Excerpt:
With the number of tech-watchers following Google’s every move, it’s almost impossible to get a scoop on the Silicon Valley darling. But one blogger has uncovered a stealth project that Google launched last summer. It was first announced at a San Francisco conference back in November — so why has no one else written about it?
Because the conference was not a tech event but a spirituality seminar called “Happiness and Its Causes” — and the launch was not a new product but the School of Personal Growth at Google University, an in-house education program for company employees.
According to Paul Kaihla of the spirituality site Soul’s Code, the new school offers employees four areas of study: mental development; emotional development; holistic health; and the Buddhist concept “beyond the self.” Courses include “The Neuroscience of Empathy” and “Search Inside Yourself” and are taught by the likes of Stanford neuroscientist Philippe Goldin and Zoketsu Norman Fischer, a poet and Zen priest.
Because the conference was not a tech event but a spirituality seminar called “Happiness and Its Causes” — and the launch was not a new product but the School of Personal Growth at Google University, an in-house education program for company employees.
According to Paul Kaihla of the spirituality site Soul’s Code, the new school offers employees four areas of study: mental development; emotional development; holistic health; and the Buddhist concept “beyond the self.” Courses include “The Neuroscience of Empathy” and “Search Inside Yourself” and are taught by the likes of Stanford neuroscientist Philippe Goldin and Zoketsu Norman Fischer, a poet and Zen priest.
Click to read the rest of "Google Opens ‘School of Personal Growth’" (BNET Media).
Note (added January 19, 2009, 7:14 PM Mountain): "Searching for enlightenment: Is Google's 'school of personal growth' a spiritual boon or corporate fig leaf?" (Guardian).
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