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The changing role of multinationals, 12 July 2011

There is a fascinating article, Think Again, by Shawn Doonan in last weekend's FT magazine. It's about Google's new think/do-tank, Google Ideas and the changing role of multinationals - www.ft.com/cms/s/2/b8e8b560-a84a-11e0-9f50-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1RuBpP7Oz. Here are some excerpts and thoughts.

Google Ideas aims to take on the world's biggest problems - 'from exploring how to make fragile states like Somalia function better, to addressing the lack of judicial resources faced by many developing nations' -  and it raises the 'Good versus Evil' debate about companies to a much more interesting level.

Google Ideas is run by Jared Cohen, an ex-state department 'wunderkind'...'best known for convincing Twitter not to shut down for maintenance at a crucial moment during the protests that followed Iran's 2009 elections.'

It exists within Google's business operations and strategy division, not under its philanthropic arm as it might in most companies. This recognises the relevance of technology to most of the world's challenges and Google's business model.

'According to Eric Schmidt, Google's business model remains "to come up with new ideas to make the world a better place. The point is, as a corporation, we're trying to do more than just serve our shareholders. We're also literally trying to serve our citizens, our customers."

I buy that because these people are the customers and citizens of the world, so why wouldn't Google try to solve world-scale problems? Also their people have the collective intelligence and desire to do so - it's one of the reasons they work there. What other company could or would set up something like Google Ideas? 

So Google, rightfully, is at the cutting edge of a bigger transformation about the changing role of the multinational.

'While companies may have been able to resist getting involved in some controversial problems in the past, it is unlikely they will be able to do so for long.

"If you look at the role that companies are playing in the world...these are corporations that have to be part of the solutions of most of the top problems that are on the (US) secretary of state and president's list," says Anne-Marie Slaughter, who was Cohen's last boss at the state department policy planning unit..."Whether that is combatting violent extremism, or climate change, or the development of the global economy broadly, or global pandemics, those are not issues that can be solved only by governments...because they involve changing individual behaviour on the ground. And who is on the ground? Well, foundations, (aid and advocacy groups) and corporations."

...'Slaughter contends that companies will need to re-examine their social responsibility programmes..."This is not just about how companies can give back," she says."This is about how companies can contribute to important policy problems."

'Google Ideas is part of a bigger collaboration between Cohen and Schmidt. The pair have co-authored a book due to be published next year. Entitled Empire of the Mind, it grew out of an essay published in Foreign Affairs magazine last November that predicted technology would rewrite the relationship between states and their citizens, and went some way towards predicting the revolutions a few months later in Tunisia and Egypt. "Governments will be caught off-guard when large numbers of their citizens, armed with virtually nothing but cell phones, take part in mini-rebellions that challenge their authority," reads its second sentence.

Cohen's model for Google Ideas calls for it to bring together the public sector, the private sector, academia and society at large to share ideas and brainstorm solutions.'

Surely this is a much better model than industrial lobbies in government?

A recent summit against violent extremism in Dublin, organised by Google Ideas, comprised former US gang members, 80 former jihadists, neo-Nazi skinheads and one-time Irish extremists and was co-sponsored by the more traditional think-tank, the Council on Foreign Relations. A great example of the power of the new networks.

But as Schmidt says."It's very easy to be a think-tank. it's very hard to do the 'do' part."

If any company can, I think Google can because they know it's the right thing to do. I don't agree with Shawn Donnan's final comment that 'you can also get a sense that Google Ideas may ultimately be another product being deployed by a company used to seeding ideas and walking away if they do not take off.' 

Google is a positive example of the changing role of the multinational.

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