What Would Google Do_ - Jeff Jarvis [54]
Let’s repeat that and dub it Haque’s Law: As interaction explodes, the costs of evil are starting to outweigh the benefits. That, I think, is what Google is talking about when it promises not to be evil. It is not a campaign pledge or a geeky Bible lesson about good and bad. It is a calculated business rule: When people can openly talk with, about, and around you, screwing them is no longer a valid business strategy.
New Speed
Answers are instantaneous
Life is live
Mobs form in a flash
Answers are instantaneous
Google has spoiled us rotten. Think back to the time before Google—it was only a decade ago—and remember the mines you had to dig to find any bit of information. Good God, we actually went to libraries. We waited for answers and went without them. Now I ask Google a question, any question, and it brags that it has given me the answer in fractions of a second. I wanted to tell you just how fast that is compared to, say, the blink of an eye. So what did I do? Of course, I asked Google how fast an eye blinks and in .3 seconds it told me that a blink takes .3 seconds.
One of Google’s own principles—the “10 things Google has found to be true”—is: “Fast is better than slow.” A pillar of its design principles—from Google’s list of what makes a design Googley—is: “Every millisecond counts…. Speed is a boon to users. It is also a competitive advantage that Google doesn’t sacrifice without good reason.” Speed is a tenet of the Google religion.
Google has made us an impatient people, more than we know. If we can get any of the world’s knowledge in a blink, why should we wait on hold or in line or until your office opens? Why should anyone give us incomplete information when completeness is a search away? We want what we want, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t have it—now.
Every industry is affected by this new speed. Fashion—as practiced in international chains such as Zara and H&M—reacts to new styles overnight. A trend comes off the runway and it’s imitated—flattered, that is—in a flash. Information on what is and isn’t selling is fed back constantly so stores can adjust their stock and even the companies’ manufacturing and design. Speed becomes not only a competitive advantage but also a strategic necessity. The more quickly businesses can adjust to customers’ actions and desires—the more quickly they can learn from them and try to stay ahead of them—the better business will be.
A lack of speed is a strategic disadvantage. Many industries are saddled with slowness because they are trapped by atoms and complexity. Automobiles are fashion products but because their machinery and supply chains are so complex, they cannot exploit new trends (and gas prices) until the trends are already out of date. (Is there an alternative? I’ll brainstorm about that in the chapter, “The Googlemobile.”)
The book publishing industry is shamefully slow. I negotiated the contract for this book about a year before you got it in your hands (and by the way, I’ve been meaning to thank you for picking it up). That’s damned speedy for a book. As other forms of knowledge, entertainment, and content creation speed up, so must books. (I’ll explore that, too, in the chapter, “GoogleCollins.”)
Education prides itself on not being speedy. As an academic, I appreciate the virtues of deliberation, of ideas being reviewed and challenged, of knowledge fermenting over time. But those of us who teach students in rapidly changing arenas (I teach digital journalism) must get better at keeping up with—no, at getting ahead of—our students, industry, and society.
Perhaps only religion can claim exemption from the imperative for speed. If any institution relies more on permanence than hastiness, God’s does.
Google, like God, values permanence. In its search results, Google gives more credence to sites that have been online long enough to build a reputation