Google: A Virtual Video Headquarters Tour

Segways, exercise rooms, video arcade games, a gourmet cafeteria. Did you die, or perhaps move to some Western European welfare state? No, you're just an average "Googly" person, who's got the smarts -- and, apparently, the youth -- to work for the search-engine giant. See all this stuff and more on the quick video tour I've put together.Before you get ticked at my mild sarcasm, let me point out that I'm as much awed and perplexed by Google as I am amused at the cult-like stance (or, trance) many of its people seem to be in the grips of.

The video below (it's also in the rotation in the main video player on InformationWeek's home page) was cobbled together out of B-roll provided by Google to the press. This mean that the original clips are all indicative of how the company wants to present itself to the public.

Here it is:

So, what did you think? Is it as good as Across The Universe? Leave your comments below.

I'm fascinated by two points:

Google-speak How is it that every Google employee has internalized the company line so completely? I guess I would be saying such things, too, if I was working at a place which treats its employees to such great perks. (Yes, boss, this place is great, too.) Of course, the early days of a massively successful enterprise are always heady. One wonders how things will be five years from now, when pressure for continued growth creates pressure to pull back on employee perks. It's always notable how company lines always hit a point where they can't survive realistic scrutiny. Remember what Stacy Sullivan, Google's chief cultural officer and human resources director, said in the video? Here's her quote: "I think some of the key elements of what a Googly individual would be is, someone who is flexible, focuses on just getting things done, doesn't worry about who they're working with, and politics." No politics? Oh, please. What happens, I wonder, if someone pipes up in a Google meeting about how they really like something Microsoft is doing? Let's accept that corporate speak at Google (or anywhere else, for that matter) is simply a story everyone within a company repeats to reassure each other that things are fine. Indeed, at a massively successful firm, reassurance is important. It must be scary to be a software-industry version of The Beatles, and there must be unimaginable pressures to keep the ball rolling (along with occasional doubts as to whether all the success to date is truly deserved or just good luck). My second point is: What do all these people do? As I noted in my 5 Cool Google Tools You Should Know About the other day is, what the heck do all these people at Google do? Once you get past search, the new online apps, and Google Earth, what do the other tens of thousands of employees work on? Mentoring the Summer of Code kids can only take up so much time. As best as I can tell, Google's model is that it will take stuff created by any of its groups and put it out in public to see if it's a potential product, no matter how medium-baked a project might be. Google seems to believe this "throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks" model is a far better way to ferret out the winners than to have a bunch of software executives sitting in a room deciding what's best for users. You know what? They're probably right.