WWGD?

Finally finished reading “What Would Google Do?” It was one of the books Amy Eisman recommended we read when she worked with us for the Maynard Institute.

I’ve had the book since December. One of the reasons it took me so long to get through is the first half was a much faster read than the second. The first 100-some-odd pages lay out the answer to the title question, while the second half uses those results to postulate what “Googley” companies in different fields would look like. Or act like, really.

It’s not that it isn’t fun to think about how Google would run a cola giant. Like Jeff Jarvis, the book’s author, I too would love to be able to order up a case of my ideal soda (bring back the Diet Pepsi Vanilla!), but after a while it gets a bit repetitive.

Plus, the book’s content isn’t as much as a revelation as it might have been if I read it as soon as I heard about it. Many of the ideas have been floating around in my head for a while, now, as it’s been six month since the book was recommended to me. But that’s the reality of books in an Internet world.