Saturday, January 19, 2008

Google.org

Interesting piece here from The Economist about Dr Larry Brilliant, head of Google.org. Google.org is the philanthropic division of Google. According to the article, when it was conceived in 2004 Google hoped that this division would one day “eclipse Google itself in overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world's problems”.

What's interesting about this article is its description of how Google.org has developed its strategy. It's taken Larry Brilliant two years to work out what Google.org is going to do. They started with 1,000 ideas, narrowed them down to 11 (dealing with the "biggest, most imminent, least well resourced problems”). Each of the 11 got one member of the team to act as its advocate. These have now been reduced to the 5 final initiatives. These 5 were chosen in part by thinking about how much impact Google itself could have on them.

Interestingly, the final 5 initiatives span 3 areas: fighting global climate change; economic development; and early warning for global pandemics.

I'd love to know more about the process they used to cull their ideas from 1,000 to 5.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Excellence

I've just listened to a great episode of ABC Radio's Background Briefing programme. The episode was devoted to a speech by Atul Gawande, given at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. You can read a transcript of the edited speech here.

Gawande has a distinquished bio. He is both a surgeon and a writer, and as a speaker he is compelling. His topic for this speech was effectively about excellence. In particular, in his field of medicine.

On the surface, Gawande is claiming that excellence in his field comes from attention to detail. Of course, he's right. Medicine is, after all, a science, dealing with the realm of things that "cannot be other than they are". And so, if you are conscientious and look after the detail, you will get results. Gawande cites a number of examples of doctors and hospitals who are truly excellent: at the right end of the "Bell Curve". Getting results significantly better than the average. (With in vitro fertilisation, for example, the chance of a couple getting pregnant can vary from 5% to 75%, depending on what institution they choose).

However, it's interesting as to how the doctors and hospitals that Gawande cites do this. Yes they show attention to detail. Yes they are conscientious. And yes they study their results, and the results of their peers, and learn from their mistakes. They are constantly looking for ways to improve.

But I suspect, it's the social systems that support and generate this conscientiousness, that are really interesting. In a sense, it's the way the people in these organisations interact with each other, and with the cold hard physical facts of a person needing care, that makes all the difference. Gawande touches on this, but I would like to find out more. If nothing else, he's convinced me to read his books ("Better" and "Complications").