Google to make stronger effort with blogging and communication in 2007?

Over the New Year’s weekend, there have been a lot of posts about Google and their blogs and bloggers. I think Matt Cutts sums it up pretty well with his The Real Lesson From This Week post, where he calls for Google to have more people blogging and monitoring communities interested in their products. He also hints at a departure from Google.

Responding to recent criticisms over Google’s product “tips” and being told by TechCrunch he should be more critical of Google, Matt responded:

Google the organization in many ways mirrors the character of its employees. Google is a very polite, consensus-driven company. Usually if you get everyone in the same room and everyone explains their reasoning, the best decision emerges pretty quickly. As a result, I can’t recall ever hearing someone shout at Google. Even when issues are hotly debated, we tend to keep our discussion and our self-criticism within the company. So for me to be “far more critical” on my blog is not what Google needs right now. If anything, that’s more likely to burn bridges than to solve issues. I don’t have the outsider status that Scoble did. If disagree with something Google does, I go directly to the Googlers involved and I discuss it with them. I’m lucky to be enough of an old-timer that I usually can find the right person to ask, bug, or cajole.

I respect that, and heck, I run a company, I would much prefer this approach over having an employee feel that he or she is above the company to blast them on a blog as opposed to talking with those who can fix the issue directly.

In any event, Matt’s post not only tells us a bit on how Googlers act or should act. It also lays down what he would like to see from Googlers in 2007. They include to major bullet points:

• Each project at Google should monitor the blogosphere for issues. Reduce the disconnect to reduce the danger.
• Get more Googlers talking online. There will be some mistakes, but the conversations will be worth it.

Now, the official Google blog posted A year in Google blogging which is nice to see, but Zoli Erdos argues that the Google blog is not a blog at all. Again, comes back to Matt’s points above and we hope we see changes – we already do with the Webmaster Central Blog lead by Vanessa Fox and Adam Lasnik’s efforts with the grassroots communication.

Matt leaves us with one more insight that has me and others a bit nervous. He hints at a possible Google retirement;

I love working at Google, but at some point my wife is going to wake up and smell the coffee. She’ll say “Hey, we agreed we’d try this Google thing for four or five years, and then I’d get to pick what to do next. It’s been like eight years now! When do we move on to our next adventure?”

Personally, I can’t see it happening, but anything is possible.