A Visit to Silicon Valley – Part 1

Recently I was given the opportunity to accompany a group of high school students who were State STLP Championship Technical showcase winners on a trip to Silicon Valley to visit some of the biggest names in tech.  For a geeky educator like me, it was my version of being a fan girl.  We were given the opportunity across two days to visit the campuses of Google, EA Games and Facebook, plus made a quick stop at Stanford to visit the D School.  It was of course just as cool as you might imagine, but it also sparked lots of reflection on my part about how we need to be changing the educational experience for our students.  

Since I’m sure I’ll have more to share than you will want to read in one post, I’ll divide up my thoughts.  In part one, we’ll start with the basics of what we did, who we met and what we learned at major stops.  I am incredibly grateful to the hosts from each of the companies we visited for taking time out of their day to share about the culture of their company, show us around a bit and most importantly for spending time talking about their career path and the work they do.  It was extra exciting that we met with University of Kentucky graduates at two of our stops (EA Games and Facebook), which drives home the point that Kentucky kids can do anything.

Stop one was at Google, where we were able to meet with a member of the Google for Education team.  As a Google Certified Trainer, I was certainly interested in hearing about Google’s culture and goals, and their approach to meeting the needs of the whole worker.  Our host shared about the types of jobs at Google, which obviously include a wide range of skills beyond just computer programming.  Some other technical examples include product manager, user experience research and software engineer.  We also heard about moonshot thinking and heard about one example that has led to development of a contact lens that may someday be able to help diabetic patients more easily measure their sugar levels through the tears in their eyes.

We also heard about 20% time and how that might really play out.  Employees are given a lot of freedom to manage their own time as needed, and many will use their own time to pursue their passions, so it doesn’t necessarily take away from “company time”.  But what really matters is that Google supports its employees with more than just time.  These projects don’t have to be technology focused.  For example, our host wanted to teach Yoga.  Employees are strongly encouraged to pursue their interests and to teach them to others.  In her case, she was able to take a month off work for yoga studies that Google paid for so she could teach on campus.  And as a former English teacher and non-programmer, she also took a python course in order to better understand that perspective.

The point is that part of the Google culture is to encourage employees to bring their whole self to campus, but not so that their lives are consumed by work.  Happy workers whose needs are met are more likely to be invested in their work and in the company.  Of course a fun campus doesn’t hurt either.  From Google bicycles to ride between the MANY buildings, to free food in a variety of cafeterias and food trucks to the famous slide (no we didn’t get to try it out), it’s clear that an inviting workspace is important.  Unfortunately we didn’t get to see many work areas, but a quick visit to the visitor’s area reinforced the fun side of work with a stop at the ball pit that we got to try out.  It was created by a Googler for a nearby art festival and then found it’s home at campus.

I think you get the idea.  Google was definitely a cool first stop on our trip.  In my next installment, I will highlight some of the similarities and differences in our visits to EA Games and Facebook.