Justin was the Innovationist at Google. Justin launched local YouTube portals across Asia Pacific, supported the launch of numerous consumer product releases including Google Maps and Google Wave, launched the first Android mobile devices in the region, brought the Google Creative Sandbox event to Australia’s shores for the first time, was a member of Google's Global Creative Council, and co-created DNA, a digital thought leadership series hosted in both Australia and New Zealand. He also developed Digital Bytes, a technology event presentation format that has become the cornerstone of Google's executive client engagement strategy across the region.

Opening the Google Pyrmont office, demonstrating the first Android phone to Governor General Quentin Bryce:

Digital Bytes is an event that I created and developed. This event is focused at the C-level of our agencies and their clients, consisting of an intimate dinner and a presentation with a lot of wow factor, the table becomes the presentation. We have seen significant results from a number of the early events executed in Australia, and now the verticals are leveraging this event so that there are now more than a dozen events across the year to stimulate and converse with the top decision makers in the business. These events have now been rolled out across the region, with multiple events happening in China and across Asia Pacific.

I brought the Creative Sandbox event to Sydney, the first one outside of the USA. Over 285 key decision makers in attendance (ECDs, CEOs, Senior creative and media representatives)

Attendance from 60+ agencies across all top agency networks as well as leading boutique agencies (like Droga5, Holler, Oddfellows & Soap)

25 demo stations showcasing: YouTube, Creative Lab + Chrome Zone, Insights for Search & YouTube Insights, Social, Geo, Mobile and Display

Local carousel built, housing 100s of exceptional new content examples like MyMutation at the Sydney Opera House, the YouTube Warp player and the beautiful whale implementation using the YouTube API.

Stage presentations included Robert Wong (ECD Creative Lab), Jay Akkad (YouTube PMM), Aaron Koblin (Creative Lab, Technology lead), David Arvan (YouTube Engineer) and Lars Rasmussen & Stephanie Hannon (Wave).

Shanghai Creative Sandbox

I also delivered the Sandbox event to Shanghai, working with our local teams to deliver another technology showcase including some of my own creations...

At the 2011 annual conference that the China Government puts on which has a significant impact on their decisions regarding policies, regulation and who gets to keep their ICP (internet content provider) license.  I spoke at the conference on Mobile, where I used a custom presentation tool which I call the Matrix - to show a matrix of video content whilst I spoke across our mobile strategy and the future of mobile computing.  

This was very well received in the government, by the industry, press, and also the live microblog streams, translated as follows:

"The Google speaker was no doubt the highlight of the day. His speech has some real substance;"

"Listening to Justin's speech, I feel they really think differently compared with Chinese internet companies. Wish in the next 10 years, we can see more innovative and open new products!"

"The presentation style is so creative, so different from those other presenters. Indeed, this is Google! It's a definite blown away"

"After the Google guy left, I didn't want to stay any more"

I was told by our government relations team that this presentation has had a significant impact on our relationship with the Chinese Government and has helped contribute positively to the Government’s upcoming review of our Internet Content Provider license, which is a requirement for us to do business in China.  I am especially proud of this as I have helped our China business at the most fundamental level.

I was the PR spokesperson and product launch cyclist:

"Google wants every nook and cranny of Australia covered on its Google Maps Street View service and to make that happen it will unleash an army of cyclists to capture images off the beaten track and in pedestrian-only locations.
The company is seeking suggestions from Australians for cultural areas, natural wonders and “hidden gems” it should explore.
At Sydney's Taronga Zoo today, the search giant revealed that its cars with specially mounted cameras haven't been enough to fully capture the country's delights, such as the zoo, national parks and Sydney Harbour."

Held at INSEAD in Singapore, bringing together 43 marketing leaders from India, Japan, Korea, Australia, China and SEA for a three-day offsite.  I was asked to create something special that would last with all the attendees.

As we were providing Galaxy Tab 10.1 Honeycomb tablets to all attendees, we had a unique opportunity to provide them with information on the tablet.  So I developed a custom Android application specifically for this event - a good example of “doing more with less” I developed this application from scratch using the Android development environment to give each CMO a handy tool to know more about each aspect of our core business, along with a contacts directory for all of our sales contacts across the region.

I also created all the graphics and animations, and I converted my previous work in flash into html compliant animations to reduce the computational load on the tablets.

An online platform developed by an Australian Googler in his "20 per cent time" has been adopted by the United Nations to show world leaders the extent of global support for climate change action at this month's summit in Copenhagen.
Google Australia's "innovationist", Justin Baird, developed the Show Your Vote platform after meeting US environmental campaigner Al Gore earlier this year and helping develop the web presence of the highly successful Earth Hour campaign.
His platform includes a virtual ballot box that can be embedded into any website allowing people to register their support for sealing a fair and effective climate deal at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, which runs for two weeks from Monday.

From the Sydney Morning Herald article by Asher Moses, December 2, 2009 "Aussie Googler hits the world stage for climate change"

An online platform developed by an Australian Googler in his "20 per cent time" has been adopted by the United Nations to show world leaders the extent of global support for climate change action at this month's summit in Copenhagen.

Google Australia's "innovationist", Justin Baird, developed the Show Your Vote platform after meeting US environmental campaigner Al Gore earlier this year and helping develop the web presence of the highly successful Earth Hour campaign.

His platform includes a virtual ballot box that can be embedded into any website allowing people to register their support for sealing a fair and effective climate deal at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, which runs for two weeks from Monday.

The ballot box has already been embedded on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), COP15 and Earth Hour websites.

COP15 is name given to the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference and is seen as the critical venue for forging a global deal to reduce carbon emissions.

A Google Map embedded into the tool lets users zoom in and out to view the number of votes by country, state, city and even postcode. A "learn" tab includes the company's visualisations, using Google Earth, of the potential impacts of climate change.

"There is no silver bullet to solve climate change. However, we might have found the 'bullet' for consolidating all Copenhagen campaigns and to visualise the world's voices on a single platform with Justin's Show Your Vote project," said Alexander Saier, climate change secretariat at the UN.

Baird, who travelled to Germany to present Show Your Vote to the UNFCCC, says that, by the end of the week, he hopes the number of votes collected by his tool will be enough to convince world leaders that a binding agreement to combat climate change is necessary.

"With the COP15 the issue for me was, well, what we really need to do is show the largest public support possible to world leaders," he said in a phone interview.

"It's great for people to change their light bulbs and use water saving shower heads but that's just not going to cut it. It's not going to make the changes that we need."

Baird, who will attend the COP15, is encouraging businesses as small as "Joe's scuba shop up in Townsville" to embed Show Your Vote on their websites. Since the platform is hosted on Google's servers, all the votes from around the world are aggregated and tallied in real time.

"The most important thing that we can do right now, regardless of what's happening in local politics, is to make sure when world leaders come together they see that people want action on this issue," he said.

Mitsubishi iMiEV Australian Launch

I led a small team of Googlers who developed and rolled out a new electric car initiative with the Mitsubishi iMiEV electric vehicle in our Sydney office.  We installed some of Australia's first charge points and delivered 2 vehicles in Sydney.  I also invented a system we called "green credits" that incentivised Googlers to commute by green methods, in order to collect green points to be able to participate in a weekly auction to win the cars for the weekends.  During the week each car was resourced on the calendar for Googlers to take out as green taxi replacements.  Each car was a remote hotspot, enabled by the first Samsung tablet computers in Australia.

http://google-au.blogspot.com/2009/12/show-your-vote-for-cop-15.html

http://google-au.blogspot.com/2009/03/introducing-earth-connect-for-earth.html

http://google-au.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-climate-change-tools-for-cop15.html

http://google-au.blogspot.com/2008/09/google-insights-for-search-in-australia.html

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/show-your-vote-for-cop15.html

http://google-newzealand.blogspot.com/2010/02/justin-baird-talks-innovation-with.html

I have been an Adjudicator for the Award Awards and Young Guns shows.  I've also been a guest lecturer at the Award School a couple times.

I helped plan, provided content for, and attended the first Google Creative Council event in New York City, bringing together the top Executive Creative Directors in North America.  I also continued to develop and support this Council by continuing the discussion and collaboration via our second Council installment in Cannes 2011

Battle of Big Thinking - I was on the Australian national television channel ABC TV with my thought leadership presentation on Radically Inclusive Democracy http://fora.tv/2011/02/24/Justin_Baird_Battle_of_Big_Thinking