SIME Barcelona Wrap Up: The Universal Yes, Press Release and Two Pizza Rule

Amazon CTO, Werner Vogels, explains three keys to driving success at Amazon

Golden Gekko’s recently attended SIME Barcelona, an event that brought together thought leaders from around the globe to discuss the latest trends in digital. The event featured an impressive array of entrepreneurs, investors and marketing professionals from various industries including media, telecom, e-commerce and mobile.

The event was highly inspirational. Countless tales of entrepreneurial successes and failures make any corporate drone dream of quitting their job and founding the next Google in their garage. Highlights from the day included co-founder of Flickr, Caterina Fake. She candidly recounted how the start-up overcame early obstacles and financial woes (think - mortgaging the house to keep business afloat) to beat the odds. Now Flickr is one of the world’s most popular photo sharing websites. Another memorable story was told by John Hanke, VP of Geo at Google. Hanke vividly retold the story of pitching the “crazy concept” of a 3D map of the globe to Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Google Earth has now been downloaded by over 700 million unique users. 

While these talks were inspiring, the highlight of the day and most tangible takeaways were delivered by Amazon’s CTO, Werner Vogels. Mr. Vogel outlined three bold management strategies that have propelled Amazon to success and could be worth considering for your organization as well:

·         The Universal Yes – In order to encourage innovation and empower employees, Amazon has implemented a policy whereby all new ideas presented will be given the go ahead. If a co-worker disagrees with the idea, he/she must write a 6-page report outlining their reasoning. This a clear break from the traditional norm in large corporations where new ideas are many times suppressed or rejected with little explanation. This attitude has helped Amazon continuously to be a leader in innovation.

·         Two Pizza Rule – Large, global corporations face tough challenges. In order to effectively tackle issues, Vogel argues that problems should be broken down and divided among smaller teams: teams no bigger than two large pizzas can feed. This way, teams can focus and isolate on a specific issue without being bogged down in corporate bureaucracy. 

·         Press Release – As everyone knows, Amazon prides itself on being customer centric. Before making a business decision, Amazon always asks, “How will this add value for our customers?” In this spirit, Vogel explained their atypical product development process, which starts with a mock press release and FAQ of the new product. Writing a press release and FAQ document before the development phase forces developers to envision the end result of the product and how it will be received by customers. This important step in the process helps Amazon align new products with customer needs.

Overall, SIME Barcelona was a great break from the daily grind to listen and reflect on the rapidly changing digital industry. It’s amazing to see how quickly the digital landscape is evolving and we were encouraged to repeatedly hear that mobile apps will be an ever-growing force. We look forward to attending next year.


By Anna Satterfield, Jeffrey McAndrew and Charles Murphy