This book summary and review of The Busy Adult’s Guide to Making College Happen was prepared by Brice Gray while a Business Administration student in the College of Business at Southeastern Louisiana University.
Executive Summary:
Many people that attend college for the first time usually do not realize the seriousness or the difficulty of attending college. Most of the first time students are one’s that have just graduated from high school and think that college is going to be almost, if not exactly, the same as it was for them in high school. Cramming at the last minute for a test, or never even having to study and still pull out A’s and B’s. Newcomer’s think the only difference between the transitions is the total freedom from your parents and the party lifestyle that comes with the freedom.
The new college students are in for such a rude awakening once they take their first exam. College is a completely different experience compared to high school. Yes you do have the freedom and fun parties, but with such freedoms comes tons of responsibilities along with it. It is totally up to you to be able to attend classes, do projects, and study for upcoming exams. There is no one that will be there to hold your hand every step of the way like you had in high school.
Fortunately, here are a few helpful pointers that will help you with the transition from childhood to adulthood. You must make productive use of all of your spare time. You need to figure out where your “hidden gold” is and make productive use of it in order to do well in college. The use of “time management” is one that will not only help you succeed in college, but help you in long past that and into your career.
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Find the major that is right for you! The only way that college is going to be any easier for you is if you study for a career that will keep you interested in, and you wanting more out of it. It is okay if you have not decided on a particular major right away, but one of the main focuses of attending college is finding yourself. You do not want to choose a major that someone else is wants you to do just because they found success in that field. Not everyone is the same person; everyone has a little difference in them.
Finally, getting help and support from those that are around you to assist you on your long journey through college. Your family is always going to be your biggest supporter of anything you do. This is why it is important for you to have them around for moral support to assist you along the way. And do not be afraid to ask any of your professors or advisers for any questions pertaining to your classes. That is what they are there for, to teach and give you a hand with anything you may need in order for you to succeed. You can also make use of the on-campus tutoring sessions that are provided to the students.
The Ten Things Managers Need to Know from The Busy Adult’s Guide is:
1) Make use of “time management” by using a daily planner to record your daily activities.
2) Finding your “hidden gold” and making use of that spare time.
3) Your family will always be there to be your biggest supporter.
4) There has to be a balance between work time and planning fun time for you and your family.
5) Make and maintain contacts that you have made throughout your lifetime. You never know when they will come in handy in the future.
6) Maintaining the motivation that has made you successful to remain successful in your not so distant future.
7) Able to overcome those naysayer’s.
8) Choosing the right applicant for the job opening at hand.
9) Staying on top of your entire job requirements.
10) Never just settle, always want more.
Full Summary of The Busy Adults Guide to Making College Happen.
Introduction:
When deciding on whether or not college is for you, there are several factors that must be weighed out before you decide on being one that goes. Going to college is very time consuming, but also very costly especially for an individual that has sat out of school after graduating from high school. Even more difficult for one that has sat out and has already began starting a family. Fortunately for those potential students, there are hundreds of colleges that have made it easy for those who have decided to go back to school to earn a college degree. The author, Geoffrey Schmidt, was a person that fell right into this category. Schmidt had already been out of school for eight years and was working different types of odd jobs ranging from construction to low paying sales jobs. Until one day, his girlfriend at the time had already received her undergraduate’s degree and was close to finishing up with her master’s degree. She came to Schmidt and laid it all out for him, she saw where the relationship was going for them and she needed him to choose a path that would be beneficial to both in order to continue their lives together. After thinking about what his girlfriend had said to him, he did some thinking and realized that what she brought to his attention was what needed to be done. He then began reading “success” books and stumbled across a simple success formula many people have lived by: Determine what you want, where you want to go, and what is needed to get you from here to there.
Schmidt had realized what he wanted, which was in fact a college degree. He changed jobs allowing him to not have to work late at night in order to be able to study and attend classes. He found the college that was right for which was Northeastern Illinois University, which had a good business program. He graduated magna cum laude-with high honors. Then went on to Grad School at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, which has a premier MBA program. How was he able to achieve all of this while starting a family and working a full time job? Let’s find out!
Finding the Time:
Time management becomes a key aspect in not only someone who is looking to go to college while working, but in life past that in order to be successful. The best solution for enabling one to manage their time better, a daily planner! When first starting off with a daily planner, you do not want to just write down the major events you have to do that day. For example, only writing down when you have work or classes. When you are just starting out with using a planner, you want to write down everything you do. When you are eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner, when you are watching television, when you are studying, etc… You want to list everything you have planned that day so you can later find what Schmidt refers to as “hidden gold”. You want to go back through your day and find those time periods that you do not have anything planned and turn that into having something planned. This step is one that I personally adopted about two years ago. I needed to become more organized with my studies being intertwined with me also working and partying. I would write down my library time, tailgating for LSU football games, Saints games, even nap times. It helped me find out the little down time that I had with everything going on and study in between for school.
Finding the Motivation:
“Success equals taking ongoing action steps toward your goal.” Summarization, get off your butt and start doing something. Motivation is key to starting your future. Instead of drifting through life by just getting by, set a goal and motivate yourself to work towards achieving that goal. However, there are other factors that do come into play for accomplishing your own goals. One of the bigger reasons that people have as an obstacle in achieving their goals is the ability of procrastination. When going through college, especially right after high school, most students have plenty of time for their studies and school work; they just do not use their extra time effectively. A lot of the time, people like to procrastinate and throw something together at the last minute just to get by. For most people, this philosophy will carry over into their professional career and some will fine and will not affect their future. For the most part, most of the people with this philosophy on life will end up keeping them from a very luxurious lifestyle and leave you with a mediocre future.
Begin With the Goal of Maximum Success:
You have now decided to go to college, but what exactly do you want out of your whole college experience. Do you just want to stop at getting your degree or do you want to go further than just a degree? Perhaps go on to Grad School to obtain a Master’s Degree. Or perhaps you do decide to go straight into the work force and start applying for job openings. You will land a good job for a recent college graduate and be making a good start off salary and you will be content with this job at first. What happens if you come to realize that your job is not as fulfilling as you thought it was when you first started? You go and start the process all over again but only this time you go for a much better job with higher pay and higher standards. Meaning better extracurricular activities, higher GPA, or a more impressive work experience. All of which do come into affect when going through the job hiring process. This is important because you do not want to get beat out by someone because of something that you could have prevented if only you had taken college more seriously. Which is the case with anything you do in life because there will always be someone there that will be able to complete your job just as well, if not better, to replace you.
Paying for College is Easier than You Think:
One of the biggest factors that lead to people to choose to not attend college is that they feel that they cannot afford to go to college. It may appear this way since the costs of attending college have risen in the past fifteen years to double the average costs of goods and services, however, being able to pay for college today is now easier than ever. How is this so? Surprisingly, it is our government which allows for us to do so! The U.S. government looks at loaning money to citizen in need of it to attend college as a future investment for the entire nation. The better educated you are, the likelihood of you getting a good job with good pay, which will then result into higher taxes.
The government and college’s are able to do so through four different forms of payment to go towards earning your college degree. Two of the four forms of financial aid come to as a free form towards college; these are called grants and scholarships. Grants are usually given to a student when their family’s average level of income is below normal standards. In such cases, when a student receives a grant, it is pretty much considered receiving free money. Another form of free payments towards college is not quite like a grant, scholarships are given by the university to pay for your tuition, but they come with a price. Usually scholarships are given to someone that is a good athletic prospect to play on that school’s team. You may also receive a scholarship is you excel in a particular subject or activity such as art or music. The two types of loans that are not considered free are a Federal loan such as a Stafford or Perkins loan, or work study programs. The Stafford and Perkins loan is probably the most common of loan to be issued. You receive a loan and you are responsible to pay the loan back once you have graduated or earned a respectable job. A work study program involves you working on campus for a wage or assistance towards tuition, which usually involves you working in your college of interest.
Education Programs:
Many of the colleges today have had to adjust their curriculum in order to accommodate for such un-traditional students. Meaning students that are working a full-time job while attending classes, students with families, or even students which do not live in the immediate area of the university campus. Colleges have move toward this accommodation by offering online classes and providing classes at off-campus building like the Livingston or St. Tammany campuses Southeastern provides. Both of these are great for the un-traditional student that has to accommodate for other obstacles that life has thrown in their path.
Choosing the Major that is Right for You:
“Your major defines you!” Once you have decided on the major that you think is right for you, you now have a direction into the path in which you want to take in life. Even if you have been accepted into a college but have not yet decided on a major, you still have plenty of time to decide. However, you want to decide on a major that is right for you, not just a major to get an easy degree with no general direction for your future. A good place to start when trying to decide on your major is to construct a list. This list will be composed of three sections listing your interests, hobbies, and different things you wanted to be when you were growing up. You now have a starting point for deciding a major. If for some reason that once you have decided on a major and realize that it is not the right one for you, not to worry because you can always change your major. That is part of the whole college experience which is to help find the true you.
Getting Support from your Family:
If you are one of those people that are going to school and are in the midst of starting a family, your family is going to be your biggest supporter to help you get through this life changing obstacle. They should be able to assist you in taking a little load off of your plate when it comes to little things around the house that someone else can easily do themselves. Anything that your family can do to give you more time for you and your studies will add up in a tremendous amount. But everything cannot always be about you and your studies. There has to be some kind of play time for you otherwise you will overload yourself and go nuts! This plays back to time management, you want to find all that spare time you have for your studies, but you want to also throw in some fun time as well.
Here Comes the Opposition:
In pursuit to obtaining your college degree, there are many obstacles that one will have to overcome in order to obtain that degree. Every so often, some of those obstacles may include some of your closest friends. I know this sounds ridiculous thinking that, “none of my friends would do that to me!” It will depend on whether those friends are or have gone through what you are about to embark upon. If your friends have or are going to go through what you will, than I am sure that they will be behind one-hundred percent. It is the friends that were not successful or opted to not pursue a college degree that will be the obstacle to jump over.
I can totally relate to this very situation. My close friends from high school, there was about fifteen that I hung out with on a daily basis. I and four others are the only ones that are still pursuing our degree. The rest either chose not to attend college, or they did try and have given up on obtaining their degree. Once I got to college, I was the only one of my friends from high school that chose to attend Southeastern so I made a new set of friends. I started to hang around another group composed of about ten people, and of that ten only three have graduated. I started to see myself fall off track and removed myself from that situation and moved on to another city. My friends of now, all are attending school with the same kind of mindset which is to better ourselves and provide a happy and fortunate life for each other in our not so distant futures.
If there are any obstacles that are in your path that are preventing you from obtaining your goal, the easy solution would be to give up and let it bring you down. What really defines a person’s character is how they are able to overcome those obstacles in life in order to obtain what your goal is in life.
What to do Your First Year:
For most first time college students, they walk into the door thinking that college is going to be the same as high school except for a lot more partying. You soon come to realize that college is absolutely nothing like high school. You have now entered the grown up world! No professor is going to hold your hand, make sure you do your work, or have your parents wake you up for class to make sure you get there on time. There are a few helpful tips that can come in handy for any first year student to achieve success. Utilizing your resources through the university is one of the better tips to help a new college student. This is big for when scheduling classes, needing tutoring for classes, and asking for extra help from professors. You can never go wrong for asking any kind of help when it comes to your future. Staying organized is another tip. This also plays in part with “time management”. You will not be able to go solely off of pure memory in order to succeed in college. Of course, study hard! Probably the most obvious of all the tips given, but without a doubt the most over looked and never practiced. I can almost guarantee you that it is a slim chance that any student has made it through college without ever having to study for any exam.
What to do Your Last Year:
Congratulations, you have made it to the end of the tunnel and oh what a journey it has been. But you do not want to slack off just yet; you still have one more full year before you walk across that stage. Continue to stay on your studies as if you were a sophomore; even try to get an early start on your senior project paper (if you are assigned one). You may even want to reward yourself by taking an interesting class that is outside of your curriculum. As long as you keep one thing in mind, your end result is to walk across that stage and receive that diploma with your name on it.
Getting a Job in Your Field:
Once you are getting close to that final day to walk across that stage and move on into the working world, your next step is to get a job. First, you need to get an interview in order to get any job of interest to you. Although the more interviews that you apply for will indeed increase your chances of getting a good job, you also need to have good interviewing skills in order to get one of those jobs offered. You can take classes either through your school or even off-campus classes to improve your interviewing skills. When searching for a job to apply for, you can search at many different places to obtain job openings. You can check around school in your college building on bulletins, you will check fliers for openings for part time college students or full time college graduates. You can even try e-recruiter services such as monster.com, this web-site will help you find a job to your appeal.
Once you do get an interview, you want to make sure that you make a lasting impression for the interviewer to remember what separates you from the many applicants interested in the same opening. You want to be informed of the company’s vision and mission and be able to ask any questions about the company and the company’s future. The more you know about the company, the better the impression you make and the likelihood of you getting another interview.
Many Levels Left to Climb:
Congrats, you have made it to the top of the mountain. But, do not just stop with this one life changing goal that you have set for yourself. Create a new goal, and keep climbing those mountains to reach the best of all of your expectations. That is what life is all about, overcoming obstacles and getting right back up and hurdle the next obstacle that is put in front of you. Do not just be satisfied with settling for something that you can gain more from. Continue to climb, continue to achieve, and when you do so, life will reward you for all of your hard work and determination.
Why I think:
The author is one of the most brilliant people around because it is not every day that someone is capable to graduate from one of the most prestigious Business School’s with a master’s degree. I more so admire the fact that this man was able to do so all while working a full time job and while raising a family. I use to work two part time jobs all while being a full-time student at Southeastern. I could not imagine how difficult it must be to attend school while working a forty plus hours a week and starting a family. The thought just sends chills up my spine. Plus this man received his undergraduate’s degree as magna cum laude with honors. Anyone that is able to accomplish such a tremendous feat has nothing but the utmost respect from me.
If I were the author of the book, I would have done these three things differently:
I would not have mentioned my wife as much throughout the book as Mr. Schmidt had done in his book. Now I know that she was his inspiration to go back to school, however, I just think that he stayed focused on the objectives at hand instead of mentioning her as much.
I also would have tried to appeal to not just the reader’s that are thinking of going back to school, but to the reader’s that are looking for a little more direction while are about to attend college. There were many different topics that were mentioned throughout this book that are great tools for anyone that is attending college, some of which I have used myself while attending Southeastern. It just seemed more focused towards the reader that has sat out of school for a few years and are interested in going back.
Finally, I think that Mr. Schmidt should have touched on a little bit more about what to do after you have obtained your college degree. The book mostly focused on what to do before going to college, it does not cover too much about what to do after you have finished college.
Reading this book made me think differently about the topic in these ways:
The Busy Adults Guide made me realize that I wish I could turn back time and start over with college. If I had read this book before my first day of orientation, I probably would not have ended up in the situation of being on academic probation for three years. I would like to think that I would be sitting quite nicely instead of having to stress over whether or not I would be graduating in December or not!
This book has made me realize to continue on the path of making and maintaining those friends that have been such a positive influence in my life the past few years. Because it is true, positive friends around you set up for positive things to come.
Last but not least, it has brought to my attention that I should look into classes for preparing for a job interview. Southeastern has had some classes that have touched on the subject, but the more prepared you are for a job interview the better the chance you have to land the job you are interviewing for.
I’ll apply what I’ve learned in this book in my career by:
I will always remember to make good use of my spare time directed towards my job and career. Instead of using all of my spare time to just relax and watch television, I will try and make use of this time to work towards my job work at home to stay on top, if not ahead, of the game.
I will continue to hang on to my friends and contacts that I have made while attending college just in case if there is ever a time that I will need in my future. It is true, it’s not always what you know, but sometimes it is who you know.
Finally, I will continue to use a daily planner to stay organized and stay aware of important dates that will be coming up in the future. If you miss one of those important dates, it is not going to be like college where all you get is a zero on a grade, instead it may cost you a job in the end.
Here is a sampling of what others have said about the book and the author:
There were two people that had reviews on amazon.com that said that said that this was a truly inspirational book. The book gave them a lot of insight to making going back to college and helping them finding the time to juggle both the responsibilities of school and home life. The fact that he uses his own life as an example to show how easy it was to go back to school and earning his undergraduates and masters degree is truly inspirational.
Bibliography:
McLaughlin, Margaret. (March 10, 2009) The Busy Adult’s Guide to Making College Happen. Retrieved March 25, 2010, from Amazon’s Review website:
http://www.amazon.com/Adults-Guide-Making-College-Happen/product-reviews/0979869900/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
Schmidt, Geoffrey (2008). The Busy Adult’s Guide to Making College Happen. Chappaqua, NY: Break Free Publishing LLC.
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To contact the author of this “Summary and Review of The Busy Adult’s Guide,” please email W0291061@selu.edu.
David C. Wyld (dwyld@selu.edu) is the Robert Maurin Professor of Management at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. He is a management consultant, researcher/writer, and executive educator. His blog, Wyld About Business, can be viewed at http://wyld-business.blogspot.com/.
Originally published
Summary and Review of The Busy Adult’s Guide to Making College Happen by Geoffrey Schmidt
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Sunday, March 28, 2010
Summary and Review of Googled: The End of the World As We Know It by Ken Auletta
This book summary and review of Googled: The End of the World As We Know It was prepared by Randy Bouquet, while a Business Management student in the college of Business at Southeastern Louisiana University.
Executive Summary
The book, Googled: The End of the World As We Know It, by Ken Auletta lets the readers into the rise and struggles of the search engine giant, Google. It lets readers into the minds of hundreds of Google’s engineers as well as the 3 co-founders themselves who take their audience on a journey from how the business started in a garage to the giant it is today.
Googled explains the astronomical numbers it produces from how it receives “over 70 percent of all searches in the world to the revenue it receives in one year of over 20 billion dollars. Google takes in over 40 percent of all dollars spent on advertising on the Internet” (Auletta,2009) through different marketing forms such as pay per click. These are only a few of the enormous numbers the author shares with readers that proves how big Google really is.
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Auletta shares the stories of the interviews from co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin as well as the CEO Eric Schmidt. It explains how they share similarities as well as many differences when it comes to managing their company. Differences come from the way they run the company from the media to the way they interact with their employees. The founders explain that engineers work for the company instead of businessmen. Their beliefs are that engineers are the one who run the company and when engineers run a company engineering is the way things are solved. “Mathematical algorithms always provide correct answers” (Auletta,2009) is the engineer’s ways of explaining the genius behind how the company is set up and ran.
The thing that makes this book such an informative and learning experience is the hundreds of interviews that are shared with the readers throughout the book. Not only did Ken sit down with the people who started the company, but he includes stories from the people who are the masterminds behind the daily operations. These stories range from closed door interviews to cocktail parties attended to by the entire company. Google has been hidden behind closed doors for years before Auletta opened them with the stories from the many people who make up Google.
This book is a learning experience for any manager or leader looking to enter into the business world. It teaches how the engineers manipulate their way through the media always being a step ahead of their entire market. Google puts millions of dollars into advertising throughout the World Wide Web to defer traffic through their site. Auletta lets us into the story of how Google entered the markets through the different forms of media such as; newspapers, television, telephones, Microsoft, and more. He also talks about how the company went from a small search engine to when they entered the stock market in 2004 to partnering with huge corporations on their way to becoming a multi-billion dollar company.
There are so many different ways business start from small to big, slow to fast, or many other ways but all of them experience difficulties along the way. Googled explains how even though the company had grown so large at such a rapid pace; there are still many downfalls and setbacks that occur throughout their business life. At the end of the book Auletta concludes with his input on where he think the company is going and where it will be in years to come.
The Ten Things Managers Need To Know From Googled:
1. The main slogan that explains what Google stands for is, “don’t be evil”. What this is basically saying is don’t be afraid to start a business because there’s a bigger more successful one that’s already established. Google’s motto is an inspiration to the company’s such as Apple who stands up to the more powerful Microsoft.
2. Improvements can always be made. Even though Google’s a billion dollar company their engineers are constantly coming up with new, more innovative ways to sell their advertising and make the world we live in easier for everyone. No matter how big or small or how well a business is run, improvements should always be an ongoing process.
3. It is very important to employ dedicated hard working employees. A company is only as good as the people who work for them. Google employs smart engineers who care about the company and want to make advances in what they do to better their company.
4. The sky’s the limit. Always believe that your business can grow and cultivate into bigger and better things. Even though Google takes a lot of heat for continuing to expand its company, it doesn’t hold them back from doing everything they can to reach another plateau.
5. The epicenter of a business starts with advertising. Getting the business’ name into the public is important in the success of the company. When Google started it immediately dove into several media markets such as; newspapers, books, television, and many more.
6. Don’t be afraid to be innovative and step outside the box. Companies who take risk and aren’t afraid to test the waters with new ideas will be the companies who leap over the ones who settle for meritocracy.
7. Sometimes owners and CEO’s need to take a back seat and listen to the suggestions coming from the people who do the job every day. Google’s upper management has faith in their workers to allow them to freely create and execute different systems that will improve the efficiency of the company.
8. Plan for long term growth. When Google became public in the stock exchange in 2004, it decided to not pay out dividends and let everyone know who owned stock that their company is in this for long term growth. This meant if they needed money to invest in something they would have it, yet if the consumer stays in it for the long run money will be made.
9. Make the workplace and place where someone wants to work. Google is the number one rated company to work for by Forbes magazine due to the amenities they offer their employees. An employee who enjoys his job will stay longer than one who doesn’t.
10. Different personalities in management styles are good for the company. If a company can diversify who its manager lead their employee, the company will be more successful than one set in stone managerial style.
Introduction
The opening sentence of the book, “This country has been Googled” (Auletta, 2009) sums up how Google has changed the media world. In the book, Auletta enters into the minds of top managers, executives, engineers as well as other successful people in the industry to explain how Google has become the media giant it is today.
Starting in a Garage
Google’s slogan is “Don’t be evil”. What this basically means is don’t be afraid to stand up to a larger company just because they have been successful and have earned credibility. This slogan gave Brin and Page the courage to start a company out of their garage and attack the bigger companies such as Apple and Microsoft. Auletta talks about an interview he had with the CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates, in 1998. At this time Microsoft was in its prime, with over ninety percent of all computer sales and the government threatening to sue for monopolization. When Ken sat down with Bill he asked the question, “What challenge do you fear most” (Auletta,2009)? Auletta thinking he is going to start blurting out large corporations such as Netscape or Apple, but he was wrong. After much thought Gates said, “I fear someone in a garage who is devising something completely new” (Auletta,2009). Later that year Bill Gates biggest nightmare came true in the form of Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
Google started 11 years ago in the garage of Sergey Brin and Larry Page. The book describes the two as very brilliant yet different personalities. Brin is more of the flashy type with the book describing him as a “rebellious child” (Auletta,2009). Then there is Larry Page who is geared more toward the laid back, conservative style. These two men met at orientation at Stanford University where they found out they had many similarities and likings. The two used the universities computer to start the business until one day they got some many hits that it crashed Stanford’s entire network. The president of the university and several other professors noticed this goal mind these two students had created and wanted in on it. Brin and Page convinced the president of Stanford and 3 other investor to give them one million dollars to expand their company. After 3 years of college, Sergey and Larry dropped out of school to start what is known as Google.
When the two college students started this business they were only 21 years of age which was a concern for the investors. The four investors made a deal with Brin and Page in that they had to find someone who is experienced in the business who can give them some insight before they would give them the investment. The two agreed and Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, was the third leg of this 3 headed giant. Eric was over 20 years older than Brin and Page and had earned a lot of credibility in the field being the CEO of 2 large corporations before joining their team.
Buzz, but Few Dollars
Google started off as only a search engine with no profits being collected. It knew that by taking risk and employing the right people, in the long run they would become profitable. Google’s big break came when it partnered with Netscape to become the main search engine for their site. This is when the media giant started to take off. Brin explains how, “the company got so many hits on their site that they had to shut down the search engine until they could buy more computers” (Auletta,2009). In the year 2000, the company had grown to over seven million hits a day and had no intentions of slowing down.
Innocence or Arrogance
In 2002, Google took its biggest risk yet partnering with AOL promising them 85 cents on a dollar with a minimum revenue of 150 million dollars. Even though AOL was one of the biggest companies on the Internet, they knew that they were taking a huge risk by making the deal. One of the investors said, “you are betting the company if you do that” (Auletta,2009). If there’s one thing Google knows, is that a company has to take risks to receive larger than life profits.
Google Goes Public
Brin and Page never wanted Google to go public but they know for the company to grow they needed capital. The investors and CEO tried everything they could to convince the two that this was the right way to go, but they didn’t want to be forced to give the public their inside information. As a child, Larry Page read a book about a man named Alessandro Volta who was the first person to discover electricity. Volta was a very outspoken man letting out the secrets of how he discovered it. A few years later, a man by the name of Benjamin Franklin got the credit for discovering electricity thanks to the works of Volta. Unlike Volta, Franklin was a quiet man who keeps his discoveries to himself. This is one of the reasons the co-founders didn’t want to go public with their business. After much deliberation with top management, Sergey and Brin came up with a proposal to present to the SEC. In the letter it said, “Google is not a conventional company and we do not plan on being one” (Auletta,2009). They wanted to make sure that the concentration was on the people using the search engine instead of the investors having control. Also in the letter they explain how, “they would be unconcerned with quarterly market expectations and they would not pay dividends” (Auletta,2009).
In 2004, Google went public and entered into the stock market. Many people criticized the company calling them greedy for not paying dividends to shareholders and keeping things a secret. What people didn’t understand is that Google was in this for the long run. They didn’t pay dividends because they wanted to have the capital to expand their business so more money could be made. This didn’t just mean more money for the owners, but more for the investors who would stick with the company. When Auletta did an interview with the two founders, he asked them if they thought they made the right move. Page answered on behave of the two saying, “We were concerned with going public because we thought we could have to change the way we operated, comprised our principles. I ended up being a good way of stating up front the kinds of things we were thinking about and making sure that everyone who participating was comfortable. In going public you take a lot of shareholders, and obviously shareholders have some amount of rights. But we, who are running the company, also have some degree of rights. We felt it was better to be explicit…..and allow us to do the kinds of things we wanted to do” (Auletta,2009). In hind sight, going public was one of the best things the company did because when it started collecting capital there wasn’t anyone who could stop Google.
The New Evil Empire
The year 2004 is when Google started changing the media world as we know it. They were on a fast train to the top and wanted to kick anyone aside who got in their way. Dozens of times in the book it is mentioned that Google employees engineers not businessmen. Engineers are innovators and thinkers who believe that anything and everything can be improved in some way. Engineers ask the question, “why”. “Why must things be done this way. Why can’t all books be digital? Why can’t we just read the newspaper online” (Auletta,2009)? Google began to cripple many industries across the world such as newspapers, magazines, music, and many more. Google was even hurting the movie and television industry with “6.9 billion dollars in revenue lost in 2005 due to piracy ” (Auletta,2009).
The engineers were goal seekers always coming up with new ideas. The way Google works is through an algorithmic formula that the engineers came up with that combines several different aspects to have the highest searched at the top of their page. Google had come up with something no one else in the industry knew how to do. One thing that makes Google so successful is the top management understands that your company is only as good as who works for you. Every engineer in the company is allowed one day out of a five day week to work on what every that want to. They have the freedom to create and design things that will allow the come to run more efficiently making it easier on the users. By the end of 2006, Google had partnered up with several large corporations and had “over 10,000 employed with over half of them being engineers and had reached over ten billion dollars in revenue” (Auletta,2009).
War on Multiple Fronts
Once a company gets so big, it has to come up with new ways to expand leading to confrontations with other big companies. The CEO of Verizon explained it best saying, “Once you wake the bears, they come out of the woods and beat the shit out of you” (Auletta,2009). Several companies started attacking Google because they were taking over the entire media industry. Viacom sued Google for one billion dollars in March of 2007 for copyright laws for the site they purchased, YouTube. Several other companies jumped on the Viacom bandwagon with the case being brought all the way to the Supreme Court and is still ongoing today. This case snowballed into other up and coming media corporations such as Facebook. Facebook was the first big media concern that Google thought could challenge them. As Google always does, it didn’t back down and wanted to do something about it. “On April 2007, Google paid 3.1 billion dollars outbidding Microsoft and yahoo to purchase Double Click” (Auletta,2009). Double Click allowed Google to not only display text ads on the side of their pages, but they could now post digital ads. Herbert Allen III said of Google, “They want to be the digital advertising network for all forms of advertising. They want to be the advertising operating system, sitting in the middle of all advertising” (Auletta,2009). What makes Google so successful is their never quit mentality.
Is Old Media Drowning?
Google had started to take a toll on more and more industries as the years went on. They had converted large quantities of advertising toward the Internet and they were in the epicenter of it. One of the biggest industries hit was music. Technology had made it to where the consumer didn’t have to buy a CD anymore, they could just download it on the Internet. Jeffery Cole from the University of Southern California explains how, “in the nineties an best selling records sold 15 million copies whereas in 2007 top selling records averaged only 3.7 million copies sold ” (Auletta,2009). Along with Music the newspaper industry has deflated over the last decade due to more and more people reading it over the Internet. “In 2007, newspaper advertising dropped 9.4 percent since 2000, which when adjusted for inflation is twenty percent” (Auletta,2009). This just proves how Google has changed the media industry all together. The brilliant engineers ask the questions such as why can’t newspaper be read on the Internet and they come up with a way it can be done. There are many more advertising industries Google has crippled such as book publishers, television, Hollywood, telephone companies, and many more. Old media is not completely a thing of the past but it is diminishing by the minute due to advanced technology and the Internet.
Happy Birthday
September 2009 marked 10 years since Google started in the garage of Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The company had come a long way from starting as an unprofitable search engine expanding to Gmail, YouTube, and now Google maps which gives directions to anywhere in the world. The best quote in this book is, “Google’s power is measured by the companies that fear it and the public that adore it ” (Auletta,2009). With the additions of AdSense and AdWords to websites that has allowed small business to be reached and the purchase of Double Click that allows websites such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter to advertise digitally, Google has gone from “zero to twenty billion dollars in revenues in 400 weeks ” (Auletta,2009). As stated before, people attack companies that are this successful and Google is no exception. Brin was asked, “What value is Google producing for society? He thought for a minute and his answer was simple, ‘People with the right information make better decisions for them. People presented with the right commercial opportunities will buy things suited for them. Brin then tells a story about how he was in Zambia in a taxi when the driver was telling him how he needed a DVD drive to finish building a computer which he was going to pay 200 dollars for. Brin told the driver in the United States you can get them for around 30 dollars. He said think if the information was there, he could of got it a lot cheaper and been more efficient at his job’” (Auletta,2009). When the two college students from Stanford started this company, their goals were to make this country a better place that was more efficient for everyone and in different ways they have accomplished it.
Where is the Wave Taking Google
Even though Google has on average two thirds of all web video tracking and account for forty percent of all advertising spend online, no one knows what is in store for the company’s future. Google has stepped on the feet of many large corporation and they are doing what they can to take down the media giant. Some newspaper and magazines are trying to get Google to pay for their stories instead of allowing readers to view them free. The biggest hurdles they face is the battle with the computer giant Microsoft. If Google lets its foot off the gas it could be in the same position as the big three car companies, AOL, IBM, who everyone said there’s no way they would lose direction of their company. IBM at one time had seventy percent market share, when the government challenged them and lead IBM in a spiral downwards.
Another danger imposed on the company lies within the concrete walls. With a company this large and powerful, arrogance take a toll on upper management and employees causing them to lose focus on the task at hand. Yossi Vardi the directory for start-ups explains it best when she says, “if you are successful and young and everything plays into your direction, you fell that you can do anything. And history is littered with examples of people who believe too much in their own virtue and lost humility that is a counterweight to hubris” (Auletta,2009). Marissa Miller commented on that statement saying, “the good thing is that our founders have a passion for user, not making money” (Auletta,2009). It seems as Google is invincible at this moment in time, but one big innovation can put a blunder in any company’s business.
Personal Insights
With business conditions today, what the author wrote is true because this world is getting more technical with the Internet becoming an everyday thing in our lives. Ken got the underground information about how the biggest media advertiser runs its company. The subtitle of Ken’s book, The End of the World as We Know IT, explains how Google has changed the way businesses operate. Small businesses are getting more advertising because consumers can access more information through search engines. Also Google has allowed business to advertise in ways that could have never reached the amount of consumers Google has allowed them to. The economy is hurting in the business world, but Google has done nothing but help business and corporations try to get back on their feet.
If I were the author of the book I would have done these 3 things differently:
1. I would have written about Google being voted the number one company in the world to work for. A business is only as good as the people who work for you and keeping them happy is a huge step in the right direction. Google has amazing amenities for their workers free of charge such as a gym, recreation center, massage room, pool tables, and many more
2. If I would have written the book I would have tried to write a little more about the technical side of the company. He explains a lot about the struggles and triumphs as well as the many innovations Google brought into the industry, but he did really explain a lot of how all of this happened. I know Google is very secretive about their information, but I’m sure he had more about the technical side than that.
3. The last thing I would have done different would to shorten the book. The author left out some parts that would have made the book more interesting like what it is like to work for the company and the technological side of things. I found myself reading a lot of the same types of stories throughout the book.
Reading the book made me think differently about the topic in these ways:
1. One way it made me feel different about the topic the amount of people it takes to run a company like this. I learned that it takes many minds to construct and execute even a website like Google.
2. Another thing that made me feel different about the topic is the amount of money that goes into building a website. Google has spend billions of dollars advertising to try to gain as much market share as possible
3. Reading the book made me think differently about the power that’s behind Google. I learned that the world has been Googled is a true statement because everyone has been affected by the way Google has changed the media industry.
I’ll apply what I’ve learned in this book to my career by:
1. One thing I will apply to my career is the belief that improvements can always be made. Even though Google has a multi-billion dollar company, the engineers are always thinking of ways they can make their company more efficient to the consumer.
2. Another thing I will take is to not be afraid to start a business just because there are bigger more successful ones in the market. Often business owner are scared to open business because of the giant corporations. I learned that you have to take risk to become successful
3. Always have a plan for long term growth. The founders of Google have always had a plan for the future which comes from the passion they have from the company.
Here is a sampling of what others have said about the book and its author:
1. “A sharp and probing analysis of the apocalyptic upheavals in the media and entertainment industries” (Progressive Book Club,2009).
2. “That’s news-biz terminology for when a reporter just puts everything he knows into a story — is not selective. Ken Auletta is a stellar reporter, but this book is a fire hose that is flopping out of control. I feel as though I have re-lived the entire history of Google and modern media in real time. What I had hoped for was something to help me make sense of it” (Audible Inc,1997).
3. “Delivers the real scoop on how this Internet giant fits into the larger media landscape. . . . Auletta’s years of research and firsthand access to insiders, critics, competitors, and commentators give readers a well-rounded perspective on the company and how it fits into the wider milieu” (Progressive Book Club,2009).
My Synthesis and Summary of the Critics Reviews:
These three critics have different views about the book. All three of them agree that the book provides great information about Google and its growth in the media world. The last two both hit on how wonderful of a reporter he is but had different views of the entire book as a whole. The thing that the second critic didn’t like about the book was the length and amount of information put into it. I believe that it was a good book but the length was an issue for me as well. There were too many stories that were exactly alike that the author could have left out of the book to shorten it up a little. I also agree with all three critics on how it gave the reader a great perspective on how Google took over the media world.
Bibliography
Audible, Inc. (1997). Googled: The End of the World as We Know It. Retrieved March 20, 2010,
http://www.audible.com/adbl/site/products/ProductDetail.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0925977823.1269486379@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccdadejmhemdjkcefecekjdffidfkh.0&productID=B BK_BRLL_001912.
Auletta, K. (2009). Googled: The End of the World as we Know it. New York City : Penguin
Press HC.
Progressive Book Club. (2009). Googled. Retrieved March 20, 2010, from
http://www.progressivebookclub.com/pbc2/viewBook.pbc?id=1962.
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To contact the author of this “Summary and Review of Googled” please email Randy.Bouquet@selu.edu.
David C. Wyld (dwyld@selu.edu) is the Robert Maurin Professor of Management at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. He is a management consultant, researcher/writer, and executive educator. His blog, Wyld About Business, can be viewed at http://wyld-business.blogspot.com/.
Originally Published Summary and Review of Googled: The End of The World as We Know It by Ken Auletta
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Executive Summary
The book, Googled: The End of the World As We Know It, by Ken Auletta lets the readers into the rise and struggles of the search engine giant, Google. It lets readers into the minds of hundreds of Google’s engineers as well as the 3 co-founders themselves who take their audience on a journey from how the business started in a garage to the giant it is today.
Googled explains the astronomical numbers it produces from how it receives “over 70 percent of all searches in the world to the revenue it receives in one year of over 20 billion dollars. Google takes in over 40 percent of all dollars spent on advertising on the Internet” (Auletta,2009) through different marketing forms such as pay per click. These are only a few of the enormous numbers the author shares with readers that proves how big Google really is.
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Auletta shares the stories of the interviews from co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin as well as the CEO Eric Schmidt. It explains how they share similarities as well as many differences when it comes to managing their company. Differences come from the way they run the company from the media to the way they interact with their employees. The founders explain that engineers work for the company instead of businessmen. Their beliefs are that engineers are the one who run the company and when engineers run a company engineering is the way things are solved. “Mathematical algorithms always provide correct answers” (Auletta,2009) is the engineer’s ways of explaining the genius behind how the company is set up and ran.
The thing that makes this book such an informative and learning experience is the hundreds of interviews that are shared with the readers throughout the book. Not only did Ken sit down with the people who started the company, but he includes stories from the people who are the masterminds behind the daily operations. These stories range from closed door interviews to cocktail parties attended to by the entire company. Google has been hidden behind closed doors for years before Auletta opened them with the stories from the many people who make up Google.
This book is a learning experience for any manager or leader looking to enter into the business world. It teaches how the engineers manipulate their way through the media always being a step ahead of their entire market. Google puts millions of dollars into advertising throughout the World Wide Web to defer traffic through their site. Auletta lets us into the story of how Google entered the markets through the different forms of media such as; newspapers, television, telephones, Microsoft, and more. He also talks about how the company went from a small search engine to when they entered the stock market in 2004 to partnering with huge corporations on their way to becoming a multi-billion dollar company.
There are so many different ways business start from small to big, slow to fast, or many other ways but all of them experience difficulties along the way. Googled explains how even though the company had grown so large at such a rapid pace; there are still many downfalls and setbacks that occur throughout their business life. At the end of the book Auletta concludes with his input on where he think the company is going and where it will be in years to come.
The Ten Things Managers Need To Know From Googled:
1. The main slogan that explains what Google stands for is, “don’t be evil”. What this is basically saying is don’t be afraid to start a business because there’s a bigger more successful one that’s already established. Google’s motto is an inspiration to the company’s such as Apple who stands up to the more powerful Microsoft.
2. Improvements can always be made. Even though Google’s a billion dollar company their engineers are constantly coming up with new, more innovative ways to sell their advertising and make the world we live in easier for everyone. No matter how big or small or how well a business is run, improvements should always be an ongoing process.
3. It is very important to employ dedicated hard working employees. A company is only as good as the people who work for them. Google employs smart engineers who care about the company and want to make advances in what they do to better their company.
4. The sky’s the limit. Always believe that your business can grow and cultivate into bigger and better things. Even though Google takes a lot of heat for continuing to expand its company, it doesn’t hold them back from doing everything they can to reach another plateau.
5. The epicenter of a business starts with advertising. Getting the business’ name into the public is important in the success of the company. When Google started it immediately dove into several media markets such as; newspapers, books, television, and many more.
6. Don’t be afraid to be innovative and step outside the box. Companies who take risk and aren’t afraid to test the waters with new ideas will be the companies who leap over the ones who settle for meritocracy.
7. Sometimes owners and CEO’s need to take a back seat and listen to the suggestions coming from the people who do the job every day. Google’s upper management has faith in their workers to allow them to freely create and execute different systems that will improve the efficiency of the company.
8. Plan for long term growth. When Google became public in the stock exchange in 2004, it decided to not pay out dividends and let everyone know who owned stock that their company is in this for long term growth. This meant if they needed money to invest in something they would have it, yet if the consumer stays in it for the long run money will be made.
9. Make the workplace and place where someone wants to work. Google is the number one rated company to work for by Forbes magazine due to the amenities they offer their employees. An employee who enjoys his job will stay longer than one who doesn’t.
10. Different personalities in management styles are good for the company. If a company can diversify who its manager lead their employee, the company will be more successful than one set in stone managerial style.
Introduction
The opening sentence of the book, “This country has been Googled” (Auletta, 2009) sums up how Google has changed the media world. In the book, Auletta enters into the minds of top managers, executives, engineers as well as other successful people in the industry to explain how Google has become the media giant it is today.
Starting in a Garage
Google’s slogan is “Don’t be evil”. What this basically means is don’t be afraid to stand up to a larger company just because they have been successful and have earned credibility. This slogan gave Brin and Page the courage to start a company out of their garage and attack the bigger companies such as Apple and Microsoft. Auletta talks about an interview he had with the CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates, in 1998. At this time Microsoft was in its prime, with over ninety percent of all computer sales and the government threatening to sue for monopolization. When Ken sat down with Bill he asked the question, “What challenge do you fear most” (Auletta,2009)? Auletta thinking he is going to start blurting out large corporations such as Netscape or Apple, but he was wrong. After much thought Gates said, “I fear someone in a garage who is devising something completely new” (Auletta,2009). Later that year Bill Gates biggest nightmare came true in the form of Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
Google started 11 years ago in the garage of Sergey Brin and Larry Page. The book describes the two as very brilliant yet different personalities. Brin is more of the flashy type with the book describing him as a “rebellious child” (Auletta,2009). Then there is Larry Page who is geared more toward the laid back, conservative style. These two men met at orientation at Stanford University where they found out they had many similarities and likings. The two used the universities computer to start the business until one day they got some many hits that it crashed Stanford’s entire network. The president of the university and several other professors noticed this goal mind these two students had created and wanted in on it. Brin and Page convinced the president of Stanford and 3 other investor to give them one million dollars to expand their company. After 3 years of college, Sergey and Larry dropped out of school to start what is known as Google.
When the two college students started this business they were only 21 years of age which was a concern for the investors. The four investors made a deal with Brin and Page in that they had to find someone who is experienced in the business who can give them some insight before they would give them the investment. The two agreed and Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, was the third leg of this 3 headed giant. Eric was over 20 years older than Brin and Page and had earned a lot of credibility in the field being the CEO of 2 large corporations before joining their team.
Buzz, but Few Dollars
Google started off as only a search engine with no profits being collected. It knew that by taking risk and employing the right people, in the long run they would become profitable. Google’s big break came when it partnered with Netscape to become the main search engine for their site. This is when the media giant started to take off. Brin explains how, “the company got so many hits on their site that they had to shut down the search engine until they could buy more computers” (Auletta,2009). In the year 2000, the company had grown to over seven million hits a day and had no intentions of slowing down.
Innocence or Arrogance
In 2002, Google took its biggest risk yet partnering with AOL promising them 85 cents on a dollar with a minimum revenue of 150 million dollars. Even though AOL was one of the biggest companies on the Internet, they knew that they were taking a huge risk by making the deal. One of the investors said, “you are betting the company if you do that” (Auletta,2009). If there’s one thing Google knows, is that a company has to take risks to receive larger than life profits.
Google Goes Public
Brin and Page never wanted Google to go public but they know for the company to grow they needed capital. The investors and CEO tried everything they could to convince the two that this was the right way to go, but they didn’t want to be forced to give the public their inside information. As a child, Larry Page read a book about a man named Alessandro Volta who was the first person to discover electricity. Volta was a very outspoken man letting out the secrets of how he discovered it. A few years later, a man by the name of Benjamin Franklin got the credit for discovering electricity thanks to the works of Volta. Unlike Volta, Franklin was a quiet man who keeps his discoveries to himself. This is one of the reasons the co-founders didn’t want to go public with their business. After much deliberation with top management, Sergey and Brin came up with a proposal to present to the SEC. In the letter it said, “Google is not a conventional company and we do not plan on being one” (Auletta,2009). They wanted to make sure that the concentration was on the people using the search engine instead of the investors having control. Also in the letter they explain how, “they would be unconcerned with quarterly market expectations and they would not pay dividends” (Auletta,2009).
In 2004, Google went public and entered into the stock market. Many people criticized the company calling them greedy for not paying dividends to shareholders and keeping things a secret. What people didn’t understand is that Google was in this for the long run. They didn’t pay dividends because they wanted to have the capital to expand their business so more money could be made. This didn’t just mean more money for the owners, but more for the investors who would stick with the company. When Auletta did an interview with the two founders, he asked them if they thought they made the right move. Page answered on behave of the two saying, “We were concerned with going public because we thought we could have to change the way we operated, comprised our principles. I ended up being a good way of stating up front the kinds of things we were thinking about and making sure that everyone who participating was comfortable. In going public you take a lot of shareholders, and obviously shareholders have some amount of rights. But we, who are running the company, also have some degree of rights. We felt it was better to be explicit…..and allow us to do the kinds of things we wanted to do” (Auletta,2009). In hind sight, going public was one of the best things the company did because when it started collecting capital there wasn’t anyone who could stop Google.
The New Evil Empire
The year 2004 is when Google started changing the media world as we know it. They were on a fast train to the top and wanted to kick anyone aside who got in their way. Dozens of times in the book it is mentioned that Google employees engineers not businessmen. Engineers are innovators and thinkers who believe that anything and everything can be improved in some way. Engineers ask the question, “why”. “Why must things be done this way. Why can’t all books be digital? Why can’t we just read the newspaper online” (Auletta,2009)? Google began to cripple many industries across the world such as newspapers, magazines, music, and many more. Google was even hurting the movie and television industry with “6.9 billion dollars in revenue lost in 2005 due to piracy ” (Auletta,2009).
The engineers were goal seekers always coming up with new ideas. The way Google works is through an algorithmic formula that the engineers came up with that combines several different aspects to have the highest searched at the top of their page. Google had come up with something no one else in the industry knew how to do. One thing that makes Google so successful is the top management understands that your company is only as good as who works for you. Every engineer in the company is allowed one day out of a five day week to work on what every that want to. They have the freedom to create and design things that will allow the come to run more efficiently making it easier on the users. By the end of 2006, Google had partnered up with several large corporations and had “over 10,000 employed with over half of them being engineers and had reached over ten billion dollars in revenue” (Auletta,2009).
War on Multiple Fronts
Once a company gets so big, it has to come up with new ways to expand leading to confrontations with other big companies. The CEO of Verizon explained it best saying, “Once you wake the bears, they come out of the woods and beat the shit out of you” (Auletta,2009). Several companies started attacking Google because they were taking over the entire media industry. Viacom sued Google for one billion dollars in March of 2007 for copyright laws for the site they purchased, YouTube. Several other companies jumped on the Viacom bandwagon with the case being brought all the way to the Supreme Court and is still ongoing today. This case snowballed into other up and coming media corporations such as Facebook. Facebook was the first big media concern that Google thought could challenge them. As Google always does, it didn’t back down and wanted to do something about it. “On April 2007, Google paid 3.1 billion dollars outbidding Microsoft and yahoo to purchase Double Click” (Auletta,2009). Double Click allowed Google to not only display text ads on the side of their pages, but they could now post digital ads. Herbert Allen III said of Google, “They want to be the digital advertising network for all forms of advertising. They want to be the advertising operating system, sitting in the middle of all advertising” (Auletta,2009). What makes Google so successful is their never quit mentality.
Is Old Media Drowning?
Google had started to take a toll on more and more industries as the years went on. They had converted large quantities of advertising toward the Internet and they were in the epicenter of it. One of the biggest industries hit was music. Technology had made it to where the consumer didn’t have to buy a CD anymore, they could just download it on the Internet. Jeffery Cole from the University of Southern California explains how, “in the nineties an best selling records sold 15 million copies whereas in 2007 top selling records averaged only 3.7 million copies sold ” (Auletta,2009). Along with Music the newspaper industry has deflated over the last decade due to more and more people reading it over the Internet. “In 2007, newspaper advertising dropped 9.4 percent since 2000, which when adjusted for inflation is twenty percent” (Auletta,2009). This just proves how Google has changed the media industry all together. The brilliant engineers ask the questions such as why can’t newspaper be read on the Internet and they come up with a way it can be done. There are many more advertising industries Google has crippled such as book publishers, television, Hollywood, telephone companies, and many more. Old media is not completely a thing of the past but it is diminishing by the minute due to advanced technology and the Internet.
Happy Birthday
September 2009 marked 10 years since Google started in the garage of Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The company had come a long way from starting as an unprofitable search engine expanding to Gmail, YouTube, and now Google maps which gives directions to anywhere in the world. The best quote in this book is, “Google’s power is measured by the companies that fear it and the public that adore it ” (Auletta,2009). With the additions of AdSense and AdWords to websites that has allowed small business to be reached and the purchase of Double Click that allows websites such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter to advertise digitally, Google has gone from “zero to twenty billion dollars in revenues in 400 weeks ” (Auletta,2009). As stated before, people attack companies that are this successful and Google is no exception. Brin was asked, “What value is Google producing for society? He thought for a minute and his answer was simple, ‘People with the right information make better decisions for them. People presented with the right commercial opportunities will buy things suited for them. Brin then tells a story about how he was in Zambia in a taxi when the driver was telling him how he needed a DVD drive to finish building a computer which he was going to pay 200 dollars for. Brin told the driver in the United States you can get them for around 30 dollars. He said think if the information was there, he could of got it a lot cheaper and been more efficient at his job’” (Auletta,2009). When the two college students from Stanford started this company, their goals were to make this country a better place that was more efficient for everyone and in different ways they have accomplished it.
Where is the Wave Taking Google
Even though Google has on average two thirds of all web video tracking and account for forty percent of all advertising spend online, no one knows what is in store for the company’s future. Google has stepped on the feet of many large corporation and they are doing what they can to take down the media giant. Some newspaper and magazines are trying to get Google to pay for their stories instead of allowing readers to view them free. The biggest hurdles they face is the battle with the computer giant Microsoft. If Google lets its foot off the gas it could be in the same position as the big three car companies, AOL, IBM, who everyone said there’s no way they would lose direction of their company. IBM at one time had seventy percent market share, when the government challenged them and lead IBM in a spiral downwards.
Another danger imposed on the company lies within the concrete walls. With a company this large and powerful, arrogance take a toll on upper management and employees causing them to lose focus on the task at hand. Yossi Vardi the directory for start-ups explains it best when she says, “if you are successful and young and everything plays into your direction, you fell that you can do anything. And history is littered with examples of people who believe too much in their own virtue and lost humility that is a counterweight to hubris” (Auletta,2009). Marissa Miller commented on that statement saying, “the good thing is that our founders have a passion for user, not making money” (Auletta,2009). It seems as Google is invincible at this moment in time, but one big innovation can put a blunder in any company’s business.
Personal Insights
With business conditions today, what the author wrote is true because this world is getting more technical with the Internet becoming an everyday thing in our lives. Ken got the underground information about how the biggest media advertiser runs its company. The subtitle of Ken’s book, The End of the World as We Know IT, explains how Google has changed the way businesses operate. Small businesses are getting more advertising because consumers can access more information through search engines. Also Google has allowed business to advertise in ways that could have never reached the amount of consumers Google has allowed them to. The economy is hurting in the business world, but Google has done nothing but help business and corporations try to get back on their feet.
If I were the author of the book I would have done these 3 things differently:
1. I would have written about Google being voted the number one company in the world to work for. A business is only as good as the people who work for you and keeping them happy is a huge step in the right direction. Google has amazing amenities for their workers free of charge such as a gym, recreation center, massage room, pool tables, and many more
2. If I would have written the book I would have tried to write a little more about the technical side of the company. He explains a lot about the struggles and triumphs as well as the many innovations Google brought into the industry, but he did really explain a lot of how all of this happened. I know Google is very secretive about their information, but I’m sure he had more about the technical side than that.
3. The last thing I would have done different would to shorten the book. The author left out some parts that would have made the book more interesting like what it is like to work for the company and the technological side of things. I found myself reading a lot of the same types of stories throughout the book.
Reading the book made me think differently about the topic in these ways:
1. One way it made me feel different about the topic the amount of people it takes to run a company like this. I learned that it takes many minds to construct and execute even a website like Google.
2. Another thing that made me feel different about the topic is the amount of money that goes into building a website. Google has spend billions of dollars advertising to try to gain as much market share as possible
3. Reading the book made me think differently about the power that’s behind Google. I learned that the world has been Googled is a true statement because everyone has been affected by the way Google has changed the media industry.
I’ll apply what I’ve learned in this book to my career by:
1. One thing I will apply to my career is the belief that improvements can always be made. Even though Google has a multi-billion dollar company, the engineers are always thinking of ways they can make their company more efficient to the consumer.
2. Another thing I will take is to not be afraid to start a business just because there are bigger more successful ones in the market. Often business owner are scared to open business because of the giant corporations. I learned that you have to take risk to become successful
3. Always have a plan for long term growth. The founders of Google have always had a plan for the future which comes from the passion they have from the company.
Here is a sampling of what others have said about the book and its author:
1. “A sharp and probing analysis of the apocalyptic upheavals in the media and entertainment industries” (Progressive Book Club,2009).
2. “That’s news-biz terminology for when a reporter just puts everything he knows into a story — is not selective. Ken Auletta is a stellar reporter, but this book is a fire hose that is flopping out of control. I feel as though I have re-lived the entire history of Google and modern media in real time. What I had hoped for was something to help me make sense of it” (Audible Inc,1997).
3. “Delivers the real scoop on how this Internet giant fits into the larger media landscape. . . . Auletta’s years of research and firsthand access to insiders, critics, competitors, and commentators give readers a well-rounded perspective on the company and how it fits into the wider milieu” (Progressive Book Club,2009).
My Synthesis and Summary of the Critics Reviews:
These three critics have different views about the book. All three of them agree that the book provides great information about Google and its growth in the media world. The last two both hit on how wonderful of a reporter he is but had different views of the entire book as a whole. The thing that the second critic didn’t like about the book was the length and amount of information put into it. I believe that it was a good book but the length was an issue for me as well. There were too many stories that were exactly alike that the author could have left out of the book to shorten it up a little. I also agree with all three critics on how it gave the reader a great perspective on how Google took over the media world.
Bibliography
Audible, Inc. (1997). Googled: The End of the World as We Know It. Retrieved March 20, 2010,
http://www.audible.com/adbl/site/products/ProductDetail.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0925977823.1269486379@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccdadejmhemdjkcefecekjdffidfkh.0&productID=B BK_BRLL_001912.
Auletta, K. (2009). Googled: The End of the World as we Know it. New York City : Penguin
Press HC.
Progressive Book Club. (2009). Googled. Retrieved March 20, 2010, from
http://www.progressivebookclub.com/pbc2/viewBook.pbc?id=1962.
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To contact the author of this “Summary and Review of Googled” please email Randy.Bouquet@selu.edu.
David C. Wyld (dwyld@selu.edu) is the Robert Maurin Professor of Management at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. He is a management consultant, researcher/writer, and executive educator. His blog, Wyld About Business, can be viewed at http://wyld-business.blogspot.com/.
Originally Published Summary and Review of Googled: The End of The World as We Know It by Ken Auletta
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A Chad Ocho Cinco Dating Show: Yes, A Sign That the End is Near!
A Chad Ocho Cinco dating show - 85 women for #85. A sign of the Apocalypse??
Watch the Czabecast on this:
David
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The New Health Care Payroll Tax
Yes, there is one, and while it may not impact you now, it could, as it will not be indexed to inflation. Watch:
Hide your wallet....
David
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Hide your wallet....
David
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One More Cell Phone Etiquette Rule: About the Bathroom...
Let me add one big one as Rule #16 (I'm sure this list could grow to be a hundred or more with the smart mob working on it): The public - or private - restroom is for one function - your cell phone should not be out of your pocket, purse, or belt-clip while carrying out the assigned task! This applies to everyone, regardless of which door sign they follow - and bluetooth guy - this goes for you as well!
David http://wyl
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Complete List from Cellphones.org
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Cell Phone Etiquette: 15 Rules To Follow
These are great - should be posted on the back of phones like a cigarette warning label (a little big at a time when phones are getting smaller, I know)! Great stuff for the kiddies and their parents!
David http://wyl
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
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