camera is zero. It only took a couple of weeks before I could take relatively good pictures of my <a href="http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/raman/hubbell-labrador/Hubble-shaking-hands-with-Raman.jpg">handsome guide dog</a>. I post many of these pictures to my website -- obviously not for viewing by me, but all my friends.<br /><br />But how do you easily tell friends how to find that special picture? Here Google Image search comes to the rescue. Whenever I'm surrounded by Hubbell's fan club, I want to tell people how they can view specific pictures of her on the web. Universal Resource Locators (URLs) -- those long address strings that make the web work -- are nice, but they have one major disadvantage: they're unspeakable! Thanks to search, I've not had to speak a URL in a long, long time. Instead I usually tell friends to search for [Hubbell Labrador flying] to locate pictures of <a href="http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=hubbell+labrador+flying">her sitting on the pilot seat of an aircraft</a> that I posted many years ago to the web.<br /><br />One can think of such focused search queries as "conversational bookmarks" -- the spoken equivalent of bookmarks one saves within a traditional web browser. Notice that such conversational bookmarks are not specific to image search. I often tell people that they can find me on the web by searching Google for [raman labrador] and clicking the <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=raman+labrador&num=25&btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky">I'm Feeling Lucky</a> button.

To watch a guide-dog fly

Posted by T.V. Raman, Research Scientist From time to time, our own T.V. Raman shares his tips on how to use Google from his perspective as...

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More than meets the eye

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Ardan Arac, Associate Product Manager, Search Quality</span><br /><br />We're very excited to unveil Plus Box, a new search feature that lets you see more information about individual search results. Whenever you see the plus box icon - <img alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5044082300556169442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk7DbE3wBi_GG-iXsSikaeEixzFPvtYEu842U7H1Bqz-d6RbE45YZd7iMjiMUtDGb5NFDJ3vJ4mk6Hg-Fu9mKtfBoE2BHSip2KQmjPZxEzZrvqRgNCH-AnFV2Z0_NxdLVpEug0uRp9ruI/s200/plus_sm.gif" /> - click on it to see the additional rich data expand below the original search result. <span><span>With Plus Box, you'll get a visual snapshot of related information, so it is faster and easier to find exactly what you're looking for</span></span>.<br /><br />Right now, we're showing two types of Plus Box results: stock information and maps. You can find a plus box next to the home pages of companies listed on NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX. Clicking the plus box icon for any of these companies displays the latest stock price, chart, and company information. Searching for stock prices on Google becomes much easier—for example, look up <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=apple&btnG=Search">Apple</a> to find their stock information next to Apple's corporate home page. If you want to see a more detailed company profile, click on "More information" to go to <a href="http://finance.google.com/finance?q=AAPL">Google Finance</a>.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj03xK7nvOjXASXr-OivIGSkaaIuudIZ4n-e2aNtOVGq2sQHq_ICTu8x2ko1dfi5bbLdWqVWE4Imm7oozxTeuyVGHH8sVRycn068QqXUF3xM_RuQHkzcCdg5_Z6ypWEZMh5S6fDBRF7gXY/s1600-h/apple.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5044083417247666434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj03xK7nvOjXASXr-OivIGSkaaIuudIZ4n-e2aNtOVGq2sQHq_ICTu8x2ko1dfi5bbLdWqVWE4Imm7oozxTeuyVGHH8sVRycn068QqXUF3xM_RuQHkzcCdg5_Z6ypWEZMh5S6fDBRF7gXY/s400/apple.jpg" style="cursor: pointer;" /></a><br /><br />You'll also find Plus Box results when a business comes up in search results and we are able to map its address. The Plus Box link tells you the address of the business and clicking the icon or the link shows you the address on a map. To see this at work, search for <a href="http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&q=babbo&btnG=Google+Search">Babbo</a>.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKKTPfpBrdNZsYSa698SV-TtaO1rArU3lXCXej1D6pYilQbzJSXZKrPuiEySyKf_EvugT8iEwXPUL_6O6u7c5Vwjg29aiUOnGviM-BVKckxA9bezdclMgQMyJ305_oIHH-k_nopZyITaQ/s1600-h/babbo+copy.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5044083640585965842" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKKTPfpBrdNZsYSa698SV-TtaO1rArU3lXCXej1D6pYilQbzJSXZKrPuiEySyKf_EvugT8iEwXPUL_6O6u7c5Vwjg29aiUOnGviM-BVKckxA9bezdclMgQMyJ305_oIHH-k_nopZyITaQ/s400/babbo+copy.jpg" style="cursor: pointer;" /></a><br /><br />You won't see this feature yet for all businesses, but we're working hard to increase its availability. If you're a business owner and would like to see something like this associated with your website, <a href="http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=52171&ctx=sibling">here's how</a> to get your information to us.<br /><br />We'll be using Plus Box for other kinds of information in the future, so stay tuned and keep an eye out for the <img alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5044082300556169442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk7DbE3wBi_GG-iXsSikaeEixzFPvtYEu842U7H1Bqz-d6RbE45YZd7iMjiMUtDGb5NFDJ3vJ4mk6Hg-Fu9mKtfBoE2BHSip2KQmjPZxEzZrvqRgNCH-AnFV2Z0_NxdLVpEug0uRp9ruI/s200/plus_sm.gif" />.

More than meets the eye

Posted by Ardan Arac, Associate Product Manager, Search Quality We're very excited to unveil Plus Box, a new search feature that lets yo...

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Personality goes a long way

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Jessica Ewing, Product Manager</span><br /><br />Whenever I get a new cell phone, the first thing I do is change the background theme. It seems like such a small thing, but for whatever reason adding a beach or a dancing pig or something else makes me feel like it's my own.<br /><br />We wanted to offer you a way to add some personality to your Google homepage, too, but we had to ask ourselves some tough questions. How do we add personality without taking away from the information? How do we make sure people don't get sick of looking at the same theme every day?<br /><br />Today we're releasing six themes for the <a href="http://www.google.com/ig">personalized homepage</a> <personalized> that try to solve these challenges: a city, a teahouse (super cute -- this one is my favorite), a winter scene, a sky, a beach and a bus stop. All of our themes are dynamic: they change with your own local time of day, current weather conditions or season. If you add the beach theme, for example (changes with time of day), it will ask you for your Zip code and adjust itself to match your local sunrise and sunset times. So if you happen to be stuck in a <windowless><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Space">windowless office</a>, you can at least crack open a cold one and watch the sun set over your desktop.<br /><br />You can add a theme by first setting up a personalized homepage. One your homepage is set up, click the "Select Theme" link on the right-hand side of the page. From there you can choose between the classic theme and the six new themes we've designed. We hope this feature makes the Google homepage feel a little more like, well, home.<br /><br />We implemented our themes using a CSS framework so we can scale, and plan to push out many new themes beyond these six. So <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Web_Search_Help-Personalizing/topics">tell us</a><tell> what themes you want to see.</tell></windowless></personalized>

Personality goes a long way

Posted by Jessica Ewing, Product Manager Whenever I get a new cell phone, the first thing I do is change the background theme. It seems like...

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Google Apps now south of the Sahara

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Francoise Brougher, Business Operations Team</span><br /><br />Tens of thousands of university students in Rwanda and Kenya are now on their way to using <a href="http://www.google.com/a/edu/">Google Apps</a>. As a result of two separate partnerships that <a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/apps_rwanda.html">we've signed today</a> with the Rwandan Ministry of Infrastructure and the Kenya Education Network, nearly 20,000 students from the <a href="http://www.nur.ac.rw/" title="http://www.nur.ac.rw/">National University of Rwanda</a>, the <a href="http://www.kie.ac.rw/" title="http://www.kie.ac.rw/">Kigali Institute for Education</a> and the <a href="http://www.kist.ac.rw/index_2.html" title="http://www.kist.ac.rw/index_2.html">Kigali Institute for Science and Technology</a>, plus 50,000 more from Kenya's <a href="http://www.uonbi.ac.ke/" title="http://www.uonbi.ac.ke/">University of Nairobi</a>, are joining their colleagues at <a href="http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2007/02/google.html">Northwestern</a>, <a href="http://www.asu.edu/news/stories/200610/20061010_asugmail.htm">ASU</a> and <a href="http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/customers.html">around the world</a> with access to Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, and Google Docs & Spreadsheets under their university's domain for free.<br /><br />Offering Google Apps in Africa means more to us than connecting students and teachers to conduct that special exchange of ideas, innovation and creativity so unique to universities (<a href="http://www.google.com/corporate/history.html">we should know</a>). In Africa and in the developing world, it also means doing our part to make sure that everyone has access to the same services wherever they live, whatever their language, and regardless of income.<br /><br />We can't be more delighted about our Google Apps partnerships with Rwanda and Kenya, and there are more to come.

Google Apps now south of the Sahara

Posted by Francoise Brougher, Business Operations Team Tens of thousands of university students in Rwanda and Kenya are now on their way to...

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Let the passion continue! We're acquiring Adscape

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Bernie Stolar, Dean of Games</span><br /><br />Asteroids, Space Invaders, Centipede and Tetris—remember when you could only play these games at an arcade? I would line up behind at least 6 people for my chance at Asteroids.<br /><br />Time warp—now it's 2007. Games can be played anywhere and at anytime. In this mobile world, games have evolved to become a part of our lives. Unlike television, gamers can make games their own—customizing their experience in new ways—and we are helping them do that big time.<br /><br />But of course developing these sophisticated games can be very expensive. Back in the 80s the cost of producing a single game was about $100K. Today it can cost $25M to produce a game. The good news is there are some very passionate gamers out there that have come up with some interesting new ways to introduce non-intrusive and targeted advertising in order to make gaming accessible and affordable for all.<br /><br />Our charge at Adscape has always been to honor the game that was developed and find new ways to enable that game to continue so others can enjoy it. That's why we are so stoked <a href="http://www.google.com/press/annc/annc_adscape.html">to join Google</a>—because these guys get it, and are committed to helping us continue our mission.

Let the passion continue! We're acquiring Adscape

Posted by Bernie Stolar, Dean of Games Asteroids, Space Invaders, Centipede and Tetris—remember when you could only play these games at an a...

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A world in motion

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience</span><br /><br />Mark Twain said, "Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable." We're pretty sure Twain's definition of pliable is different from ours. Building flexibility into search, email, and other Google products is critically important as we seek to organize the world's information, and it's only natural that we should continue to look for ways to make the use of such statistics more "pliable" as well.<br /><br /><div style="direction: ltr;"><span>In this regard, we are excited to announce that we have acquired</span> Gapminder's Trendalyzer software, and we welcome the Trendalyzer team to Google. Trendalyzer generates moving graphics and other novel<span> effects in the display of facts, figures, and statistics in presentations.</span> In its nimble hands, Trendalyzer views development data—such as regional income distribution or trends in global health—as <a href="http://tools.google.com/gapminder/">literally a world of opportunity</a>. Like Google, Gapminder strives to make information more useful, and Trendalyzer will improve any function or application in which data might be better visualized.<br /></div><br />Gathering data and creating useful statistics is an arduous job that often goes unrecognized. We hope to provide the resources necessary to bring such work to its deserved wider audience by improving and expanding Trendalyzer and making it freely available to any and all users capable of thinking outside the X and Y axes.<br /><br />That's our definition of "pliable." Please stay tuned, and we'll tell you more as soon as we can.

A world in motion

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience Mark Twain said, "Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable...

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