A Google Black Belt...

Technically, not black belts... (Yokohama Chinatown, Japan)

Yeah, I know... they're not black belts. But they are martial artists (and really cute!).

I took that shot during a Chinatown festival when I was living in Japan - but that's not really the point.

I'm taking a statistics class right now. It's the first statistics class in my life, and I'm doing okay, no thanks to those who write statistics papers. 

This is a topic where the phrase 'baffle them with bullshit' couldn't be more appropriate. I'm a pretty smart guy on most days, but reading a typical stats paper makes blood come out of my eyes.

If you want to learn about statistics (even if you don't) you have to work at it... or be really good with Google or (fill in your favorite search engine name here).

This class is convincing me once again of the power of 'just in time' learning.

I've always said that you don't need to know everything, you just need to know where to find it.

Well, now we all know where to find it (the Internet), we just don't know how. The avalanche of information can be overwhelming.

Well, I love the detective aspect of a good search, so I've been a search addict since I could first surf. I remember the joy of discovering 'HotBot'. I was eventually dragged away by Google, but I'm not strictly monogamous.

 

Over the years, I've developed some search chops and some cool tricks, and this weekend they all came in handy as I had to work on four papers simultaneously.

I have 3 computers in my home office (did I mention I'm a geek?) so one was in search mode, one was in word/excel mode for homework, the third was blasting tunes by Love Psychedelico.

With google and my favorite tricks, I could get the information I wanted and complete the assignments. 

Just a typical day in computerland, until one of classmates said, "You must be a genius, or really good at statistics". No, on both counts, I assured her.

But I told her that "Advanced Web Searches" should be a full credit course at every school. I don't know how people get by without that ability. 

For me it's a core class in a program on "Learning How to Learn".

So here's my tip of the day for you. When I first discovered it, no one seemed to know it. I've seen it published once recently, but still too few people know.

When you search for something, add pdf or ppt after it. 

For example, "emotional intelligence pdf".

That filters out a lot of the crap, and delivers you pdf files, which tend to be written by universities or government organizations. They have a better signal to noise ratio than your average web article. 

Try it. You may even become a black belt!