Things I learnt at Google I/O 2014 (non technical)

A ton of bloggers & reporters did a sprint of live reporting right from the Moscone Centre, however, I decided to leave the technical part to the geeks and just put together my learning as a marketer & a management guy.

• Build a community and put them first: The conference was for developers, to developers, by developers (at Google). With more then 5000 APIs introduced, Google pegs its growth strategy of Android, Nest, Glass and Fitness on the app developers who make the magic happen. Apple may have brand loyalist, but Google has a bigger geek community to take their open source Android OS to rule the world.

• True leadership creates more leaders: Did anyone notice? There was no Eric Shmidth, Larry Page or Sergey Brin on stage. Sundar Pitchai ruled the stage and the only other senior most Googler was Urz Holeas. Putting Sundar on a pedestal could also be a talent retention strategy, remember the rumor that he was a contender as a CEO at Microsoft?

• Solve human problems with technology: Android Auto is a bold move to not just replace Java from GPS devices or compete with Apple’s CarPlay but to make driving more smarter and roads more safer. A significant number of accidents are caused due to usage of mobile phones while driving, With Android’s open source framework; we can expect more apps that will make roads absolutely safe.

• Try to solve more problems before they arise: Google’s acquired NEST, the devices that makes home smart, but so far there are only speculations and educated guess on why they acquired it. However, if you apply some common sense and a good guess, you can say it falls under IOT (internet of Things). IFTTT already have couple of recipes for NEST!

• There’s always a solution: There were a lot of negativity associated with Google’s health initiatives, quite a few concerns of privacy (or lack of it). However, Andorid Wear and Fitness looks like a solution to have ‘opt-in’ from users to later build data driven healthcare initiatives.

Bonus:

“You cant do ‘cool’ things without back wrecking hard work behind it” This is one of the responses Larry Page told at the press interview during IO when asked for what is stopping Google from rolling out some initiatives!