The other day, a good mate of mine showed me a very funny site that tells you to “Google it first”!
It’s the modern version of RTFM.
This friend and I associate with a number of people who ask first, Google later. This leaves us in a difficult position – wanting to help but knowing that it is just better form and more polite if said individuals just put some time into researching and learning more about their problem first?
I started thinking about how much we all rely on Google. Even that is a stupid thing to say. We all rely on the ability to search the internet … and without this resource a lot of us would be in the dark. So much knowledge available on your computer screen and with minimal effort on your part.
Well…what happens on the day that you don’t have an internet connection, and you need to solve a problem or quickly learn about something? Race off to the library? Read a book?! What?! No keyword search feature in a book?! Indexes are soooo old school!
Last week, I worked my way through a series of technical problems – Googling the whole way – and came out the other side with a shiny solution…
Ask me now what I did to solve these problems, and I could give you a reasonable description but the details are lost. Did I learn something from the experience? Did I retain anything? Well, to be fair, I retained enough to know what to Google the next time I come up against the same problem.
I wonder how many of you out there have had similar experiences? You work against the clock, and have to deliver on time so you go about doing a quality job using the resources available – but what do you retain and what could you impart after the experience?
How about taking out some time after you’ve Googled a problem, to absorb and consider it in retrospect? You’ll remember the subtle nuances and you may even be able to apply what you learned to other problems presenting the same symptoms? Then, you could even “think about it first” rather than “Google it first”?
Oh…and someone come up with a better term indicating the use of search engine…so the general population can all stop saying Google.
I’m going to think hard today and invent a random word to replace “Googling” in my personal vernacular.
Happy sunday 
Seriously, I waste a lot of time typing stuff into google. Yesterday I read a blog that a mate of ours tweeted about turning your house lights on and off using twitter. The next step is a direct remote interface from our brains into google based on brain current – straight into a restful api..
oh how life would change
Comment by tom — November 30, 2008 @ 12:34 pm |
I agree with you that the mad scrambles we make across the intertubes, clutching at little bits and pieces of information here there and everywhere in a rushed effort to get something to work, is not any guarantee of lasting understanding. I am not necessarily a believer in the necessity to commit purely technical information (a string of commands, a particular line of code) to memory. Over time if you use such things enough this will happen anyway, and the description you raised above ‘knowing what to google next time’ is probably good enough… But, assuming you would like to retain more, I’ve found one of the best ways is to write about what you’ve just done, whether on an internal wiki or a blog etc. I find the difference between doing something (what do you do) and writing about it (which includes more why you do it) makes you think about a problem in more depth, and so gives you a better understanding which (for me at least) gives a greater chance of retaining the knowledge.
Tom, please advise when your API is open for public testing
Comment by Massive — November 30, 2008 @ 5:48 pm |
@tom Restfull API’s are so 2008 man – you now need to control your hose lights via the cloud…
I’m thinking of creating a site actually that’s letmesearchthecloudforyou.com
Comment by Habib — December 1, 2008 @ 1:14 am |
thecloud – pffft
Comment by tom — December 27, 2008 @ 10:25 pm |