In 2011, Google launched its social layer -- Google+. The digital world paused for a moment as fans glorified the concept and critics quickly proclaimed it "a Facebook killer."

Then some years later, we all LOL'd for believing in such a thing.

Google+, for a bunch of debatable reasons, simply couldn't catch fire. And my team and I were tasked to reinvigorate its spirit (aka increase its users and overall activity.)

To start, we chose to not see Google+ as a social network. While social networks like Facebook are all about friends, funny cat pictures, and "which character are you" Buzzfeed articles, Google+ is built for more. So to elevate it out of the social network caste, we dug a little deeper into the brand's basic premise: search!

We found that people no longer just search for answers. They search for answers together. They search for conversation. And for collaboration.

To fuel that sort of passion driven journey, we created an incubator program using all of Google+'s tools, housed it on Google+ itself, and dubbed it Google+ Youniversity.