Google Student Blog: December 2008

Googlers Beta

December 19, 2008

The Student Has Become the Teacher
During a Google internship PhD student Sam Slee discovered the openness of the Google culture and found a way to become part of it.

Name: Sam Slee Department: Google Analysis Products Background: PhD candidate from Duke University working on Self-Reconfigurable Robotics. How it happened: I first wanted to come to Google because I was inspired by stories of a great company culture and their famed "Don't be evil" motto. I wasn't disappointed. During the course of my internship much of my work was about writing connections from my team's codebase to several other large, existing Google systems. That meant I had to learn a lot about these core, internal workings that most companies would try to keep hidden. But the Google culture is incredibly open. Even as an intern, I was able to read through documentation and source code for these important Google technologies. Whenever I came up with more detailed questions, there were plenty of Googlers that I could go to in person or by email who were very eager to provide help. That eagerness rubs off, and after a while I looked to start sharing all of the documentation and tutorials that I had written while learning about those Google technologies. I eventually found an intern in another office -- in another city, actually -- who needed to start working with a particularly big, internal system that I had written an online tutorial for. It took me 2 days to get that system set up when I first tried it. Following my tutorial, it took him about 2 hours. He was thrilled to say the least, and at that point I felt like I had contributed as a real part of the Google culture.
To learn more about how you can become a Google intern, please visit www.google.com/jobs/students/intern. We are now accepting applications for Summer 2009.
Posted by Jessica Bagley, University Programs Team

Santa Claus is coming to town

December 17, 2008

grinchNORAD Santa TrackergadgetNORAD Tracks Santa websiteSantaCam network

Happy Tracking!

Posted by Jeff Martin, Product Marketing Manager and Santa enthusiast

Gmail sticker fun

December 15, 2008

manage your email without touching your mouse

Send me some Gmail stickers already
P.O. Box 391420
Mountain View, CA 94039-1420*Our lawyers asked us to make sure it was clear that your contact information won't be maintained in any way and these stickers are "void where prohibited and only while supplies last."Posted by Arielle Reinstein, Gmail Product Marketing Manager

Get your challenge on!

December 11, 2008

You may have seen our post a few weeks ago about last year's global winning team for the Google Online Marketing Challenge. The five students from the University of Western Australia partnered with a local climbing gym to create a rock-solid online marketing campaign. Next year's blog post could be about you!

Registration has begun for the 2009 Google Online Marketing Challenge , and we need YOU to help us get the word out. Last year over 8,000 students participated in the Challenge, which brought AdWords into 350 classrooms in nearly 50 countries across the globe.

The Challenge is a global competition where teams of 3-6 students receive US$200 of online advertising with AdWords and then source local businesses to work with to devise a campaign. Teams outline a strategy, run their campaign, assess the results and provide the business with recommendations to further develop their online marketing. The winners are judged by an international panel of independent academics.
The challenge is a great way to get you and your classmates involved in the quickly evolving world of online marketing. It's a skill you'll want to have as you graduate and prepare to enter a tough job market. And most importantly, it's fun! Our feedback from students who participated in last year's challenge was overwhelmingly positive.
If you think your professors, lecturers or tutors might be interested in signing their classes up for the Challenge, let them know about this opportunity! The Challenge is open to any university, any discipline, at the graduate or undergraduate level. Individual teams can sign up as well as entire classes as long as a professor agrees to oversee the project. And if you'd like some help approaching your professor, here's an email template with everything they'll need to know to decide if the Challenge is right for them.

Hurry because registration for the Challenge ends January 23rd, and the competition runs between January 26th and May 22nd 2009.

Finally, be sure to visit the Online Challenge website to check out details of last years' winning campaigns!Posted by Cynthia Benin on behalf of the Challenge team

Daniel connects Googlers across the world

December 9, 2008

Ever wanted to know more about working in the "real world" besides what your parents and friends have told you? Do you have to be a gifted golfer to succeed in the corporate world? Will you have to become a business casual dresser? Most importantly, will you be challenged in a collegial, collaborative environment? Here is your opportunity to learn from Googlers across the company and around the globe who aren't that much older than you and are excited to share their stories about working at Google. Read about their experiences growing sales teams that generated hundreds of millions of dollars, performing stand-up in front of a thousand coworkers, and developing technical systems with JavaScript and Python. Here is the first of our 20,000+ part series about our Google employees, our Googlers.

Name: Daniel Helmhold
Department: Online Sales and Operations (OSO) – AdWords Acquisitions Team

Education: UC Davis, International Relations and Spanish
Background: 4.5 years at Google

My story:
Since first going abroad to study in college, I've had a passion for travel and exposure to other cultures. This interest ultimately led me to study International Relations and Spanish. So when I started working at Google, I was excited to seek out international professional experience. Soon, I started as the OSO Ambassador to Dublin in Q1 of 2006. I helped launch our European Inside Sales Team, and I knew I wanted to help give other Googlers the opportunity to have a similar experience through the Ambassador Program.

Since then, I've worked as global co-chair of the Ambassador Program, which has helped send over 100 Googlers to offices world wide over the past 2+ years. The program is now established in Mountain View, Ann Arbor and Boston in the US as well as Sao Paolo, Buenos Aires, Dublin, Wroclaw, Hyderabad, Gurgaon, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Sydney. As OSO grows, the Ambassador Program gives us an opportunity to erase the distances between offices by connecting Googlers in-person around the world, and letting them find innovative ways to address a variety of challenges.

While my involvement as a coordinator of the Ambassador Program has never been my core job, it's always been a very important part of my life at Google and a project I look forward to staying involved as long as I'm here.

Posted by Andrea Powers, University Programs Team

Calling all musicians: Join YouTube's Symphony Orchestra

December 8, 2008

hereYouTube Symphony Orchestra channelYouTube BlogPosted by , YouTube Team

The Digital Archaeological Atlas of the Holy Land

December 5, 2008

New developments in information technology are rapidly revolutionizing the fields of archaeology, history, and the social sciences. The Digital Archaeological Atlas of the Holy Land (DAAHL) is one example of this that you can see for yourself at http://daahl.ucsd.edu*. This is the first 'node' in a network of online archaeological atlases that are part of the MedArchNet (Mediterranean Archaeology Network project), which is an international effort to create a 'portal science' for archaeology around the Mediterranean Sea.

The DAAHL brings together experts in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and the archaeology of the Holy Land (Israel, Palestine, Jordan, southern Lebanon, Syria and the Sinai Peninsula) to create the first online digital atlas of the region. Using the power of Google Maps and the Google Earth API, the tens of thousands of recorded archaeological sites for the region - from the remote prehistoric periods to the early 20th century - will be entered into a comprehensive database along with site maps, photographs and artifacts. The good news for you is that you can also use this digital atlas as a research tool.

Archaeologists study the past by looking at similarities and differences in human material culture across space, time, and form. The DAAHL project uses a variety of Google Maps and Google Earth API interfaces to help. Archaeological sites can be mapped by time period, by the ancient empire with which they were associated, and against a background of historic maps drawn in the 1870s and 1880s. Another exciting new development in the Digital Atlas is the Virtual Museum, which displays three dimensional objects in a Google Earth API, suspended over their find spot at the site they originated. The application lets you roll the object in all three dimensions, which is as close to holding the object as it can be.

So head to http://daahl.ucsd.edu

*The historical and archaeological data for this project has been developed by a team of over 30 international scholars working in the region. This DAAHL website has been developed at the Geo-Archaeological information Systems Lab at Arizona State University, and is served from the California Institute for Telecommunications and Technology (Calit2), UC San Diego.

Posted by Thomas E. Levy, University of California, San Diego, Stephen H. Savage, Arizona State University, and Chaitan Baru, Supercomputer Center, University of California, San Diego

Countdown to 2009

December 3, 2008

The end of the year is finally in sight. For you, that probably also means tons of work as you get through exams, rush to finish that term paper (which you should have started a month ago) and juggle your agenda to see family and friends. There's little we can do to alleviate your workload, but we thought that we could share some tips to help you make the best of your holidays and year-end celebrations.

In that spirit, we wanted to share one new Google tip per day as we count down to 2009. We'll cover everything from how to use Google Docs Holiday Templates to checking your flight status with Google Search. There will be much more to come throughout December, so check Google's Countdown to 2009 daily and add the countdown gadget to your iGoogle page.

We wish you good luck with all your year-end school activities and a great head start to the holiday season!
Posted by Sergio Civetta, Senior Product Marketing Manager

Google Workshop for Women Engineers

December 2, 2008

As part of Google's ongoing commitment to encouraging women to excel in computing and technology, we are pleased to host the 2009 Google Workshop for Women Engineers to recognize and reward deserving female graduate students in computer science, and inspire them to become active participants and leaders in creating technology. For more information on the program and to find out how to apply, please visit http://www.google.com/jobs/students/gwwe. The deadline to apply is Friday, December 5, 2008.

Up to 75 female computer scientists will be selected to attend a 3 day all-expenses paid workshop at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California January 22-25, 2009. This special workshop will include technical talks and career workshops, and a unique occasion to build and strengthen networks of women in technology. Students will also enjoy tours of the Googleplex, have the opportunity to meet with Google engineers in their research fields, and have fun exploring the San Francisco bay area.

Posted by Jessica Bagley, University Programs Team

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