The most visible impact was in the company's internal services. Many "scratch an itch" tools such as Google bus schedule lookup, employee tenure lookup, or massage-room booking originated in 20% projects. The "internal social media" of Google such as "moma badges" ("achievements" for e.g. writing 100 CLs or contributing to a particular fixit -- anyone could add new ones) and the internal joke image board "memegen" also originated as 20% projects.
This kind of modest, privste service was much lower-commitment than trying to single-handedly kick off a new external-facing service. Having all these volunteer-built projects around created a good vibe of being part of a community of engineers, each building whatever we needed to make our days better and sharing it with our coworkers.
This kind of modest, privste service was much lower-commitment than trying to single-handedly kick off a new external-facing service. Having all these volunteer-built projects around created a good vibe of being part of a community of engineers, each building whatever we needed to make our days better and sharing it with our coworkers.