Last night an old friend who runs a small software company confessed a secret. When he and his staff answer technical questions for clients, they are often “only” searching Google. At one point, he even asked a client: “Do you really want us to search Google for you at $100/hour?” Yes, in fact they did. My friend thought that was crazy. I suggested that it’s not as crazy as it sounds. Effective search depends on reservoirs of tacit knowledge and unconscious skill. Some people possess much deeper reservoirs, and/or can tap into them more effectively, than others. That makes them valuable.

in 2000, i won a bottle of champagne by solving a coworkers problem with a google search. ah those were the days.