Digging for answers to questions is different today than it was probably even five year ago. Since the internet invaded our personal and private lives, we’ve increasingly used it to gather information about things we know nothing about or just plain research for a project, story or to answer a question.
Go online, call up the name of a company, business, organization, issue, country or team and you got what you wanted. For 5+ years, that search includes Google. “Just Google it” is the phrase.
Not for everyone though. Some of us still try to find an answer ourselves.
Two weeks ago, a friend of mine talked about some player on the Denver Nuggets who had played basketball at Marquette University. He recently scored over 50 points in a game with the Nuggets. His first name was Jamal.
I know some basketball, and so does he. He couldn’t remember the last name. I started naming names of Marquette U players in the NBA – Jimmy Butler, Jae Crowder, Dwayne Wade. I knew none of them was the guy his memory bank was searching for, but also recognize that if you jog someone with names it will often trigger the right memory. This didn’t work.
We stretched, batted around names, grew increasingly frustrated. I told him to stop thinking about it and the name would come to him. He probably was ready to Google it.
“I’ll go find the answer,” I said, getting up and heading over to four of my trusty sources at the workout facility, my ever-present investigative journalistic skills pulsing. “I’ll show him.”
You can usually tell if someone has played basketball by their build, the tee shirt he or she wears while exercising or the conversations you overhear them having with others in the gym. I strolled over to the first of the candidates who appeared likely to help. He had ear buds in. After posing the question, “Do you know that guy on the Nuggets who recently scored over 50 points who came from Marquette,” he looked at me blankly, shook his head and went back to pounding weights.
The second guy was a dead lifter, probably trying to increase his vertical jump. He, too, had to pull the ear buds out before looking at me like I’d just arrived from the planet Uranus, added 25 pounds to each side of the bar and began squatting again.
The third guy threw some names out there, played along, but he, too, didn’t know. Finally, I walked over to the corner lifting area to talk to the fourth guy, a newcomer to the facility in his early 20’s who consistently discussed basketball. He pulled his buds out, listened patiently, said he didn’t know, and then, “I’ll Google it.”
Before I knew it, he had the answer: Jamal Murray. It was nice to come back to my buddy with the name, but disturbing we had to go the Google route. I like to think that there was enough personal knowledge in the gym to find the answer, but we did all have to get to our jobs at some point.
I thanked him, headed back over to my friend, and gave him the name: “Jamal Murray, but he didn’t play college ball at Marquette. He played at Kentucky.”
I hold out hope that the next time I head out on the personal information search that we have the college right. Then we should be able to collectively find the answer without big brother.
Go online, call up the name of a company, business, organization, issue, country or team and you got what you wanted. For 5+ years, that search includes Google. “Just Google it” is the phrase.
Not for everyone though. Some of us still try to find an answer ourselves.
Two weeks ago, a friend of mine talked about some player on the Denver Nuggets who had played basketball at Marquette University. He recently scored over 50 points in a game with the Nuggets. His first name was Jamal.
I know some basketball, and so does he. He couldn’t remember the last name. I started naming names of Marquette U players in the NBA – Jimmy Butler, Jae Crowder, Dwayne Wade. I knew none of them was the guy his memory bank was searching for, but also recognize that if you jog someone with names it will often trigger the right memory. This didn’t work.
We stretched, batted around names, grew increasingly frustrated. I told him to stop thinking about it and the name would come to him. He probably was ready to Google it.
“I’ll go find the answer,” I said, getting up and heading over to four of my trusty sources at the workout facility, my ever-present investigative journalistic skills pulsing. “I’ll show him.”
You can usually tell if someone has played basketball by their build, the tee shirt he or she wears while exercising or the conversations you overhear them having with others in the gym. I strolled over to the first of the candidates who appeared likely to help. He had ear buds in. After posing the question, “Do you know that guy on the Nuggets who recently scored over 50 points who came from Marquette,” he looked at me blankly, shook his head and went back to pounding weights.
The second guy was a dead lifter, probably trying to increase his vertical jump. He, too, had to pull the ear buds out before looking at me like I’d just arrived from the planet Uranus, added 25 pounds to each side of the bar and began squatting again.
The third guy threw some names out there, played along, but he, too, didn’t know. Finally, I walked over to the corner lifting area to talk to the fourth guy, a newcomer to the facility in his early 20’s who consistently discussed basketball. He pulled his buds out, listened patiently, said he didn’t know, and then, “I’ll Google it.”
Before I knew it, he had the answer: Jamal Murray. It was nice to come back to my buddy with the name, but disturbing we had to go the Google route. I like to think that there was enough personal knowledge in the gym to find the answer, but we did all have to get to our jobs at some point.
I thanked him, headed back over to my friend, and gave him the name: “Jamal Murray, but he didn’t play college ball at Marquette. He played at Kentucky.”
I hold out hope that the next time I head out on the personal information search that we have the college right. Then we should be able to collectively find the answer without big brother.