Anne Kibbler | Nov. 11, 2010
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| Photo courtesy Jeromy Henry |
| David Krane, BA'94, stands in front of computers built by the earliest Google employees to run live Google search traffic. Krane says his journalism experience has been invaluable in his work at Google. |
The story goes like this. In high school, Krane was a band nerd who spent a summer at Interlochen Center for the Arts in northwest Michigan. He came to Indiana University from Corvallis, Ore., to major in music before deciding that he had “more intellectual curiosity than just being best friends with my clarinet and my saxophone.” Music was shifted to minor status behind journalism, which eventually morphed into a career in technology-based public relations.
Fast forward to 1999, five years past graduation and stints at a variety of companies in communications and PR roles. Krane, BA’94, recently had been introduced to Google and, he says, it was love at first sight.
He learned through some Google employees that the company was looking for a communications director to build its brand, and he landed an interview for the job, meeting separately with Brin and Page.
“It was fast, whimsical and fun,” Krane recalls of the interview process. “Sergey was first. He said, ‘I’ll leave for five minutes, and when I come back, I want you to explain something highly technical that I don’t know.’ I taught him how to build a reed on a clarinet.”
Then it was time for the second part of the interview, with Larry Page. Unlike his colleague, Page was reserved. The atmosphere grew uncomfortable. Then the two started talking about music. A couple of minutes into the conversation, Page suddenly lit up.
“‘That’s where I know you.”
He’d recognized Krane from — where else? — band camp in Michigan.
“We both played in the same jazz band for three months, and we both played saxophone,” Krane explains. “He was second alto and I was lead tenor. I didn’t remember it, and he did. I was 16, he was 15.”
The ice thawed, the two relaxed, and Krane aced the interview. Page and Brin were impressed enough by Krane’s quick thinking, his verbal dexterity and his experience in technology-related communications that they brought him in as one of the first 100 hires at Google. He’s been there since 2000, with the title of senior director of global communications and public affairs.
“I had enough internal geek to understand what was happening and to be able to tell that narrative to the outside world,” he says of his hiring. “It’s been an incredible and absolutely unimaginable professional experience.”
The internal geek
Krane’s internal geek first surfaced at IU, although he says its roots extend to his upbringing as the son of a nuclear physicist. His father, Kenneth Krane, earned his doctorate in physics from Purdue University and is a professor emeritus at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Ore. The senior Krane, his son says, encouraged a technological mindset.
IU in the early ’90s, he recalls, was “quite forward-thinking” technologically, equipping its labs with NeXT computers and tapping into the Internet.
“Netscape came to IU early, and I played with the Web here in ’93,” Krane says. “It lit this fire.”
In Ernie Pyle Hall, he chose a concentration in broadcast journalism, although he took as many public relations courses as he could. And one semester, he had the opportunity to meld his passion for music with his journalism skills in professor Peter Jacobi’s graduate-level class on reporting the arts. Krane says it was a different approach to reporting and writing, but one that came naturally to him. He says Jacobi was an inspiring teacher, with a “soft touch, keen intellect and incredible memory for so many different performances of all musical genres.”
A longtime athlete, he played competitive racquetball throughout his years at IU, winning the campus intramural championship in singles and doubles several times. He also played tennis competitively, even serving as a teaching pro for more than seven years. And he was an active member of Delta Chi fraternity.
Christian Long, BA’94, one of Krane’s fraternity brothers, says Krane struck a balance of being social, yet rigorous in his work habits.
“David’s fraternity room (which he share with two other pledge brothers) was always this wonderfully quirky and rambunctious place,” Long recalls. “While most fraternity brothers wanted their rooms to be adaptable to ‘parties,’ David and his roommates always seemed to create ‘experiences’ for others. You stepped into David’s room and you stepped into something truly spirit-filled, not something deviant. They were incredibly decent to female guests, always threw open their arms/doors to brothers who came by, and never let anyone down in terms of unexpected musical twists and playful philosophical musings. And yet, the very next day, there was David — worn Oregon Beavers hat on backwards, studying math, big ol' smile on his face — able to switch gears into serious academic mode while others were still days away from admitting they were students again.”
Long remembers sitting on an old couch in Krane’s fraternity room, listening to Krane talk about his family, especially his father.
“While many were trying to outgrow their families, David was very centered about the respect he had for his mother and father, and there was always a sense that his own success (as a student, as well in a future career) would be built upon what his parents had taught him,” Long recalls.
And, Long says, Krane’s curiosity and mathematical instincts led him to keep an eye on job possibilities in a place most of his peers never even considered — the early Internet.
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Career beginnings
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| Photo courtesy of Jeromy Henry |
| Krane said he also picked up tech skills while at IU, something that helped when working in positions that emphasized technology. "I was the guy who knew how to use e-mail, thanks to IU," he said. |
One time, the company was doing product testing for a client, the manufacturer of multipurpose solvent WD-40. One purported use of WD-40 was to remove the smell of skunk spray. McRae says Krane volunteered to contact the agency that picks up road kill and get a dead skunk so he could put skunk spray on himself and test the WD-40 claim. The client, however, turned down the offer.
Another time, McRae remembers, Krane put on a jockey outfit to deliver materials to San Diego newsrooms announcing opening day at the races for the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club.
“He even blew a trumpet to get everyone’s attention,” she says. “Now that takes guts.”
Krane moved on to a variety of communications positions that emphasized technology. As circulation director at Tabor Griffin Communications in San Diego, for instance, he led the development of a prototype e-publication.
“I was the guy who knew how to use e-mail, thanks to IU,” he says.
In subsequent jobs, he taught himself to build Web sites and led high-tech PR campaigns for technology clients, at one point working with Yahoo and Apple. Before joining Google, he was senior director for global marketing communications and investor relations for Certicom, Inc., a security software company.
He was drawn to Google by its distinctive Web voice and by what he calls its “clear ambition.”
“I knew almost immediately that I wanted to be part of that and to work with the people behind it,” he says.
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Global manager
At Google, Krane works with 175 corporate communications employees in the company’s 70 offices around the world. In fact, he created most of those offices and hired, mentored and managed the majority of the employees. He’s Google’s main contact with the media, orchestrating access and interviews for major media pieces, including one by 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl and a Time magazine cover story.
He works closely with Brin and Page, and he does a lot of what he calls “long-form work.” When New Yorker author Ken Auletta wanted to write a book about Google, for instance, Krane became his guide for more than two years. It was, Krane says, a powerful experience.
Auletta says Krane did his job well, calling him “extraordinary.” The book, Googled: The End of the World as We Know It, was published last fall and has been heralded for its unprecedented insights into the workings of the company.
“A good press secretary for anyone, be they in government, in a corporation or in a nonprofit, is someone who understands they have two obligations,” Auletta says. “The paramount one is to their boss, but a good press secretary also understands they have an obligation to the reporter to tell the truth without sacrificing the institution they work for. David walked that line brilliantly.”
Others sing Krane’s praises equally. McRae, who hired him at McCann Erickson, has stayed in touch over the years. She now owns her own agency in San Francisco and has done some work for Google.
“David has always been highly enthusiastic and up for any challenge,” she says. “He’s also one of the most positive people I have ever met, not to mention extremely intelligent, creative and talented. He has evolved into a solid, seasoned, amazing professional.”
Mike Nelson met Krane about 15 years ago when Nelson worked for a technology company Krane’s PR firm represented. Now director of communications for applications and enterprise at Google, Nelson says he gravitated toward Krane immediately and kept in contact after Krane moved on.
“One of the main reasons I’m at Google is because of David,” he says. “You don’t meet people with the energy, the creativity, the passion, the endurance, the intelligence and the instinct he has to offer.”
Krane, he says, combines a razor-sharp wit with a deep insight and instinct.
“He’s as entertaining as he is effective,” he says. “His conversation is a lot like his musical background. He can join in musically and riff on people.”
Outside Google, Krane is the father of three young children, plays hockey for a local club and keeps up with IU sports from afar. He has a half-court in his back yard with the same logo that’s at center court in Assembly Hall.
“Getting approval (to use the logo in this way) from the IU Trademark and Licensing Dept. was amusing, to say the least… (and quite familiar, as I've policed the Google brand in a similar way for so many years!),” he says.
He serves on the board of the Vista Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Palo Alto, Calif. Executive director Pam Brandin says Krane has combined what he has learned on the board with his technical knowledge to advance access for people with visual impairments through Google.
“He’s got a business mind, but he’s got such a warm heart,” Brandin says. “He asks good questions and has high expectations. When I have an idea, one of my tests is, ‘What will David think of that?’”
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The science of new media
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| Photo by Scott Myrick |
| While visiting campus, Krane talked to students in J110 Foundations of Journalism and Mass Communications. Krane is the senior director of global communications and public affairs at Google. |
Krane says the efficient science of online marketing, in which users’ responses to advertising are instantly measurable and target markets can be reached with little overhead, has exposed the innate flaws in the print journalism business model.
Google software for online advertising, used by papers including The New York Times, scans stories in a given publication and pulls ads from a bank to match content. The software gathers data on the number of reader clicks and visits, providing advertisers and marketers with valuable information. A substantial majority of the ad revenue goes back to the paper.
Krane says that’s part of Google’s efforts to develop a more amicable relationship with news outlets. But with publishing companies reluctant to give up control of how an online page looks and feels, Google still has a long way to go in tapping that particular market.
With online advertising dollars falling far short of the money generated by print ads, Krane expects to see other revenue streams continue to develop. One idea that’s caught on quickly is the “freemium” model, in which users access basic content free of charge and pay for premium content.
Krane sees most print news eventually disappearing, giving way to online and mobile outlets driven by targeted advertising and possibly by a micropayment model, in which news companies could generate revenue using Google as a one-stop shopping gateway to paid content. Amazon.com and Google Checkout already offer this kind of service for merchandise consumers who want to consolidate and track their online purchasing via a single login.
Krane acknowledges no one yet has developed a proven business model for investigative journalism. And he sees a weakness in citizen journalism, in which, he says, “there’s no editor between me and what I put on the Internet as fact and truth.”
And that goes against everything he learned in journalism school, which — together with a four-year post on the School of Informatics and Computing’s dean’s advisory board — brings him back to why he continues to return to Bloomington.
“My true love, my true core, was my time here in Ernie Pyle Hall,” he told students during his recent visit. “This school helped me get that clarity and focus. It gave me a very special, lifelong allegiance to the Big Ten. This is a profoundly special place.”
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