>BOOST O2 >> The Way to Smarter Internet searching (Tips)

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10 tips for smarter, more efficient Internet searching

By Alan Norton

 These days, everyone is expected to be up to speed on Internet search techniques. But there are still a few tricks that some users — and even savvy searchers — may not be aware of.

Did you hate memorizing seemingly insignificant facts for tests at school?
No photographic memory?
Good news! Life is now an open-book exam — assuming you have a computer, browser, and Internet access. If you know how to use a good search engine, you don’t have to stuff your mind with facts that are useful only when playing Jeopardy! and Trivial Pursuit.
Chances are, you aren’t the first person to run across the problem you are experiencing. Chances are also good that an answer is awaiting your discovery on the Internet — you just have to remove the irrelevant pages and the unhelpful/incorrect results to find that needle in the haystack.
Google has been fanatical about speed. There is little doubt that it has built an incredibly fast and thorough search engine. Unfortunately, the human element of the Internet search equation is often overlooked.
These 10 tips are designed to improve that human element and better your Internet search skills. (Note: All examples below refer to the Google search engine.)

1: Use unique, specific terms

It is simply amazing how many Web pages are returned when performing a search. You might guess that the terms blue dolphin are relatively specialized. A Google search of those terms returned 2,440,000 results! To reduce the number of pages returned, use unique terms that are specific to the subject you are researching.

2: Use the minus operator (-) to narrow the search

How many times have you searched for a term and had the search engine return something totally unexpected? Terms with multiple meanings can return a lot of unwanted results. The rarely used but powerful minus operator, equivalent to a Boolean NOT, can remove many unwanted results. For example, when searching for the insect caterpillar, references to the company Caterpillar, Inc. will also be returned. Use Caterpillar -Inc to exclude references to the company or Caterpillar -Inc -Cat to further refine the search.

3: Use quotation marks for exact phrases

I often remember parts of phrases I have seen on a Web page or part of a quotation I want to track down. Using quotation marks around a phrase will return only those exact words in that order. It’s one of the best ways to limit the pages returned. Example: “Be nice to nerds”.Of course, you must have the phrase exactly right — and if your memory is as good as mine, that can be problematic.

4: Don’t use common words and punctuation

Common terms like a and the are called stop words and are usually ignored. Punctuation is also typically ignored. But there are exceptions. Common words and punctuation marks should be used when searching for a specific phrase inside quotes. There are cases when common words like the are significant. For instance, Raven and The Raven return entirely different results.

5: Capitalization

Most search engines do not distinguish between uppercase and lowercase, even within quotation marks. The following are all equivalent:

• technology
• Technology
• TECHNOLOGY
• “technology”
• “Technology”

6: Drop the suffixes

It’s usually best to enter the base word so that you don’t exclude relevant pages. For example, bird and not birds, walk and not walked. One exception is if you are looking for sites that focus on the act of walking, enter the whole term walking.

7: Maximize AutoComplete

Ordering search terms from general to specific in the search box will display helpful results in a drop-down list and is the most efficient way to use AutoComplete. Selecting the appropriate item as it appears will save time typing. You have several choices for how the AutoComplete feature works: Use Google AutoComplete. The standard Google start page will display a drop-down list of suggestions supplied by the Google search engine. This option can be a handy way to discover similar, related searches. For example, typing in Tucson fast will not only bring up the suggestion Tucson fast food but also Tucson fast food coupons.
Use browser AutoComplete. Use this Google start page to disable the Google AutoComplete feature and display a list of your previous searches in a drop-down box. I find this particularly useful when I’ve made dozens of searches in the past for a particular item. The browser’s AutoComplete feature must be turned on for this option to work. Click one of these links for instructions detailing how to turn AutoComplete on or off in I.E. and Firefox.
Examples:

• Visual Basic statement case
• Visual Basic statement for
• Visual Basic call

8: Customize your searches

There are several other less well known ways to limit the number of results returned and reduce your search time:

• The plus operator (+): As mentioned above, stop words are typically ignored by the search engine. The plus operator tells the search engine to include those words in the result set. Example: tall +and short will return results that include the word and.
• The tide operator (~): Include a tilde in front of a word to return results that include synonyms. The tilde operator does not work well for all terms and sometimes not at all. A search for ~CSS includes the synonym style and returns fashion related style pages –not exactly what someone searching for CSS wants. Examples: ~HTML to get results for HTML with synonyms; ~HTML -HTML to get synonyms only for HTML.
• The wildcard operator (*): Google calls it the fill in the blank operator. For example, amusement * will return pages with amusement and any other term(s) the Google search engine deems relevant. You can’t use wildcards for parts of words. So for example, amusement p* is invalid.
• The OR operator (OR) or (|): Use this operator to return results with either of two terms. For example happy joy will return pages with both happy and joy, while happy | joy will return pages with either happy or joy.
• Numeric ranges: You can refine searches that use numeric terms by returning a specific range, but you must supply the unit of measurement. Examples: Windows XP 2003..2005, PC $700 $800.
• Site search: Many Web sites have their own site search feature, but you may find that Google site search will return more pages. When doing research, it’s best to go directly to the source, and site search is a great way to do that. Example: site:www.intel.com rapid storage technology.
• Related sites: For example, related:www.youtube.com can be used to find sites similar to YouTube.
• Change your preferences: Search preferences can be set globally by clicking on the gear icon in the upper-right corner and selecting Search Settings. I like to change the Number Of Results option to 100 to reduce total search time.
• Forums-only search: Under the Google logo on the left side of the search result page, click More | Discussions or go to Google Groups. Forums are great places to look for solutions to technical problems.
• Advanced searches: Click the Advanced Search button by the search box on the Google start or results page to refine your search by date, country, amount, language, or other criteria.
• Wonder Wheel: The Google Wonder Wheel can visually assist you as you refine your search from general to specific. Here’s how to use this tool:

1. Click on More Search Tools | Wonder Wheel in the lower-left section of the screen (Figure A) to load the Wonder Wheel page.
2. Click on dbms tutorial (Figure B).

Figure A

Figure B

As you can see in Figure C, Google now displays two wheels showing the DBMS and dbms tutorial Wonder Wheels, with the results for dbms tutorial on the right side of the page. You can continue drilling down the tree to further narrow your search. Click the Close button at the top of the results to remove the Wonder Wheel(s).

Figure C

9: Use browser history

Many times, I will be researching an item and scanning through dozens of pages when I suddenly remember something I had originally dismissed as being irrelevant. How do you quickly go back to that Web site? You can try to remember the exact words used for the search and then scan the results for the right site, but there is an easier way. If you can remember the general date and time of the search you can look through the browser history to find the Web page.

10: Set a time limit — then change tactics

Sometimes, you never can find what you are looking for. Start an internal clock, and when a certain amount of time has elapsed without results, stop beating your head against the wall. It’s time to try something else:

• Use a different search engine, like Yahoo!, Bing, Startpage, or Lycos.
• Ask a peer.
• Call support.
• Ask a question in the appropriate forum.
• Use search experts who can find the answer for you.

The bottom line

A tool is only as useful as the typing fingers wielding it. Remember that old acronym GIGO, garbage in, garbage out? Search engines will try to place the most relevant results at the top of the list, but if your search terms are too broad or ambiguous, the results will not be helpful. It is your responsibility to learn how to make your searches both fast and effective.
The Internet is the great equalizer for those who know how to use it efficiently. Anyone can now easily find facts using a search engine instead of dredging them from the gray matter dungeon — assuming they know a few basic tricks. Never underestimate the power of a skilled search expert.

This article is also available as a PDF download.

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ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS >>> KNOWLEDGE YOU CAN TRUST >>> ENJOY IT!

>BOOST O2 >> Building A Team Of Team Builders

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10 Tips For Building Your Next-Gen Marketing Team

by Stephanie Overby , Contributing Writer , CMO.com 

What’s it like to be a chief marketing officer in 2011?

“There is no comfort zone anymore,” said Krishnan Chatterjee, CMO for $3.1 billion Indian IT service provider HCL Technologies. What’s hot can turn cold. What’s up may come down. And it all happens at warp speed.
There’s increased audience segmentation, a growing choice of marketing vehicles, the necessary integration of more third-party providers, and the seemingly endless touch points for any given brand that necessitates new relationships from HR and sales to IT and customer service. “The CMO today has really got to use the maximum amount of peripheral vision both internally and externally,” said Lynne Seid, partner in the global marketing officers practice of executive recruiter Heidrick & Struggles.
The key is to build a corporate marketing team for tomorrow.

“It’s very difficult to think you’re going to be able to construct the perfect message with the perfect execution anymore. If you linger too long or hesitate, someone will beat you to the punch,” said Gayle Meredith, CMO at commercial real estate firm Cassidy Turley, in an interview with CMO.com. “You have to construct a team that can help you quickly assemble different pieces that you need.”

Here are 10 tips from CMOs and industry watchers for assembling the winning marketing team of the future.
1. Build A Team Of Team Builders
Nigel Dessau, senior vice president and CMO of $6.5 billion semiconductor maker AMD, told CMO.com he is always searching for new talent. Yet even with the new demands of digital marketing, he rarely seeks a particular technical ability. “The biggest single skill necessary is collaboration,” said Dessau, who must compete with archrival Intel at one-eighth of its marketing budget. “And it’s the one thing you don’t learn in school.” He recruits entry-level employees who can learn on the job, MBAs who can quickly assimilate, and seasoned team builders.
“A lot of things that we are doing today are very new and have not been done before by a lot of people,” said HCL’s Chatterjee, who spent the first decade of his marketing career in consumer goods launching everything from a cigarette brand to a high-end apparel chain. He values intellectual curiosity, positivity, and experimentation.

2. Consider Creating A CDO
Digital media is just one aspect of marketing, but it’s the newest and most challenging for many corporate marketers. Some CMOs are appointing a chief digital officer (CDO) to guide them on the frontier. “This is a new kind of person sitting in the corporate environment that, a few years ago, may have been at a dotcom or a digital agency,” Heidrick & Struggles’ Seid told CMO.com. “This will be the strategic architect of company’s digital point of view.”

3. Enter The Matrix
Meeting new demands doesn’t begin and end with the coronation of a digital chief. “It can’t be done by one person sitting at a marketing dashboard doing their own thing,” Seid said. “It has to be interwoven into every aspect of what CMO does.”
“You don’t want to create a ghetto,” AMD’s Dessau agreed. “You have to add a bit of that to everyone’s job.”
Think interdepartmental teams, cross-training, and reporting matrices. When Maria Davlantes became the first CMO at $962 million modular rug company Interface, she sought to create a physical and cultural environment conducive to small-group discussions and “cross-pollination.” “We want staff who are experts in their respective disciplines, but who can also step outside of their comfort zone and value different ideas,” she told CMO.com.
But take care to create common goals, Dessau warned.  You can’t have the director of regional working toward contributing margin dollars and the corporate manager chasing gross margin percentage and expect teamwork. Unite digital and analog efforts with common metrics as well, said Megan Findley, marketing director at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), in an interview with CMO.com. Incorporate new marketing vehicles into your ROMI model. And “look at a broader range of objectives and ways of defining success,” Findley advised. “Declare victory because you learned something, not just because you sold something.”

Read more: http://www.cmo.com/management/10-tips-building-your-next-gen-marketing-team#ixzz1KwTzcYQY

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ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS >>> KNOWLEDGE YOU CAN TRUST >>> ENJOY IT!

>BOOST O2 >> Walk In the chief marketer and finance chief’s Shoes

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5 Tips To Get Your CFO‘s Ear

by Mercedes M. Cardona , Contributing Writer , CMO.com

Conventional wisdom holds that the chief marketer and finance chief are the right and left sides of a company’s brain–the creative versus the practical. But a CMO doesn’t need to be a brain surgeon to communicate with the numbers people, marketing insiders said.
“They have to agree that there is a joint goalpost for both of them,” said Ron Hill, professor of marketing and business law at Villanova School of Business, in an interview with CMO.com. “If somebody is trying to hit a home run [and] somebody wants to score a touchdown, they’re not even on the same game.”

Conversations have become easier in the past few years, even as the recession tightened the scrutiny on marketing budgets, experts said. Both sides are more focused on showing an ROI since the start of the recession, and the rise of new digital efforts, such as social media and mobile, have brought on more real-time metrics to express that ultimate goal.
“It’s not that will we ever get to the Holy Grail. I think it’s very difficult. But I think the digital age is getting us a step closer,” said Carl Anderson, CEO and former CFO of Doremus, the corporate advertising specialist.
There is no silver-bullet metric that will unlock the money chest, either. Depending on each company’s goals and industry, the metrics relevant to the CFO will vary. In a new-product introduction, for example, metrics showing trial, such as awareness and consideration, can be traced back to activities such as sampling and point of sale, which can clarify the ROI, noted Ted Woehrle, CMO of Newell Rubbermaid, in an interview with CMO.com. In the auto industry, lead generation is the goal, added Julie Roehm, founder of marketing consultant Backslash Meta and a former Chrysler marketer.
Marginal ROI–the extra return for every dollar spent beyond the projected budget for an effort–can be an effective number to show finance staff the results of marketing, said Douglas Brooks, executive VP of marketing at Management Analytics, a unit of Synovate. But like a financial adviser talking up an investment, the marketer has to put that model in the context of the larger effort, he said. “That’s what marketers get paid to do,” he told CMO.com. “The day a model replaces a marketer, we’re all in trouble because there is no growth and no innovation.”
Other metrics–such as reach and frequency, number of hits on the Web site, and leads generated–are “lovely and measurable, but they don’t translate to what the CFO wants to show,” Roehm told CMO.com. Those numbers need to be related to the company’s bottom line, she said.
Brooks said he often doesn’t report straight ROI to clients. Instead, he prepares a quadrant chart relating the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing investments, showing which ones are driving sales, which could be more successful with more spending, and which could be cut. “You need to be a data-driven storyteller,” Brooks said. “Analytics don’t tell the whole story. When analytics are successful is when you have a good translator.”
So how can a marketer learn to translate ad-speak into terms familiar to the CFO? Here are five simple tips to help you get on the same page as your brethren in the finance department.

1. Walk In The CFO’s Shoes
“It’s like any relationship. I would begin by cultivating mutual respect,” said Hill, recalling one of his first consulting projects, which involved mediating between a company’s senior vice presidents of finance and marketing. “They were at loggerheads, absolute loggerheads.”
The marketers didn’t care about profits because they were being judged solely on increasing sales. Meantime, the finance staff was concerned about losing profits by overspending to boost sales. By getting them to role-play each other’s position, Hill got the executives to begin searching for common ground.
This is easier in companies where the two departments work closely, marketers said. Brooks said one CMO he works with takes the finance staff out to lunch and invites them to meetings and marketing event. That way they can get a sense for what his department does.
Of course, the reverse also works, Roehm said. “Learn the financial operations of the company. . .Become a sponge,” said the former Chrysler and Wal-Mart marketer. Earlier in her career, she held positions in sales and finance, which gave her a sense of how other departments operated.
“If you’re a CMO, you’re in the C-suite–you’re friends,” Roehm said. “That’s just teamwork 101. But a lot of CMOs avoid the CFO because they’re always taking things away.”

Read more: http://www.cmo.com/budgeting/5-tips-get-your-cfos-ear#ixzz1KwSOV0yq

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ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS >>> KNOWLEDGE YOU CAN TRUST >>> ENJOY IT!

>BOOST O2 >> NASA’s amazing views of Earth

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To celebration Earth Day, NASA released some of its most beautiful and surprising images of our planet.
Although the entire collection features dozens of images and photographs of a wide variety of subjects–from hurricanes to volcano eruptions to data visualizations of things like average rainfalls and terrain height–CNET has chosen these 20 images to represent the best of Earth, as seen from high above.
In this incredible image taken from the International Space Station, we see the underside of the Space Shuttle just after the spacecraft completed its post-undocking relative separation on April 17, 2010.

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ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS >>> KNOWLEDGE YOU CAN TRUST >>> ENJOY IT!

>BOOST O2 >> Shopping technology at your fingertips (video)

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What store has the new iPad in stock? Who has the best deal on platform beds? Where can I buy Lady Gaga’s sunglasses? In the future, technology will put the answer to these questions at your fingertips. ZDNet correspondent Sumi Das explores the ultimate personal shoppers of tomorrow.

http://i.zdnet.com/flash/zdnet-skin.swf

ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS >>> KNOWLEDGE YOU CAN TRUST >>> ENJOY IT!

>BOOST O2 >> Bernanke’s Strategy Outline (video)

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Bernanke Needs to Outline Strategy – Fox Business … Stanford Professor of Economics John Taylor argues the economy needs a traditional type of policy to recover. video.foxbusiness.com

ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS >>> KNOWLEDGE YOU CAN TRUST >>> ENJOY IT!