Mario’s Entangled Bank

What can the academic research lab learn from Google’s corporate philosophy when it comes to creating a productive and intellectually stimulating research environment. It’s well known that the work environment at Googleplex does not resemble your typical corporate environment. After getting a brief glimpse of the internal workings of Googleplex the other day here are a few wholesome tips and tricks for the average prof running an academic lab (caveat: of course I have no experience what so ever of running a lab, but I have been and seen my share of labs so in that spirit, here we go).

• “20 percent time“, i.e. spending 20% time of your time doing things that you think are important and that you are passionate about. Googlers do it and it has given rise to success stories such as GMail and Google News. Just imagine what your graduate students and postdocs would come up with if they had free reins (they could ofcourse also just end up drinking malted beverages). Ideally of course, the “20% time” should be covered by the overhead of grant applications.
• No more than 30 feet away from food. Google feed their people and so should profs. Ok, it does not have to be fine cuisine a la Google, but snacks and coffee + the the occasional social meal (on the prof) would undoubtedly boost lab morale, collegial  interactions, and productivity. I am a firm believer that weekly lab breakfasts are the way to go, others believe in providing pizza for their hard working graduate students and postdocs. Actually some research institutions do feed their people, e.g. the Collegium Budapest Institute for Advanced Study (at least they did when I was there).
• No single person offices. Academic research should be a social activity – it’s so much more fun that way.
• No doors! If the University administration has an issue with removing the doors and hanging them on the walls a la Googleplex, a lab policy should be instituted against closed doors (the only exceptions would be if no one is in the office or someone is getting it on).
• Creative space encouraging informal work. Pull out the toys, bean bags, couches, tents, djembes, cots (for napping), crayons and create play rooms.
• Fun lab culture. Occasionally, do social activities together, e.g. hiking, kayaking, sports, bbq,… and require people to participate [or not].
• …and, don’t forget the lava lamps, pinball machines, pool table, and the industrial grade espresso machine.

This is from the “Mario’s Entangled Bank” blog ( http://pineda-krch.com ) of Mario Pineda-Krch, a theoretical biologist at the University of California, Davis.