When you Google a topic, what do you do?
My usual process goes something like this:
- I look at the first entry in the middle of the page and if it looks like a Sponsored Link; I dismiss it
- Then I look at the highlighted entries on the next two or three and if they look appropriate; then I look at the first two lines of text that attempts to give you a “feel” for the contents of the entry
- Then I click on the link that looks most appropriate to me and if the first sentence or photo and caption do not grab my attention; I move on
I submit to you that is what most of us do. The question is; “Are we looking for information or knowledge”?
By conducting these types of searches many times during the day, we are obtaining a great deal of information but very little knowledge. In order to actually gain knowledge; more effort on our part will be required.
Knowledge requires us to dig deeper and look for more description, analysis, examples, and case histories and to invest in more comprehensive thought than the mere search for information.
An example of this differential would go something like this:
- You are looking for a type of threaded fastener
- You Google “Threaded Fasteners”
- You find a site that looks like what you want
- If that site has one the size that you need you stop your search
That process has yielded information.
However, later you find that the fastener was not the best type of metal that could have been chosen. It did not have the best thread count for the type of substrate in which it was to be mounted; the head of the fastener was too large for the space, etc.
It turns out that in order to obtain knowledge; you would have had to read much deeper into the website, or asked someone in your company with more experience than you about their recommendation for the application, or read some reviews about the fastener type, etc.
Primarily because of the Internet; the wealth of information available to us is almost infinite. But we should not confuse information for knowledge. Knowledge is what is required to do our best work and we should be willing to work for knowledge.
Tool for the Week – For those of you who use www.Linkedin.com; you may want to utilize their “Add Sections” feature. It allows you to add a Slide Show, Blog, Google Presentation and many other additional features to your Profile Page.
That is it for this week. Please add your comments and experiences for the benefit of our group.
