Giving Google a helping hand

Imagine how much easier work would be if you had someone to iron out all life’s little creases, leaving you to just do you your job. Chances are that if you’re a Google researcher you already have that someone – thanks to a unique-sounding collaboration with your research agency.

In a presentation by Google at today’s MRS Annual Conference, senior user experience researcher Lidia Oshlyansky explains that the tech giant will employ an outside research agency to take charge of logistics and operations, leaving its own research team to concentrate purely on gathering insight. That’s the relationship between Google and River Research.

River’s operations director Belinda Brown has to make sure that whenever Oshlyansky and her team head to the world’s emerging markets to gather feedback from locals, their path is clear and hitch-free.

Tasks that need to be done range from the mundane – such as getting the correct visas and making sure that any equipment won’t be confiscated at customs – to being on call in the UK at 4am to reassure a researcher in India that they are on the right train.

Oshlyansky said: “We’re depending on these guys. There’s an enormous amount of trust and they’re not only getting us from A to B they are making sure that the research gets done.”