Mike Stopforth

We’re at the Forum, The Campus in Bryanston listening to Google SA Country Manager Stafford Massie introducing the morning’s events. Guest speaker is Douglas Merrill, CIO and VP of Engineering for Google.

I’ll be updating periodically as the morning progresses. Damn, 3G died on me.

Here are my notes:

Douglas is giving us a general introduction to Google, more engaging that what we heard at the launch event, maybe because it’s coming from someone who has the ethos of the business in his blood.

If you haven’t read The Google Story, much of this is elaborated on in there.

“Our entire business model from the beginning has been ‘follow the user’”

Douglas comes across as a fantastically enthusiastic nerd, and it’s totally absorbing. It’s also likely he has more money than I will ever know or see, but it doesn’t come through.

The power of translation - “how much better would the world be if we could understand what others are saying about and to us in their native language?”

“ALL THE WORLD’S INFORMATION”

Stafford - mission is to ‘light up Africa’

Educate, empower, transactions, bringing all Google products and services to SA.