Who is right? Google or Apple?
Some 6 months back, at engage 2007, paul kemp-robertson the editor of contagious spoke about radical transparency. The premise was simple. Be open, transparent and authentic. And consumers and your employees will reward you beyond your wildest dreams.
And Google is considered just that kind of company. It embraces open platform. Check Android, an open operating system which will allow handsets from different brands to run on the same platform. Google is also the epitome of what some might call employee-slave company (not one that treats employees as slaves, but the other way around -one that is a slave to it's employees). And God knows it has been successful doing just that. Gmail and Google News are products of a policy which lets engineers pursue their own projects on 20% of their time (by the way engineers can not only choose the projects they want to be a part of, they can also choose the people they want to work with. how cool is that?). Google also believes in the power of communication. It believes doing so, will make consumers feel more connected and involved.
And then there is apple. The Google anti-thesis. Wired, in the April issue has termed Apple, the evil genius. Guy Kawasaki says, 'Steve proves that it's ok to be an asshole'. It seems at apple employees have a term called, 'hero-shithead roller caster' - a term referred to how the most favoured employees find themselves at the receiving end. says one engineer ' More than anywhere else i've worked before or since, there is a lot of concern about being fired'. That's insane right. To me it seems that life at Apple is always on the edge. The pursuit of excellence has turned fanatical. Yet it seems that the employees are not just loyal, they consider it a privilege to work with Jobs. Apple also believes in the opposite of radical transparency. It believes in radical opacity (according to wired). Apple thrives on obfuscation. It seems even Apple employees have no idea on what Apple is up to. Jon Rubinstein, former head of Apple's hard ware division said, 'we have cells, like a terrorist organisation'. All of this, seems actually seems to work for Apple. The secrecy helps build anticipation. The anticipation helped apple get 400 million US of free publicity for the launch of the i-phone. It has also helped Apple have a head start over rivals. (Apple announced the launch of Tiger, the new operating system with posters tauting, 'redmond, start your photocopiers').
God knows why this approach works for Apple. Maybe it helps build their challenger mindset. Maybe it works, because Steve is such an inspiring guy. Whatever it might be, the fact is that no one direction is the right direction. Contradictions rule.
For me whatever approach you choose for your company, make sure that you live on the edge of the contradiction. Maximise your belief system. Find a way to make it work for you. The worse that can happen is to live, in the between. That sucks. That's not a point of view. And that never inspires.
