Introduction
- Internship is a film about two watch sales men Nick Campbell and Bill McMahon played by Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn.
- They are left unemployed thanks to cell phones meaning people don’t need watches anymore.
- Feeling inadequate, they enroll to Google internship program to earn more marketable skilled.
- The film is fun but also full of business lessons.
Internship is a film about two sales men Nick Campbell and Bill McMahon played by Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn who are left unemployed after the company they work for as watch sales men goes under as a result of people turning to their cell phones to tell the time instead of using watches. Feeling inadequate to work at an increasingly digital world, the two decide to work towards attaining more marketable skills by enrolling at the internship program at Google. Nick and Bill luck their way through the interview and are accepted into the program.
The story line is pretty predictable; two outsiders enter into a microcosm where at first they encounter ill treatment and mistrust especially from the mean spirited individuals. However along the way, they win over some of the kind hearted people, encounter a few challenges but ultimately come out victorious through sheer determination, hard work and team work. Despite the predictable plot line, the movie is enjoyable with great business lessons on teamwork, diversion, how an organization culture contributes towards a motivated work force and how the film itself was a marketing tool for Google.
Organizational Culture
Organizational culture plays a big part in making sure that employees remain motivated and are provided with the right environment that encourages creativity and “out-of-the-box” thinking.
Aspects of Organizational Culture
Google organizational culture aspects highlighted in the movie include:
- Diversity;
- Teamwork/collaboration and teambuilding;
- Hiring only the best;
- Artifacts and design of the building (Smith, 2013).
Organizational Culture: Diversity
- The company provides an environment where people from diverse backgrounds can work together and bring forth great innovations.
- The movie shows how people from different background, color, ethnicities or gender have valuable lessons to contribute to the team.
The movie aptly captures Google’s belief in unity in diversity. The company provides an environment where people from diverse backgrounds can work together and bring forth great innovations. Vince and Owen are two Caucasian men working in a team of five with an Asian American boy and Indian American girl and a third guy who is always on the phone. The movie shows how people from different background, color, ethnicities or gender have valuable lessons to contribute to the team.
Organizational Culture: Teamwork and team building
- Interns are grouped into teams of five and are given tasks to work on.
- Each team is given a task that draws from each member strong points and contributes towards the team’s success.
- Nick and Bill (Vaughn and Owen) use their history in sales to set up team building activities that help the team gel.
In line with diversity is the importance of teamwork and team building. Once at the company offices, interns are grouped in teams of five people. Each team is given a task that draws from each member strong points and contributes towards the team’s success. Nick and Bill who are worldlier and have actual people skills as a result of their history as sales men tap into this skill to help the team gel with each other. They were able to do this by staging a team building session at the Google compound as well as take their team members out for a night of fun. This helped create harmony among the team members and enabling them to clear their heads and thus work and complete a task within one night and go on to win the challenge.
However, while the night out might have worked to create harmony among the team members, it might prove to be human resource headache where a night out spent drinking and going to strip clubs is seen as a way to unwind and still be able to complete the task in one night while still drunk. In most cases than not work done within a short period and while drunk is not likely to be quality work.
Organizational Culture: Hire the best
- Google founders, Larry page and Sergey Brin insistence on preserving the company’s collegial culture and employing top quality candidates.
- Interns are chosen by a committee vote, are assigned to Google managers who act as mentors and are encouraged to seek out help from other employees in order to learn new things (Smith, 2013).
John Batelle in his book The Search explains Google founders, Larry page and Sergey Brin insistence on preserving the company’s collegial culture and employing top quality candidates. While years have passed by and the intern program at the company is an exception to the rule, specs of this culture can be seen throughout the movie. For one, interns are chosen by a committee vote. They are in turn assigned to various Google managers who act as mentors as well as encouraged to seek out help from other employees in order to learn new things on their own thus ensuring they are the best at what they do.
Organizational Culture: Artifacts and Design of Building
- Artifacts are also a big part of an organization’s culture.
- Google aims to provide a laid back environment that encourages creativity and out of the box thinking.
- Starting from the company’s logo that is fun and colorful to the toys found throughout the office and laid back dressing code (McCarthy, 2013).
Artifacts are also a big part of an organization’s culture. Google aims to provide a laid back environment that encourages creativity and out of the box thinking. Starting from the company’s logo that is fun and colorful to the toys found throughout the office as well as nap pods for when they need to take a break and the building design with its bright and colorful. The dressing code also reinforces the company’s culture where employees and interns are allowed to report to work casually dressed after all a suit does not make you any more serious than the next person.
Organizational Culture: Don’t be evil
- Google operates on the philosophy of “don’t be evil’ a mantra that is prevalent throughout the movie.
- In the end, good always wins. The movie antagonist loses to the friendlier duo that is Nick and Bill.
One of Google’s main beliefs is making a profit while doing good. Google operates on the philosophy of “don’t be evil’ a mantra that is prevalent throughout the movie. One of the film’s antagonists is a fellow intern who despite being brilliant, creative and smart, chooses to bully, insult and use his skills selfishly. In the end however, the bully loses out to the friendlier duo played by Vince and Owen and their team.
Marketing
- Google takes product placement to another level in this movie.
- The movie was made with a lot of cooperation from Google with some terming the movie as one “beautiful Google commercial”.
- The movie includes scenes shot at the head quarter offices (Brooks, 2014).
- The scenes shot make sure to highlight things that Google is known for:
- free food at the cafeteria;
- interns riding bikes provided by Google around the company’s mountain view;
- playing volleyball at the company’s courtyard.
- That Google had a great influence on how it was represented; the company is represented in the most positive way.
- The film highlights the entire working environment that Google has worked hard to embody:
- an environment that empowers people from diverse backgrounds to;
- collaboration in a fun and creative environment to provide the best search engine and innovations.
- a light hearted environment that encourages creativity, and that is exactly what is portrayed in the movie (Harris, 2013).
- the biggest omission as far as marketing is concerned is the failure to highlight Google’s biggest product; the search engine which is considered world number one search engine.
- There was not much discussion on the search engine;
- The film focuses more on the face value of the company but ignores the work behind that place the product above the rest (Smith, 2013).
It is also clear from the film that Google had a great influence on how it was represented; the company is represented in the most positive way. The film highlights the entire working environment that Google has worked hard to embody; an environment that empowers people from diverse backgrounds to collaborate in a fun and creative environment to provide the best search engine and innovations. Since its inception, Google has tried to create a light hearted environment that encourages creativity, and that is exactly what is portrayed in the movie.
Perhaps the biggest omission as far as marketing is concerned is the failure to highlight Google’s biggest product; the search engine which is considered world number one search engine. There was not much discussion on the search engine; neither did they try to highlight the processes of the moving parts behind how the search engine works. They also did not highlight the large number of people that work behind the scenes to police spams, audit and rank search results. The film together with the Google team chose to focus on the face value of the company and ignore the work behind the scenes.
Conclusion
From a business point of view, the movie did not reveal any of Google’s “secret sauce” that happens behind the scenes to make it one of the most successful companies in the world.
All in all, the internship was an interesting movie filled with perfect comedic timing and interesting dialogue. However from a business point of view, the movie did not reveal any of Google’s “secret sauce” that happens behind the scenes to make it one of the most successful companies in the world. For anyone that has read on Google prior to watching the movie, nothing new is really revealed. There is however enough reference points throughout the film to make it thoroughly enjoyable.
References
Brook, T. (2014) The Internship: One long ad for Google. Web.
Harris, M (2013) The Internship reality check: Google reveals what’s real, and what’s not, in new buddy comedy. Web.
McCarthy, C (2013) An Ex-Googler’s Take On “The Internship”. Web.
Smith, C.S. (2013) The Internship: Google Film Review, for Marketers. Web.