This week the topic is about Google, where we get a sneak peak at workers working for google and how they are treated by the company. Also we discuss about the advantages and disadvantages of such working environment, whether it is really beneficial or actually a bane to the company. We also get to look into Lenovo, China’s Multinational Corporation, and China’s style of management.
The lesson kick-started with a video about Google’s employee’s life in its company. Incentives were offered such as free bus rides to work with internet connection, free scrumptious meals, gyms, spas, massages, subsidized child care, paid maternity leave, a whole lot more of materialistic benefits. However there are actually more important principle’s of Google’s way of management which includes the 20 percent rule, having their ideas actually listened and implemented and also, their own way to produce results. The above has already made some individuals including me to mouth water and have thoughts of working for this large corporation.
I think that Google is a result oriented company where it controls the product more than the process, to put it simplistically, they don’t care what you do or how you do it as long as you produce the good, effective results and meet deadlines. The process I am talking about is the employees’ way of working together to work and how they spent their working days and working times. However, Google did implement measures to help the employees with their work. They put up relaxing facilities and good incentives like subsidized child care or spas for them to really relax and think. I suppose Google feels that when a person is at ease, they can exert their creative juices and can think of a lot more innovative ideas than sitting in a office table for twelve hours and cannot think of much creative projects.
According to PRCs’ testimonial in class about the Chinese workers, China conventional way of management is actually stifling creativity and innovation critical for being the top economic super power. The workers only do what they are told without thinking or questioning. The employees are rather afraid of their bosses and are not comfortable with debating or arguing with the boss or even to raise a suggestion. China is currently still copying products from the west , being a future economic super power, China needs to innovate and create products themselves.
This may come from the influence of Communism where there is a 1 party rule and also about values of Chinese morals like respect and humility. There is also speculation that the China’s way of upbringing and their education system may teach them to listen to teacher and follow what is in the textbook and not question the sources, question the methods and think of new ways.
Having reflected on the working culture and management style in Google and Lenovo, I would like to talk a bit more about Google’s way. Miss Yeo’s said something like, “Most employees don’t spent 100 percent of their time working, and even teachers don’t!” I started to think twice whether these incentives are really that great or it is already there but google is smart enough to package this whole delusion into a nice present for us gullible people to receive. True enough most people do not spent all their time working, even students don’t spend all their times studying too. Having this 20 percent rule is in fact rather redundant. Also, people are not going to think of creative ideas by sitting in an office room but rather, when heir having their life, or relaxing, they can come up with innovations far more creative.
I felt that the whole point of having this topic as a discussion is to question Google’s methodology and whether it has attributed to its success. Why is Google so successful then? Google, starting out as a small company in 1996, has already achieved the most popular search engine in the world, 2.5 billion searches a day, it slowly moved on to make online productivity software, google docs, gmails etc… Partnerships with other corporations soon followed such as the development of android’s operating system, which is competing fiercely with apple’s OS. Some even say that google may have a chance to overtake apple, their prospects of this would be a tinge higher now due to the departure of apple’s mastermind Steve Jobs. The company's mission statement from the outset was "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". They now have far beyond exceeded their mission in becoming one of the world’s most important tools and indispensible to most people on this earth whether it is checking information on the search engine, checking out the world with google earth or just simply browsing the web with the “self-acclaimed fastest browser in the world” --- google chrome.
There is a question I always wanted to ask, “Is google that great?” Compared to other companies and search engines like Yahoo, BING, ask.com or MSN, is Google really that superior? How is google able to stand out among the other companies and become the world’s top search engine? If I walked on the street and asked strangers for their preference of search engines, I can assure that at least 70% of the people’s choice would be google. This google-mania has even reached the extend that most people will type in “google.com” just to check their wifi or internet connection and not other websites. Other just uses it as a verb! “Lets google this”, or “you can google that!” 89% of smart phone owners uses google search on a daily basis. In http://www.quora.com/How-many-people-use-Google-world-wide, the statistics clearly show how much more people uses google than other companies like yahoo. Google and yahoo’s function is almost the same, useful sites for emails and information etc... For companies that perform almost the same function yet to have such a big margin in terms of popularity, something is definitely wrong here. Is it that GOOGLE is a catchier name that YAHOO! Or is it that “Googling” has been such normality in the previous generations and well liked that it is passed down to the younger generations? Or is Google’s method really that great?
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Reflective Journal entry 1
A new year has just come less than 3 weeks ago, I suddenly feel so lonely and new. Facing the new faces in class, new teachers teaching us, new environment of learning, new subjects to learn. One of this little NEW subject is SES (socio-economic-studies).
Last Thursday was our first SES lesson which was the introductory lesson. I have been told that it is a new topic adapted from the subject PPE taught to the BSP classes. Upon hearing that there were neither exams nor tests, I was very relieved as I thought it may be a slightly less taxing, to think I was real wrong. The other requirements are rather high, writing 800 words for a reflective journal has never been my kind of thing, let alone the 1000 we need for our term paper. I have been told that the subject SES focuses governments, economies, people and societies. However, i am the weakest at the humanities area which adds a big boulder on my shoulders. Not to mention we are not allowed to use scripts and have to memeorise more than around 500-800 words for our class presentation. Not to mention other subjects are getting harder and more in depth as well, training everyday, I am starting to wonder if i can survive sec 3...
Learning a new topic is never easy, getting good grades for it would be a step higher. However, after feel do not feel that uncomfortable with this new topic as i think that other subjects may have some form of relation to it. My impression of this topic is very much something like current affairs we have during our lower secondary years. Both subjects require us to have good knowledge about the world affairs and situations, following a engaging class discussion which everyone would give their opinions and suggestions to that particular piece of news. This subject has also very close relation with the subjects IHC as both subjects talk about social studies and about governments, people and societies. Another subject would be AAT last year, whereby we, again, engage in a class discussion to share our views of the topic given in the Socratic seminar, we are also required to write our AAT journals which would be graded according to how critically we reflect and think. Having said that, I feel that this topic isn't that bad and that new to me after all.
Actually I do believe that this subject is very important. Like current affairs or AAT, it trains and stimulates a good discussion where we can improve our interpersonal skills and boosts our self-esteem as well. Also, it encourages everyone to speak up in their own opinion and because it is a graded discussion, the quiet ones would be forced to speak up for their own good too, who knows they be a hidden gem with great potential of commutation and also good thoughts and points that is can be shared with the class. This subject also has every relevance to the world and the society, more importantly, our country. It broadens our horizon and let us become more aware of the events going on around us and how much it affects us. Through readings and references, we are also able to improve our vocabulary by reading either books or online sources, increasing our language standards to a certain extend.
What I like most about this topic is that there is NO test!! Just kidding, what I really think is important and significant of this new subject that I never came across is its “freedom”. This “freedom” that I am referring to is that we are able to say what we want, what we feel, what we think and there will never ever be a wrong answer as this subject is based on different people’s point of wheel and therefore, (unless our argument is really that nonsensical) we will never get marked wrong or marked down because of what we think and I think this is the best part of the lesson, able to freely express our thoughts on the topic given.
I believe that this new subject can really help me and also my classmates. it allows us to be well informed citizens of Singapore and also students who are keeping up with what is going on in this world and also, able to boost our self-confidence by giving speeches or starting discussions which I am very sure it would be useful in our alter life. I may face problems after a few lessons or may not like this subject but nonetheless, after the lesson introduction, I now know what to expect for Socio-Economic studies in Sec 3. I know that it will not be easy but I suppose I can survive it and if possible, excel in it the best that I can.
Last Thursday was our first SES lesson which was the introductory lesson. I have been told that it is a new topic adapted from the subject PPE taught to the BSP classes. Upon hearing that there were neither exams nor tests, I was very relieved as I thought it may be a slightly less taxing, to think I was real wrong. The other requirements are rather high, writing 800 words for a reflective journal has never been my kind of thing, let alone the 1000 we need for our term paper. I have been told that the subject SES focuses governments, economies, people and societies. However, i am the weakest at the humanities area which adds a big boulder on my shoulders. Not to mention we are not allowed to use scripts and have to memeorise more than around 500-800 words for our class presentation. Not to mention other subjects are getting harder and more in depth as well, training everyday, I am starting to wonder if i can survive sec 3...
Learning a new topic is never easy, getting good grades for it would be a step higher. However, after feel do not feel that uncomfortable with this new topic as i think that other subjects may have some form of relation to it. My impression of this topic is very much something like current affairs we have during our lower secondary years. Both subjects require us to have good knowledge about the world affairs and situations, following a engaging class discussion which everyone would give their opinions and suggestions to that particular piece of news. This subject has also very close relation with the subjects IHC as both subjects talk about social studies and about governments, people and societies. Another subject would be AAT last year, whereby we, again, engage in a class discussion to share our views of the topic given in the Socratic seminar, we are also required to write our AAT journals which would be graded according to how critically we reflect and think. Having said that, I feel that this topic isn't that bad and that new to me after all.
Actually I do believe that this subject is very important. Like current affairs or AAT, it trains and stimulates a good discussion where we can improve our interpersonal skills and boosts our self-esteem as well. Also, it encourages everyone to speak up in their own opinion and because it is a graded discussion, the quiet ones would be forced to speak up for their own good too, who knows they be a hidden gem with great potential of commutation and also good thoughts and points that is can be shared with the class. This subject also has every relevance to the world and the society, more importantly, our country. It broadens our horizon and let us become more aware of the events going on around us and how much it affects us. Through readings and references, we are also able to improve our vocabulary by reading either books or online sources, increasing our language standards to a certain extend.
What I like most about this topic is that there is NO test!! Just kidding, what I really think is important and significant of this new subject that I never came across is its “freedom”. This “freedom” that I am referring to is that we are able to say what we want, what we feel, what we think and there will never ever be a wrong answer as this subject is based on different people’s point of wheel and therefore, (unless our argument is really that nonsensical) we will never get marked wrong or marked down because of what we think and I think this is the best part of the lesson, able to freely express our thoughts on the topic given.
I believe that this new subject can really help me and also my classmates. it allows us to be well informed citizens of Singapore and also students who are keeping up with what is going on in this world and also, able to boost our self-confidence by giving speeches or starting discussions which I am very sure it would be useful in our alter life. I may face problems after a few lessons or may not like this subject but nonetheless, after the lesson introduction, I now know what to expect for Socio-Economic studies in Sec 3. I know that it will not be easy but I suppose I can survive it and if possible, excel in it the best that I can.
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