Google Quote to Note: We Are Just Like Our Customers

August 18, 2021

I read “Google Cloud’s Top Engineers Explain How They Use Customers Sessions to Build Products.” The write up is information obtained from a single Google engineer. The Googler manifests the here-and-now of customer empathy sessions. Yep, empathy. Google cares about the Cloud it seems.

I noted this statement attributed to the empathetic Google expert:

When I joined Google, we needed to get better at meeting people where they are. That was the idea behind these empathy sessions.—Googler Kelsey Hightower

“Meeting people where they are.” Does that mean in a trade show booth. I thought in Washington, DC, Google relied on partners to meet “customers.” Guess I was incorrect in that but that factoid surfaced in a meeting at a security services outfit on August 9, 2021. One of those people noted that he had performed this function for the Google. Obviously, despite the security of the attendees, the first hand account was disinformation maybe?

Here’s another insightful and human centric statement about Google systems:

When you have good technology, you can fall into this trap of assuming it just works.

Okay, great observation. Is the Google in this trap because empathy is one thing and delivering systems that “work”, useful documentation, that bugaboo customer support are not inherently empathetic. These are business services directly at odds with cost cutting, efficiency, and assuming that Googlers are smarter than everyone else in the whole wide world. News flash: That’s not exactly a good premise in my opinion. If that were true, dead fish like Amazon and Microsoft would not be selling more cloud services than Mother Google.

Now here’s the quote to note:

Empathy engineering is a very humbling experience.

Yep, humbling. Maybe a new catchphrase for Googlers? Just be humble. How does that sound?

I think it is more T-shirtable than Don’t be evil. Evil can generate revenue.

Stephen E Arnold, August 18, 2021

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Business strategy, Google, News

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.