Googliness

Friday night I watched The Internship, with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. While there are many problems with this film on a variety of levels, the idea of "googliness" struck a chord with me. I've heard this word before, but it has been a while and, honestly, I never really understood what it meant. I suppose it means different things to different people, but there is an underlying theme to the variety of definitions. To be googley means to be kinder, harder-working, more creative, team-oriented, all the really good things. Here is a former Google employee who sums it up pretty nicely: http://read.bi/14Ka0TX. Not everyone likes Google. In fact, many people openly despise all things Google, either because of privacy concerns, or because of the gigantic proportions to which the company has grown. While privacy issues concern me, and I am not a fan of ginormous, soul-sucking corporations, I like Google. Google doesn't pretend to be anything they are not. Information that you store with Google is secure from everyone but Google. They tailor ads in-house without sharing your personal information directly with their advertisers. In other words, they always maintain a buffer between users and advertisers. While getting ads in your email inbox may seem intrusive, they aren't selling your personal information to advertisers, just matching ads to users. And, unlike government tracking, anyone may opt-out of Google tracking at any time by simply using a different product.

If you're looking for a good, tracking-free search engine you might try Duck Duck Go. But I digress. Googliness is a concept that we, as teachers and administrators, can model for our students. These are all positive traits, and focusing on a different one every week can have a lasting impact on our lives and the lives of our students. I know I struggle with some (or all) of the traits that Jens lists in his post, but they are certainly worthy aspirations. The cynics of the world would point out that even Google itself does not live up to all of these standards all the time. We have, however, far too many cynics in this world already. Wouldn't it be nice if we could all be a little more Googley?