Why "just Google it" isn't always enough.

I love Google. Who doesn't? 

I think they (the wonderful Google people) offer us a number of awesome tools for our professional lives. For example, here's an article I wrote about many ways Google translate can help your global business: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-use-google-translate-business-international-relations-bedwin?trk=mp-reader-card

However, Google is a portal to the internet, which is the biggest collection of charlatans, thieves, wonderful people, clowns, professionals, and amateurs the world has ever seen. It's a giant souk, a fair ground, a market. A jungle and a maze of caves.

If you do not know what you're doing, you have just as much chance of getting what you don't want by unfiltered Googling, as you do of
getting what you do want.

Are you a professional? Whether you're a scientist or a teacher, an engineer or a writer, a computer technician or a plumber, consider joining your professional organization. These organizations are not just to set rules and rates and protect members -- professional groups are also, as guilds have been since the beginning of time, a prime location for knowledge-sharing about your craft.

If you have any kind of computer-based jobs these days, then your community will also be active online. In my case, my editors' associations have always been chatty, first (and still), on e-mail list services, and now, also on Facebook and LinkedIn. It's a wonderful way to get an education and whenever anybody asks me about getting into editing, I tell them to get themselves into those communities and to start listening.

When you have a big community at your back, you're ten times the professional (or a hundred times) you could be alone. Problems that are insurmountable alone vanish when you have friends.

Problem with getting a client to pay? Your colleagues will have several strategies to suggest that worked for them.

Difficulties understanding what you're being asked to do? Your colleagues will have detailed instructions on how they first learned that task, or at minimum, help you refine what questions to ask. 

And in the case of mere fact-checking... a gathering of professional peers beats Google hands-down.

I recently asked an academic point about two different literary movements to my editing group (one that's free, by the way -- if you need to learn about editing, e-mail me to discuss how you can join). Literature is not something I have made much study of. 

With my minuscule background in absurdism and Dadaism (a friend of mine was a nose in a play in university, and the fact that he invited me to attend pretty much sums up my knowledge of either), I'd have no map to the cavernous maze of the internet on this topic. So I asked my long-running professional community of editors: what would they choose if they needed a splendid wee bit of absurdist literature? 

Someone offered a list from goodreads.com with a simple search. Hm, that seemed somewhat helpful, to be steered to Goodreads. However, some passionate advocates of literature who were familiar with the various movements soon popped up to say, "hang on, those Goodreads selections aren't all valid."

Now, you can't find passion in that same personal way when you "just Google it."

Someone later mentioned that you can get the goodreads list through Google. Well, Google wasn't good enough. The passion of my friendly colleagues who were willing to share was a thousand times more worthy.

Meanwhile, other posters were sharing some of their favourite pieces and experiences within the very specific field I had asked about. It was a great discussion, collegial and friend-forming. When people I have relationships with shared their favourites, I got much better recommendations than "just Googling it" and reading the opinions of strangers, no matter how well-written, could have done. You never really know the background of people writing on the net.

So do find your tribe on-line, and do ask intelligent questions. 
Also take the time to answer others.

Google is wonderful, but people, particularly trained people who have gathered into a friendly association for the betterment of the group, are much better.

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Profound little aside: I once heard a guru say the following:

The Universe is so abundant, it will bring you everything that you want, and everything that you do not want!

When you have time and inclination for a little reflecting, that's actually quite an interesting idea.
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