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Google’s 20% Solution as a Recession Antidote

“For one day each week, Google’s engineering staffers get to work on projects they think are important for the business, not what management has prioritized for them.

Before you scoff at that as a tech-bubble luxury that only an overstaffed company can afford, look at some numbers. Google’s AdSense for Content was developed as an engineer’s “20% time” project. Last quarter, Google generated more than $1.6 billion in revenue from AdSense partner sites; that’s almost one-third of the company’s total revenue.”

From Computerworld. Found through Innovation Tools blog.

Since the start of this year, I have done something along these lines, working 5 days in the first 4 days, Monday through Thursday, then taking Friday off to do all the work that never seems to get done: paying bills, writing articles, sending invoices, rebuilding websites that support my business, prospecting. It has made a huge difference so far in my productivity and actually makes me eager to get work out of the way so I can enjoy my Friday working on different stuff than client work.

From a more corporate perspective, the Innovation Tools blog item has some interesting thoughts on how Google’s policy mirrors venture capital policies towards their projects. Both articles highlight that while Google’s policy is counter-intuitive, in fact it is the perfect policy to tide companies through a recession and prep them for the next growth phase.

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