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Rio de Jane i roLatem non a l i tempesunt

meet ing Oskar Met savaht

on Ipanema

Brazilian SoulWe walk through rua Vinicius de Moraes in the direction of Ipanema beach. On the corner we pass a small café where the same Vinicius wrote the famous song “the girl from Ipanema”, performed by Astrud Gilberto, Frank Sinatra and many others. When we arrive at the beach I take off my shoes and walk through the hot sand in the direction of the Ocean. When we reach the water we turn left in the direction of Arpoador where the beach ends and where a huge rock inflates the waves, turning the ocean into a surfers playground. “I love Rio” Anouks says while avoiding a wave. “Where else does one have business meetings on the beach?” Without answering I start singing out loud: “When she walks, she’s like a samba, that swings so cool and sways so gentle.”

We arrive at Arpoador beach where we have a meeting with Oskar Metsavaht, a man with many talents: fashion-designer, creator, film-maker, artist, entrepreneur... the list is long, the talents are diverse. But what we want to talk about today, is Oskar’s view on the Brazilian Soul.

Sustainability all the way“I want to promote Brazil as the sustainable country of the world” Os-kar starts. “If you think about it, you could say that every continent or country has a distinct feature”, he says, waving his arm in the direction of the ocean. “In the US that would be entertainment, in Europe cul-ture, in India spirituality and in Asia technology.” He pauses his speech and takes a sip of his coconut juice. “And Brazil?” he continues. “What does Brazil have what the other countries lost, many years ago?” The word Samba pops up in my mind, but probably not being the right answer, I do not pronounce it. “Nature!” Oskar exclaims. “Nature, rain-forest, natural resources.” Oskar is now pointing in the opposite direc-tion of the ocean, probably towards the Amazon Rainforest, 3.000 km Northwest of the beach where we’re sitting right now.

Instituto e“We have 2 options”, Oskar says while raising two fingers, “export-ing raw materials like we’ve been doing for the last 5 centuries or... creating value by taking care of our natural resources and ensuring sustainability”. I founded instituto e to promote Brazil worldwide as the sustainable country.”

He sits back in his chair and looks aside to the beach. A big wave is rolling in from the ocean. A surfer who was waiting for this wave, now climbs onto his board, accelerates in a very stylish position, makes a u-turn, a jump and disappears under water. Oskar turns back to us, as if he was teleported from the surfboard back to the table. “My mission is, or better, one of my missions is to make sus-tainability cool. With e-brigade I promote sustainability in combina-tion with design and lifestyle, making it cool to buy socially and environmentally conscious products.”

Oskar Metsavaht -

‘Make sus ta inab i l i t y coo l ’

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The brand visionOSKLEN finds itself between the dynamism of the metropolis and the exuberance of Brazilian nature, giving life to a style based on the harmonization of contrasts. The brand represents the lifestyle of contemporary women and men in a world where urban and nature, global and local, organic and technological live together.

It is precisely this perception of the integrated nature, culture and society, with refined aesthetics, that makes OSKLEN be consid-ered one of the ten most influential and inspiring brands in the world by WGSN and identified as “Future Maker” by the WWF-UK.

OSKLEN has presented its collections at São Paulo Fashion Week and Fashion Rio. Fashion, art, culture, design, and the environ-ment are all a part of OSKLEN’S inspiration, and make it not only a brand, but a vehicle of communication for a lifestyle. Nowa-days, OSKLEN has 55 stores in Brazil. 2 in Milan 1 in Rome, 1 in New York, 1 in Miami (opening in February 2010) and 1 in Tokyo. Besides its showrooms in Italy, Greece, Russia, Australia and USA. OSKLEN also exports to France, UK, Germany, Korea and The Mid-dle East.

OSKLEN finds itself between the dynamism of the metropolis and the exuberance of Brazilian nature, giving life to a style based on the harmonization of contrasts. The brand represents the lifestyle of contemporary women and men in a world where urban and nature, global and local, organic and technological live together.

It is precisely this perception of the integrated nature, culture and society, with refined aesthetics, that makes OSKLEN be consid-ered one of the ten most influential and inspiring brands in the world by WGSN and identified as “Future Maker” by the WWF-UK.

The creative directorThe ethos of Oskar Metsavaht and his creative team include the involvement with social-environmental issues since the nineties. Oskar is, for instance, the founder of instituto e, a not-for-profit institution located in Rio de Janeiro, dedicated to the promotion of sustainable human development. Through the institute, the project is developed, in partnership with companies, institutions and research centers, and it identifies fabrics and materials de-veloped from social-environmental criteria. He is often invited to join as a speaker about new luxury in conferences around the world, such as Milano Fashion Summit and the Ethical Fashion Paris. “My creative process begins with a scene, a history, a style, a concept that I create from something that I wished or lived.

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The brandOSKLEN finds itself between the dynamism of the metropolis and the exuber-ance of Brazilian nature, giving life to a style based on the harmonization of contrasts. The brand represents the lifestyle of contemporary women and men in a world where urban and nature, global and local, organic and technologi-cal live together.

It is precisely this perception of the integrated nature, culture and society, with refined aesthetics, that makes OSKLEN be considered one of the ten most influential and inspiring brands in the world by WGSN and identified as “Future Maker” by the WWF-UK.

OSKLEN has presented its collections at São Paulo Fashion Week and Fashion Rio. Fashion, art, culture, design, and the environment are all a part of OSK-LEN’S inspiration, and make it not only a brand, but a vehicle of communica-tion for a lifestyle. Nowadays, OSKLEN has 55 stores in Brazil. 2 in Milan 1 in Rome, 1 in New York, 1 in Miami (opening in February 2010) and 1 in Tokyo. Besides its showrooms in Italy, Greece, Russia, Australia and USA. OSKLEN also exports to France, UK, Germany, Korea and The Middle East.

The styleOskar Metsavaht is creator that keeps going between areas such as fashion, furniture design, social-environmental actions, expeditions and documenta-ries. His main activity is working as a style and creative director of OSKLEN, which reveals an original view of a contemporary, sophisticated and groovy Brazilian lifestyle. The brand, founded by Oskar, has stores in New York, Rome, Tokyo, Milan and in the main capitals of Brazil.

The ethos of Oskar Metsavaht and his creative team include the involvement with social-environmental issues since the nineties. Oskar is, for instance, the founder of instituto e, a not-for-profit institution located in Rio de Janeiro, dedicated to the promotion of sustainable human development. Through the institute, the project is developed, in partnership with companies, institutions and research centers, and it identifies fabrics and materials developed from social-environmental criteria. He is often invited to join as a speaker about new luxury in conferences around the world, such as Milano Fashion Summit and the Ethical Fashion Paris. “My creative process begins with a scene, a history, a style, a concept that I create from something that I wished or lived.

From this point, I create the environment, the atmosphere, the looks and the attitudes. In most cases, I have the concept of the campaign before the col-lection. Maybe that’s the reason I love doing the art shooting. I create the atmosphere of the story and I make my own films, with which I can share the scene I imagined from the beginning of the process. The pieces are drawn to be the figurine of my film. And it is possible to “watch” in each detail of my collection. I am only satisfied when proposed elements for each piece, the colors, the textures and the silhouettes start being used by the characters of the film I made” Oskar Metsavaht.

Meet ing Lenny N iemeyerat the R io Fash ion Show

Lenny’s inspirationWe get out of the taxi at the passenger terminal of pier Maurá. Construction of the new Rio Art Museum has started at the other end of the pier. With the 2014 Olympic Games coming up, Rio’s whole port area is being renovated and upgraded.

We enter the former warehouse where the Rio Fashion Show is taking place and head straight for the reception. “Boa tarde, we have a meeting with Lenny Niemeyer.” The building is beautifully renovated without hiding its origins as a warehouse. We make our way through the venue where the guests, a mix of cool, fashionable, young and old, many journalists are arriving. Lenny exudes a Zen-like calm, which is surprising as her new swimwear collection is going on show in less than an hour. “During the creation of the collection, I’m nervous and even insecure: creating the story behind the collection, finding the print, the materials and the colours,” she says, moving her arms as though she were painting the air. “Once the crea-tive process is over, I relax.”

From where we are standing, we can see the catwalk, while Lenny can at the same time keep her eye on the goings-on backstage. In the dressing room the air is filled with an electric excitement as models, hair stylists and make-up artists crowd around the mirrors. Meanwhile guests are pour-ing into the space and jostling for seats near the catwalk. As the tension rises backstage and the anticipation becomes palpable among the audi-ence, Lenny loses some of her composure. She disappears backstage and re-emerges two minutes later. “Showtime!”

We know the previous collection – Lenny even offered me a bikini for my birthday. “My main aim is to help women feel perfect,” she says without taking her eyes off the models. “When you meet somebody in São Paulo, you go to a restaurant or theatre play. When you meet somebody in Rio, chances are you will end up at the beach at some point. On the beach, you can’t hide and so you need the very best tools to present yourself. My beachwear is there to help you.”

“Look at the print on the bikini that the first model is wearing,” she says, pointing at the catwalk. “I get my inspiration for prints and colours from all over the world. For this collection I went to Asia and Africa. This particular design is drawn from the TingaTinga painting style from Tanzania in which they use shiny bicycle paint to depict animals in a primitive way.” The result is a lively bikini print with small fish swimming in random directions. “By traveling the world for inspiration, I bring the world to Brazil,” she says before disappearing backstage again.

The models strut their stuff over the catwalk, and in doing so, not only show off the exquisite swimwear, but also tell the story of Lenny’s quest for inspiration around the world.

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São Pau loA c i ty o f many

A wa lk in the park

w i th Al ine Santos

A walk in the parkWe leave our pousada just after breakfast. We walk to the corner of the street where we hail a taxi. “To Parque da Luz next to the Pinacoteca” I say in my best Portuguese. The taxi makes a left turn, then a right and then a left again, zigzagging through the streets of Jardims Paulista. “I love this part of town,” Maarten says while looking out of the window. “It doesn’t feel like we’re in a metropole of 20 million inhabitants.”

After 20 minutes we arrive at the Pinacoteca, the oldest and one of the most important art museums of Brazil, since 1905 housed in this charac-teristic building. Here we have a meeting with Aline Santos, global brand vice-president for Omo. We find her on the terrace of the Pinacoteca café which looks out over the park. “Instead of meeting in my office, I wanted to find the right setting to tell my story,” Aline says, pointing at the tall trees in the park. We look at the trees and back at Aline. “Is Omo into tree-washing these days?” we ask. “Not trees,” she replies, “but the children playing behind the trees.”

Dirt is good“A few years ago, we came up with the Dirt is good concept, which was a revolution in detergent land, where dirt used to be the enemy. We started encouraging parents to let their children play outside more. Let your kids dis-cover the world, let them get dirty and Omo will take care of the dirt. What started as an advertising campaign has grown into something much bigger. We discovered that there are many different reasons why children don’t play outside: lack of safety, strict education, lack of space and many other reasons.”

Aline points at the trees, or rather at the children behind the trees. “I remember my own childhood, I played outside with my brothers all the time, climbing trees, building tree houses, running around, feeling free and getting the opportunity to explore the world around me. This is not only important for kids, but also for the adults they will become.”

The São Paulo sun is shining in the park, we leave the café, start walking towards the children and stop in the shade of the trees. I watch the running children, then turn to Aline: “So Dirt is Good has become a philosophy?” She pauses for a few seconds. “You can say that it has outgrown Omo as a product and has become a wake-up call for mothers.”

Every child has the right“Using Omo as a vehicle, we started spreading the message about the importance of playing and exploring. The physical and emotional devel-opment that go with it. Children have the right to play, to be children. Of course, in the end we are a detergent producer and I have to make sure we sell enough products, but we make sure that we have a purpose in society.”

We walk back towards the Pinacoteca and I turn to Aline. “Thanks for your story. It is a most interesting challenge you have, creating a higher purpose for a detergent,” I say. “It probably isn’t a walk in the park at all.”

The Iguassu River meanders through the Mata Atlantica forest be-fore reaching its apotheosis at the Iguassu Falls. In the 16th century, when Portuguese explorers reached what is today the Brazilian coast, the Atlantic rainforest covered the whole coastline from north to south. ‘Civi-lisation’ replaced forest with cities and agriculture, leaving only 7 percent of the primary forest. “Who needs trees, if you can have cities and cars?” I think out loud, while we’re following a track through the wilderness towards the river. “But then again, what will we breath when there are no more trees left? Carbon dioxide?”

We follow a foot trail to the river to take in the serene beauty of the wil-derness. High up in the trees, a group of monkeys is making a huge racket. The noise approaches slowly and seems to come from different directions. Then we see them, crossing the track one by one, two levels up. They jump from tree to tree, stop and stare at us just as we are staring at them. “Is this the way to the river?” I ask them, pointing in a random direction. They look at me as if I’m speaking Chinese, and then continue their route. “Let’s assume this is the right direction,” I say and lead the way along the trail.

Suddenly I have the feeling that we’re being watched. I look back along the track, but see nothing. I scan the forest, but see only trees. Hundreds of animals are probably watching us, but we do not see a single one. But then I spot a black-and-orange bird high up in the trees. It’s a toucan, observ-ing each and every move we make. We walk on, but the bird is following us from the treetops. He moves down a level and starts shouting at us in toucan language. “What do you think you’re doing in my forest!” I look up and reply: “Sorry, but I thought this was a public space – we’re just taking some pictures.” The toucan moves down a branch and shouts: “Well, take your pictures elsewhere, this is my forest!” I look at the bird, amazed by its arrogance and reply: “Who do you think you are, Elvis or something?”

The bird comes down to ground level, settling on the railing of a makeshift bridge over a small stream. He sits there in silence and observes me from head to toe with an arrogant glint in his eye. “You may talk big, but I’m at least ten times bigger than you,” I say confidently, “so no funny business, do you hear?”

I slowly walk up to the bird, but he doesn’t fly away. I take another step closer, and just as I reach for my camera to take a close-up of this phe-nomenon, the toucan hops forward, takes the strap of my camera in his beak and starts pulling at it. ”I’ll show you strangers, stepping into my world with-out my permission!” Surprised but not afraid, I hold on to my camera and press the button, shooting some random pictures as evidence of this as-sault. “I must say you really have a big mouth for a small bird,” I observe. Then the bird lets go of my camera strap, flies up to the top of a tree and shouts down in toucan language: “And you humans have really small brains, cutting trees and destroying the forest!” He turns his back to us as concludes his tirade: “Now go forth… and stop reproducing!”

F ight w i th a toucan a t I guas su fa l l s

Mr. Seabra I presume

We’re in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest where we decide to take a boat downstream the Amazon river to Belém, which will take approximately 6 days. The menu on board is simple; rice, beans and meat every day, twice a day. The view is as consistent as the menu; river, boats and trees, every day, all day. So we spend our days lying in our hammock, fishing piranhas, eating beans and watch the trees go by.

Close to Belém we have a meeting with Luiz Seabra, the founder of Natura, a Brazilian cosmetics company. Natura procures part of the natural ingredi-ents for their products from the Amazon region. Sustainability, biodiversity and social responsibility are the key words, while working with local grow-ers in the Amazon. Luiz is here to see for himself that the biodiversity is not degraded and traditional local cultures are respected.

Anouk is sitting on the railing reading a dossier about Luiz while I try catching a piranha. “The man is more than a businessman or entrepre-neur”, Anouk says while browsing through her papers, “He’s a kind of phi-losopher as well. One of his favourite quotes is “the one is in the whole, the whole is in the one”. “Interesting”, I say, “what does it mean?”

“Let’s ask him when we meet”, Anouk says. “I also read that Natura was one of the first companies to embrace the triple bottom-line accounting, not only ensuring profit, but also taking care of people and planet. Interest-ing fact that a cosmetics brand from South America had such a vision in the early days of sustainability.” She continues reading as time goes by.

We arrive in Belém the seventh day in the early morning. Luiz is in a neigh-bouring town called Campo Limpo.

It is late in the afternoon when we arrive at the only hotel in Campo Limpo. “Do you have a guest called Luiz Seabra?” we ask the man behind the re-ception. “Nao, senhor Luiz is staying at the Hacienda. My name is Rodrigo, I can bring you there.”

We enter the farmhouse; on the left there is an empty reception desk, on the right a room with a fireplace, in front of the fireplace a man is sitting in a chaise longue, reading a book. We feel like Henry Stanley, the reporter who led an expedition through Africa in 1871 to find Doctor Livingstone, the explorer who was feared to be lost, captured or dead. We put down our bags and walk towards the man in front of the fire place “Doctor Living-stone I presume?” The man looks up from his book. “I mean, Mr. Seabra. Are you Luiz Seabra? The man smiles “Please, sit down”.

We spend two hours discussing the purpose in life, the privilege of being who you are and the responsibility as a company. “Enough philosophy”, he says all of a sudden, “do you want something to eat, you must be hungry”. During our conversation I forgot all about food, but suddenly I feel our abstinence of the last days. “Diner would be great”, I say, “sushi, pizza, anything, but please no rice and beans.”

Of course we know that California is an obligatory stop on our quest for cool stories and cool brands. But no one said we had to fly there. If we’re talking cool, how about the idea of taking a Harley down Route 66 to drive to California? Scenes from the Easy Rider movie enter my mind and I start spontaneously singing the Step-penwolf song “Get your motor running, head out on the highway…” Drive down the ‘mother’ road from Flagstaff right down to the Santa Monica pier. On the way we’ll drop off at the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas, before heading up north to meet with some Silicon Valley brands, like Google, HP and YouTube.

“Great,” says Anouk. “We have a plan, we have the itinerary, we know where to rent the bikes. That leaves us with just one question: what outfit shall I wear on my Harley?”

As we arrive in Flagstaff, we head straight for the Eagle Rider shop which is on the other side of town, on Route 66. Born and bred Ari-zona biker Jim is more than willing to help us pick the perfect bike. He has been a fanatic Harley rider for many years and is suggesting all kinds of tours. I think he is even willing to come with us, he can get right on the bike, his jeans and white shirt only need a leather jacket to complete the outfit. “For the trip you’re about to make, I recommend you take the Fatboy,” Jim says pointing at an impressive black bike standing in front of the shop. I mount the bike and push it to a vertical position to feel the weight. It has been some time since my last ride, so I have to get used to the weight and the power of the machine again. “It feels kind of heavy,” I say while balancing on the bike. I push the start button and the engine emits the unmistakable Harley sound. I get into first gear and the bike glides away smoothly. “Take it around the block,” Jim shouts. The bike roars as I accelerate and am absorbed by the traffic on Route 66. Again visions of Easy Rider’s Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper pop up in my mind. “Born to be wi-hild…” I sing out loud as I take my Fatboy around the block.

Back at the Harley shop, Anouk has picked a snow-white Heritage Softail. With her white outfit on the white bike, she looks like she’s starring in a commercial for a detergent. “Harley-Davidson makes your laundry whiter than white.” Twenty minutes later we wave goodbye to Jim and drive our bikes down Route 66 into setting sun, final destination Silicon Valley.

Route 66 Born To Be Wi ld

Er ic SchmidtEric Schmidt - When the man talks, you listenOur Harley-Davidsons are running hot as we pull up to the Google-plex in Mountain View, California. With our helmets under our arms, we walk into the reception area. “We’re here to meet the big boss,” I say in my best Arnold Schwarzenegger interpretation.

The Googleplex, Google’s famed California headquarters, looks like a uni-versity campus. Many low-rise buildings, all connected by bike trails, are at the heart of the complex. We spot little gardens that grow vegetables and herbs, taken care of by the cooks to prepare healthy food. Inside, we see people thrive in a highly personalized environment that allows them to be themselves within the ever-buzzing hive. Apparently, even shoes are optional! Within these hallowed walls great concepts like Google Earth, Gmail, Chrome and Android were created.

In one of the coffee corners, we meet the man who powers it all, Google CEO Eric Schmidt. “Everything you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask, is now purring readily at your fingertips,” he jokes. “It is all about context. You really want to go from syntax to semantics, from what you typed to what you meant,” he elaborates.

Anouk explains that we’re looking for People, Planet, Profit stories. “We can see you take good care of your people, we know you make profit, but what about the planet, the third P of the triple-bottom line?” she asks. Eric smiles, “Ah, you want to talk about Google Green,” he says. “That is quite a story. I will tell you some things now and we can elaborate later on. A huge pool of solar panels has been fueling about 30 percent of the Googleplex since 2007. And the power of the sun is just one of many sustainable initia-tives within Google Green,” he continues. “We of course use energy but we compensate accordingly, efficiently and definitively. Our data centers have been tuned to use 50 percent less energy than most known facilities”.

He pauses for a moment giving me the opportunity to ask a question. “In the parking lot we saw several biodiesel shuttles. What are they used for?”

“We do not stop caring at our front door,” Eric says while raising a finger. “Google wind farms in North Dakota, for instance, now generate enough megawatts to power 55,000 homes.” Eric is back on track and I will not disturb him with a question about the colored bikes on the campus. “These farms have garnered enough trust to develop a project to build a trans-mission backbone off the mid-Atlantic coast to accelerate offshore wind development. The potential? Collecting 6,000MW of wind, enough to serve 1.9 million households.” Eric pauses and looks at us for a reaction. “Wow,” I say ……..“So, if we are talking Google Green, this means using less energy within Google, and generating renewable energy from solar power and wind for millions of households… And what about the colored bikes on the campus?”

Elaboration will be on:Google Green – CO2 reduction

Windmills project

In 1999, I visited a small office in Palo Alto, California. I guess there were about twenty people present, each one of them absorbed in their computer screens. When the time came for me to leave the office, I stepped out onto the street and was immediately accosted by a fellow pe-destrian who asked where I had just been. I gestured be-hind me, indicating the office building I’d recently exited. “Ah, you’ve just seen the future,” declared the stranger.

Qua l i ty, c reat i v i ty and r i va l ry

Goog le ’s w inn ing combinat ion

BrandQuality – it countsIf, in 1999, you asked anyone in Palo Alto what observations they could make about Google, you would receive the sort of enthused reply I encoun-tered as I left the building on my first visit there. There has always been a strong recognition about the product’s quality. In fact, at the time, this out-standing product was probably the best of its kind in the world. Yet, from the start, the vox popoli of Palo Alto would also question whether Google would ever make any money. Not only was using the product free of charge, there were no ads, no banners, no links – the pages showed nothing apart from your search results.

Google couldn’t care less. For Google it was all about optimising their product and making sure it became the world leader. Once the product was in order, the Google guys knew that revenue would follow in one way or another. And it did.

Yet, many brands still claim that an average product is good enough as long as the brand behind it is powerful. This notion was not without reason in the past, but these days whatever veracity it held is fading. Increasingly, consumers are looking beyond the brand’s glitter and becoming critical and astute judges of quality, evaluating brands on the merit of their products, rather than relying on the brand’s reputation to assure them of product quality. Apple’s iPod is a case in point.

Three years in development, the Apple iPod reputedly took a committed Steve Jobs one year to engineer a way of eliminating visible screws to achieve the desired aesthetic. Would the lack of visible screws alone have won the iPod its reputation? Probably not. But attention to this detail, and many others, contributed to a peerlessly refined whole. The parallel with Google is clear.

In a world of relentless cost-cutting, we tend to labour under the impression that people want things cheaper, faster and in larger quantities. In fact, the opposite is the case. Today, Louis Vuitton sells more luggage to average wage earners than ever before. Nokia’s 7700 sold out despite being the most expensive phone in its league, its purchasers including the whole socio-economic spectrum from business people to kids. The fact is that the great majority of consumers appreciate quality. More than ever, quality should not be overlooked. It should be promoted and pur-sued as a key to success.

Brand S t ra tegy Put conventional marketing asideI’ve never been a big fan of TV commercials and print advertising. Trust me, I’ve done it all hundreds of times over. By now, these techniques have reached their ‘sell-by’ date. Try and remember just one television commer-cial you watched yesterday, I know I can’t recall any. This lack of impression has been made on you and me as canny marketers.

Google’s launch of the spectacularly successful Gmail demonstrates the wisdom of the young company’s approach. Instead of emailing millions of consumers, running TV commercials and billboard ads, they went in quietly. Google invited a close group of Google fans to sign up to the email service and enabled Gmail users to invite their friends to become Gmailers. Google simply used the ‘by invitation only’ technique. As each Gmail account own-er invited peers to join Gmail, the network slowly grew. Three years later, there are still no ads in the paper, no radio commercials and no commercial promotions of Gmail in evidence anywhere. In fact, you can’t even find a sign-up function on Google’s homepage, a distinct oddity in the traditional marke ting context. Convention would demand visibility on the home page. But Google has built its brand on that most powerful of promotional tools, word-of-mouth.

Just like Apple, every Google product is unique, so that when new re-leases hit the streets, people talk about them. Gmail was the first email service to offer several free gigabytes of storage ‘so you’ll never need to delete another message’, as the welcome page to every account states. That alone encouraged consumer con versation at a time when you typi-cally paid US$10 for every 10 megabytes of storage. Then Google became the first to offer pictures taken from space. Now you could see your own backyard from the air. That unique service also made people talk. The message here is that the uniqueness of the product was enough to do the marketing work.

Brand Innovat ionGive space to creativityGoogle is quick into turning things around. But how does Google manage rapid introductions so smoothly? The secret lies in the way the company encourages staff members to divide their time.

Everyone is asked to dedicate 70% of their time to their core role; 20% of their time to the development of their favourite functionality, or of a new feature they believe will serve the company’s future; and 10% to whatever project they’re interested in developing – whether it’s linked to Google or not. As I write, for example, a team is working on space-related equipment – stuff hardly linked to Google’s existing product platform. But, you know what? This was how Google came up with the library service, Google Earth. Google has arrived at many of its services by enabling creativity to thrive and allowing its pursuit in the workplace. This bucks the trend experienced by most companies where, once within the confines of the office, any latent creativity that resides within the company community withers and dies. In most companies, the space for creativity and initiative has been filled with pre scriptive timesheets, spreadsheets and research briefs. So development stalls.