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Posted by Josh Mendelsohn, Program
Manager

Over the past few days, we've followed the devastation left in
the wake of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar (Burma). News reports have
tallied more than 22,000 dead with another 41,000 missing.
We're extremely saddened by the loss of life due to this
cyclone, and hope you'd like to help assist with the relief
effort.

As we did after href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/wildfire-relief-donations.html"
id="j9np" >last fall's wildfires in Southern California,
we've created a href="http://www.google.com/myanmarcyclone/" id="gyvr" >Checkout
Donations page so you can easily donate to href="http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/myanmar_43788.html"
id="c4jh" >UNICEF or href="http://www.directrelief.org/EmergencyResponse/2008/CycloneNargisMyanmar/CycloneNargisMyanmar.aspx"
id="eiu0" >Direct Relief International.
Both organizations are working to directly assist the victims on
the ground in Myanmar.

To help visualize the damage, there are Google Earth layers showing
an href="http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2008/05/tracking-path-of-cyclone-nargis.html"
id="x2oi" >animation of
the cyclone's path (using satellite imagery from the Naval
Research Laboratory) and href="http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2008/05/unosat-layer-of-myanmar-cyclone-data.html"
id="nzjs" >the extent of the
flooding using data from the UN Institute for Training and
Research Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT).
We'll keep posting information to the href="http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/" id="m3i_"
>Lat-Long Blog as more data comes
available.

There are also several Google Grants non-profits working to provide
relief to those affected. href="https://secure.ga4.org/01/cyclone_nargis" id="cedv"
>Save the Children currently has a
500-person staff in the area, while href="https://donate.oxfamamerica.org/02/myanmar" id="eu.h"
>Oxfam America has committed $800,000 to
help NGOs meet the immediate needs of people. href="http://www.worldvision.org/news.nsf/news/myanmar-cyclone-20080505?open&lid=20225&lpos=fea_txt_ReadMore"
id="mi.s" >World Vision and href="http://doctorswithoutborders.org/news/article.cfm?id=2656"
id="b4h7" >Doctors Without
Borders are also taking action with two of the most vulnerable
populations in the crisis: children and the injured. We are pleased
to be working with and supporting these organizations that are
contributing directly to cyclone relief. We encourage you to visit
them and consider lending them your support, too. For more details
on these organizations and other non-profits providing support for
the victims of the disaster, visit the

href="http://googlegrants.blogspot.com/2008/05/grant-recipients-helping-victims-of.html"
id="b:qu" >Google Grants blog.

href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/blogspot/MKuf?a=sEMRgH" > border="0" />

height="1" width="1" />

Tags: , few, Josh, ManagerOver, Mendelsohn, past, Posted, Program

Guest post by John
Battelle

Over the past few years I’ve made at least a dozen 90-minute treks
from my href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=230 Hillside Ave, Greenbrae, CA 94904&spn=0.004066,0.007175&t=k&hl=en" >
forested perch at the north end of San Francisco Bay down to
the href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=google mountain view&ll=37.423406,-122.082659&spn=0.003893,0.007023&t=k&num=10&start=0&hl=en" >
Googleplex, which sits at the heart of Silicon Valley. The
reason? I was writing a book, and Google was a major part of the
story. I always enjoyed the drive, I’d go down to interview the
founders, early product managers, recent hires and advisors, and
I’d drive up with a full tape recorder and plenty to think about.

But last Friday I drove down for another reason. My book href="http://www.battellemedia.com/thesearch/" >The Search: How Google and Its Rivals
Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our
Culture, has just come out, and much to my astonishment,
Google invited me down to give a talk. While Google staffers were
extremely generous with their time, the fact remained that the book
told the story as I heard it from many different sources, inside
and outside the company. And on my own href="http://www.battellemedia.com/" >Searchblog, where I cover
search and its implications, I've been known to call Google out
as often as I offer praise.

As I drove down, I fretted over any number of things. Who might
show up for the talk (what if no one did?!). What mistakes might be
pointed out - flaws in my reporting, my writing, or my conclusions?
What if the famously combative Google culture turned on me?

I needn’t have worried. My host Karen Wickre, whom I’ve known since
my days as a cub reporter at MacWeek, met me at the door, and
before I could make my way to the lecture hall, a clutch of
friendly folks had surrounded me. Once there I saw href="http://battellemedia.com/archives/001653.php" >Louis
Monier, founder of Alta Vista and the star of Chapter Three,
who had recently left eBay to join Google. And href="http://www.norvig.com/" >Peter Norvig, Google’s director
of search quality, who helped me understand Google’s core search
service and even presented at my href="http://battellemedia.com/archives/000960.php" >Web 2.0
conference last year. And many more, many of whom I had spoken
to, but most of whom I had never met.

I began by explaining how I came to write the book, a three-year
odyssey which started with a link, back in late 2001, to Google’s
first
Zeitgeist. I read how I came to the idea of the href="http://battellemedia.com/archives/000063.php" >Database of
Intentions, and I read some funny emails from webmasters who
had encountered the early href="http://www.google.com/corporate/history.html" >BackRub
crawler. And because it was clear the audience wanted to ponder
the future of the company they had joined, I read from the chapter
entitled “Google Today, Google Tomorrow.”

The best part, by far, was the Q&A that followed. Googlers are
some of the most sincere questioners I've ever encountered. The
exchange felt very much like conversations I've had with
graduate students when I was teaching at Berkeley - no agendas,
just a desire to challenge and to learn. Afterward folks lined up
to have me sign their books. As the line dwindled, I looked behind
me and there was Eric Schmidt, who more than any other source went
out of his way to lend me his time and insights. He shook my hand
and thanked me for coming, and I have to say, I was honored by the
gesture. I did my best to be fair in the book, but it's never
easy to read about yourself, to be the subject of someone
else's conclusions. The same could be said of the entire Google
team who came to listen and to converse, and I'm truly grateful
for the experience.

Tags: , BattelleOver, few, Guest, John, past, post, years

Posted by Ricky Opaterny,
Authors@Google team

For over the past year, we've invited some of the most
prominent and promising thinkers, artists, leaders, and
personalities of our time to give talks and have discussions at
Google about their recently published books. We call the series
Authors@Google, and, we've posted videos of many of our events
online. And now, the program has grown out of our Mountain View
headquarters to include seven U.S. offices as well as our London
and Dublin offices.

In addition, we've just added our most important location yet:
an online home at http://www.google.com/talks/authors”>google.com/talks/authors
with a http://www.latimes.com/extras/festivalofbooks”>Los Angeles
Times Festival of Books — the largest book-related event in
the U.S. If you're in the area, do stop by, say hello, and
browse books and videos from some of our previous events.

Tags: , Authors@Google, Opaterny, past, Posted, Ricky, teamFor, year