Google, in it’s wisdom, has decided that you can just take your crummy search words and shove them.

While writing a previous post about Facebook’s own insanities, I was looking for like-minded writers on the Internet. It’s common to do this sort of search. The most famous example is to put in a company’s name and then add the word, “sucks.” (Don’t look at me like that – we all know you’ve done it).

Watch Closely – This Affects You

What Facebook did made me want to barf, but you’ll notice in the screen shot below that Google (in it’s infinite wisdom) figured I really meant “bar” – and gave me that in every single result:

The only problem? I didn’t mean “bar” – I meant “barf.” I actually had to change my search and treat my word like a phrase (by putting quotes around the word) in order to get the results I was looking for:

Notice that Google’s first idiot results numbered 767,000, compared to the correct 4,320. Isnt’ that enough to make you crazy?

The Queen of Search

I went out looking for help with this one and called on someone who knows (and I mean really knows). Tara Calishain is the author of “Google Hacks” and earlier this year she had written Google Localizes Google Suggest, “Improves” Spelling Suggestions:

Say I’m searching for Carolynn. There are plenty of people named Carolynn. However, there are more people named Carolyn and Google will a) suggest that as the correct spelling and b) put Carolyns in my search results.

Which is just completely nuts. It’s not only nuts, but other than Tara, no one is writing about this or complaining about it! Even Tara is a bit too gracious and generous, calling it Google’s “well-meaning results.”

In response to my fulminations, she wrote back:

Hi Michael. This is Google thinking it knows what you want to search for better than you do.

Yahoo and Bing and Ask, Oh My!

So, Google thinks it knows better.

There must be something in the tech water. People with lots of specialized and abstruse knowledge drink it and it makes them arrogant and stupid.

Mark Zuckerberg drinks it regularly. AOL binged on it for years and finally ended up face down in the gutter. But, you’d never think Google would succumb to the same kind of temptation. Until now.

Thank goodness Bing, Ask and Yahoo are not following Google. I’m moving my search business over to someone who cares what I’m looking for and trusts that I know what I’m doing. I’m going to bet others will be following fairly soon.

Sell your Google stock now.

What are criminals and stalkers up to these days? What state-of-the-art strategies are being used by the really bad guys?

To answer those questions, we decided to ask novelists Michael Connelly and George Dawes Green. But, darn. Neither of those authors was in our Outlook phone directory. Go figure.

Amazon’s Sneak Peek

So, we had to turn to Amazon.com’s special feature called “Search Inside This Book” (also known sometimes as “Look Inside This Book,” but we digress):

For instance, let’s use this Amazon search feature on Mr. Connelly’s super-scary book, The Scarecrow. Type in the word “LinkedIn” and it will make you more than pause:

What did Michael Connelly’s stalker find out about his young prey by visiting her LinkedIn page? He learned her dog’s name, her favorite band and the name of her favorite pizza hangout. Indeed, here’s this exceedingly dangerous criminal musing on the naïveté of his victim:

“They believed they could bare their souls on the Internet, post photos and information at will, and not expect any consequences.”

We won’t tell you what happens or what other dangers lurk in this masterful mystery. But we will tell you that:

“He was circling her and she didn’t even know it.”

…by Mr. Green, with a MySpace, on the Internet

Use Amazon.com’s “Search Inside” method to get inside George Dawes Green’s compelling new book, Ravens, and a chillingly similar message unfolds.

In this case, Green’s stalker finds his prey’s pictures (and more) on MySpace. Those pages reveal that his intended victim has a very close relationship with her grandmother – closer even than with her mother. He also learns the victim’s age, devotion to Johnny Depp and her favorite bands. Using that information he…. but, we promise not to ruin the story.

The Friends of Your Friends

If you read either of these two books, my guess is you’ll head right to your privacy settings on MySpace (or Facebook, or LinkedIn).

Better yet, buy both of these books for the young people in your life. No, young people don’t know everything about the Internet. You just think they do.

If you’re younger, buy both of these books for the old codgers in your life. They’re on Facebook and LinkedIn these days even more than you are – but they usually have no idea how vulnerable they are.

Sure, your friends are all wonderful folks. But, what about the friends of their friends? Can they see the photos and private information that you post? Usually, unless you’ve been very careful – the answer is “yes.”

Are you and your family at risk when you post information to social networking sites? Just ask George Dawes Green and Michael Connelly. Or, better yet, read these books – and then decide for yourself.

As we explained in that post, MyWedding.com is moving its corporate headquarters to Castle Rock, Colorado. These days, that’s not such a big deal because Internet companies are global, not local.

However, even the good folks at an online Internet company aren’t virtual – they’re real people. And, they will be hiring real people in the area. They’ll also be interested in developing some close-by businesses relationships with those both inside and outside the wedding industry.

Did we forget customers?! MyWedding’s customer base may well be global, but the nearby customers they can actually rub shoulders with may become their most ardent advocates.

Search Locally, Think Globally

And that’s why they will want to search Twitter locally. In order to do that, they’ll want to go to the “Advanced Search” tab of Search.Twitter.com:

Here, they can search for any terms they might find useful in order to connect to Twitter members near Castle Rock. (they’ll want to search within 100 miles of Castle Rock, what is called “The Front Range” around here – all the nearby burbs, including Denver, Ft. Collins and Colorado Springs).

Using “Advanced Search,” we’ll do a search for the words “wedding” and “planning” within 100 miles of Castle Rock. You can see the result in the picture at the beginning of this article (you should do the search yourself just to get warmed up), but here’s the fill-in the blanks part that got us there:

Certainly, the gurus at MyWedding know their business and their needs much better than Sheryl and I ever could. But, even by using the most rudimentary search terms, we can turn up some surprisingly interesting contacts who might turn into new customers, vendors, partners or employees.

Nearby Wedding Planner

One of the tweets from someone who lives near Castle Rock (and includes both of our search terms) was from @DebbieOrwat. She is the owner and lead wedding consultant at savetheDate! Events.

Debbie’s got over a thousand followers, offers a profile, web link and her real name. That kind of transparency is crucial to evaluating a potential Twitter contact. As we’ve said, there are a lot of shady characters out there, but she and her company look pretty good.

She also happens to write a blog, so the folks at MyWedding.com might convince her to blog about them or partner with them in some other way. Regardless, she’s a legitimate wedding-related contact who lives near their new offices.

Potential Customer

Another Twitter member who mentioned both the words “wedding” and “planning” in a recent tweet is @kaneil. She doesn’t work for a wedding related company, but she has been mentioning (quite charmingly) her upcoming wedding and what it’s doing to her!

This is the kind of search that companies of all kinds are using to generate qualified leads. In this case, @kaneil might be interested in using MyWedding.com – especially those parts of the site that will help her organize and plan her wedding.

What About Keyshia Cole and Ryan Seacrest?

At first, it looked like our search was going to lead to a couple of celebrity weddings. Nope, because no matter what search terms you use, you’re gonna’ haul in some pretty shady stuff.

It looked like someone was re-tweeting Ryan Seacrest talking about his upcoming wedding. But, the newbie who “re-tweeted” that message seems to have invented it herself. Or, perhaps she has a thing for Ryan.

And, even though Ms. Cole has announced her upcoming wedding, there is no way to tell which, if any, of the many Keyshia Coles on Twitter are the real Keyshia Cole (a common problem on Twitter, only sometimes solved by their “Verified Account” insignia).

Keep it Complicated, Stupid

All this just means that MyWedding.com can find some great connections, but it is going to have to be pretty savvy to avoid the junk.

One way to do that is for them to target their search terms with very specific phrases or combinations of words that fit their needs and industry.

The other way, as we have seen here, is to search a much smaller geographic area. A search for the word “wedding” in Twitter would overwhelm. But, a search for the phrase “my wedding” within 100 miles of their new home office, well, now that’s another story.

There’s More to the Story

Even better? Any of these searches (even the radius location ones) can be turned into alerts that can land in your RSS reader, email or Google desktop.

(But, that’s another article – so, stay tuned).

Let’s take a recent example of some Colorado business news that might have caught your attention. The Castle Rock (Colorado) Economic Development Council just announced that MyWedding.com, a Seattle and Portland based business, will locate its corporate headquarters in their fair city.

Pretty cool news if you live in Colorado, operate a wedding oriented business, or even if you’re just looking for some positive news about the economy.

And, let’s say you’d like to see if Twitter could help you network with some of the folks related to this business story. Perhaps you’re a job hunter, a wedding vendor, or, heck, simply wanna’-be-journalists like us.

Search Twitter Like a Pro

By now, if you read this blog (Just the Guy We Need, Going Next Door for a Drink), you know you have to start your search, not on Twitter, but at their sister-search site, Search.Twitter.com. And, you likely know that you should search for:

mywedding.com colorado

That way, you’ll find anyone who has tweeted a message that includes both the words, “mywedding.com” and “colorado.”

But, here’s the problem. If you do this search, you’ll quickly see that the Twitter River is now a polluted stream, indeed. Many of the people who tweeted or re-tweeted this story are either wannabes, fruitcakes or auto-tweeters. Yes, it’s true, they now offer automatic re-tweeting programs. Ugh.

So, Look Elsewhere

The amazing thing is, you’ll find better connections by simply targeting your search terms more specifically to something like:

mywedding.com “castle rock”

Isn’t that amazing? By adding more specific terms, your results turn up no pollution and offer you five potentially cool people, companies or organizations:

Design Works – a floral supply company, specializing in weddings.

Mike Reid – a designer at the Colorado Springs Business Journal

Christian Eppers – an economic gardening expert in Highlands Ranch

Nicole McGee – of the very intriguing Colorado Stem Network

The Metro Denver Economic Development Commission

Twitter Really Can Handle That

Finally, isn’t it remarkable that while Twitter experts abound, almost none of them teach you even a smidgeon of proper etiquette?

When you refer to someone in a Twitter message, it’s best to refer to them by their Twitter handle. That provides a link and it alerts them to the fact that they were mentioned (which gives them a chance to thank you back).

In the case of MyWedding.com, their Twitter handle is “@myweddingdotcom.”

So, try your search terms combined with their handle, instead of their company name. In this case:

@myweddingdotcom colorado

@myweddingdotcom “castle rock”

@myweddingdotcom jobs

The results will show fewer goofballs and more savvy and experienced Twitter users, like the Oxford and Curtis hotels in the example below. We’re thinking these hotels host a few weddings on occasion, huh?

Yes, it’s still possible to fish for important contacts in “Twitter River” with your ole search fishing pole. But, it does take a little more work. Give it a try with better bait and let us know what your next catch looks like.

Why won’t you see those warnings? Well, we promise it’s not a conspiracy to protect the International Speakers Network.

The fact is you can only see this question (and all of its vigorous responses) if you are on LinkedIn. And then, only if you are a member of the National Speaker’s Association Group on LinkedIn. And then, only if you happen to have noticed (or been notified) that the question was posted.

More importantly, if you don’t meet all of those above criteria, you can’t even find the information by searching it on LinkedIn, even if you’re a member of the NSA group – and even if you’re in the “discussion area” of the NSA group). You can’t even find it by doing a “site:” search on Google:

Charlotte “international speakers” site:linkedin.com

It’s just blocked. And, it’s pretty important information. Not just to Charlotte Stallings, a former Vice President at Ameriprise and now the owner of Getting Smart! LLC, but also to other unsuspecting folks.

Membership has its privileges

In a few hours, no less than 15 NSA members warned Charlotte to steer clear of this clearly questionable company:

Do not under any circumstances work with this group or anyone who has ever worked for ISN!

To loosely quote the movie Forest Gump… “Run Charlotte run!!!”

Hold them at arms length and always keep a hand on your wallet.

Ditto, ditto, ditto. Avoid them like the plague.

Those are just of few of the cascade of credible warnings that greeted Charlotte’s query. In fact, this was the most responded to discussion in the entire NSA group. However, if you’re not a member of the NSA LinkedIn group – forget it, you’ll never get this information.

Establishing entrance requirements and protecting the membership of a LinkedIn group is clearly defensible. Keeping the information itself under lock and key, we think, is not. It’s something LinkedIn and other social networking sites will need to address.

Our last blog article showed some of the newly discovered search power of Twitter – What Google Doesn’t Know Will Surprise You.

It’s important to note that virtually all of the information in Twitter is searchable. Only some of the information in LinkedIn is searchable. And, almost none of the information in Facebook and MySpace is searchable. Clearly, that is an issue.

Information is power – but only if you can get to it. In the upcoming “Gunfight at the Social Media Corral,” the real winners will be those that figure out how to make their information available and searchable. That might be Twitter’s biggest strength right now – and Facebook and LinkedIn’s biggest challenge.

They Can Run, but They Can’t Hide

Does that mean that the International Speakers Network will get away Scott-free?! Nope. If you do a Google search for them, you will find any number of other warnings about them.

You’ll see a web site entirely devoted to their shenanigans, an article we wrote (A Few Simple, Smart Online Shopping Rules) and any number of other rip-off references.

You just won’t find Charlotte’s warnings on LinkedIn – and that’s too bad.

You see, they call it “social” networking for a reason. It’s not just a place to upload your contacts (although, believe me, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter all covet your Outlook and GMail folders) and then wait for hordes of admirers to start nudging, poking and friending you. If you’re new to social networking, you can ask for help from other social networkers. How do we know? That’s what we did.

We met Jim Storer from Mzinga (@JimStorer) at a conference and got to talking about Twitter. He offered to help us learn. Since his company helps corporations connect the social networking dots, what were we to do?! Say no?!!

And, Jim was not the only one who helped us. We kind of had a Board of Learning Directors. You should do the same. That way you don’t put just one person on the spot. They have a life, you know!

Our Board of Learning Directors consisted semi-officially of five main people – Claire Wadlington @wadlington; Jim Storer @jimstorer; Mike Keliher @mjkeliher; Ellen Mrja @ellenm53; and Rob Johnson @robjohnson.

Two of them we knew already, the other three we met on Twitter.

Most of the help they gave us happened right there on Twitter. Yes, go ahead, ask your questions in front of Twitter and everyone. People won’t mind. They may even volunteer to help.

Or, take the conversation off of Twitter and go back to one of those archaic forms of communication like email or the telephone. Everyone on our Board helped us that way, too.

People like to help – as long as you aren’t a pest.

Get Your Own Board

But, this is important. If you’re going to use this approach, you can’t have Jim – or Claire, or Mike, or Ellen or Rob. They’re ours.

And, stop paying hundreds of bucks to learn the basics of free stuff. Paying for “social” networking is downright “anti-social.”

Now, get out there and find your own social learning guys.

You should be. You may have heard someone say, “I can get anything I need on the web from Google.” You may even have said it yourself. It’s hogwash.

Studies show 9 out of 10 people think they’re getting what they need from their Internet searches. That means your employees, your executives and even your board of directors.

There have been many studies about our searching skills, but one of the most famous is the Pew Internet and American Life Project’s “Search Engine Users,” which is sub-titled “Internet searchers are confident, satisfied and trusting – but they are also unaware and naïve.”

So now, if you haven’t heard of the “Deep Web,” “Invisible Web” or “Hidden Internet” it’s time to stop reading this article right now and  search these terms on your own. (Then, come back please!)

OK, I’m glad you’re back.

Did you find out in a few seconds of searching that you might be, um… shockingly out of touch?

Follow-up Question, Please

Here’s a follow-up question. When you searched for these terms, did any of you search somewhere other than the web? How many of you did your search in the “News” area of Google (or Yahoo or Ask.com)?

If you did, you found things like this article about Google’s “Deep Web” search initiative – “Google: “We’re Not Doing a Good Job with Structured Data.”

How many of you searched “Video” or “Blogs?” Did any of you search Twitter or the Questions section of LinkedIn?

Through Twitter you might have made your way to this: “Google’s PDF Search Throws Some Light on the Dark Web.” It’s about increasing the effectiveness of PDF search. Wow!

And, that’s only the beginning. We could go on – and on.

The Cost

Not knowing how to target your searches is costing you and your company time and money every day.

If you’re missing most of what a search engine can help you find, you are lost. If you don’t know that search engines (even the best of them) can get to only a fraction what’s on the web, you’re seeing the world of information about as clearly as the photo you see above.

We call search effectiveness “the language of the 21st Century.” It’s the language of search skills and strategies that ensure you target just the right information quickly and effectively.

More importantly, these skills keep you from being sucked in by the hawkers and swindlers.

Time to start learning this new language, don’t you think? That way, you’ll see the world of information clearly – like this:

ZoomInfo.com is one of the most important online business resources on the Internet. You’ve likely run across this site without realizing it when you search for almost anyone.

They use sophisticated web mining technology to find the latest contact information about people. But, that’s also why folks with a common name, a varied work history or very little web presence might find their information in need of more than just a face.

And, that’s why it is crucial for you to check your contact information on ZoomInfo.com.

SO STOP! Yes, stop reading this article right now and look yourself up. It’s likely that the information ZoomInfo lists about you could use some grooming. Just be sure you are in the “Find People” tab when you look yourself up:

Are you back? Yup, I thought so. Your picture looks just like the knobby little man below, doesn’t it?

So, you’d better put your face on! Ian did – and now his photo looks like the one at the beginning of this article.

But, that’s not the least of it. Ian Griffin also corrected his work history, added his association relationships (he’s president of his National Speakers Association chapter this year) and made sure that the other information about him was correct.

He also added a professional biography to further clarify his credentials. Totally legal:

If you don’t correct your own ZoomInformation, how will anyone know which “you” is “you.” Big deal, I hear you saying. Well, that’s a big mistake.

Think about it. So far we’ve left out a little secret. We’ve only introduced you to the free version of ZoomInfo.

But, they also offer reasonably priced, but robust tools like PowerSearch, ZoomExec, PowerSell, ZoomLists and more. These allow their subscribers incredible power to identify prospects by zip code radius, job title, company name and about 47,000 other cool criteria. We’ve written about this aspect of ZoomInfo in “The Butch Cassidy Approach to Sales Calls.”

Now, one last clarification before you hurry away to fix your ZoomInfo profile. Who do you think shells out for sophisticated contact databases like this?

I’ll give you a minute….

Yes, you’re right!! – human resource departments, sales directors, top executives, recruiters, meeting planners, speaker agencies and, well, you get the picture.

So, this is the last question, class. Do you want Mr. Knobby Figure to represent you with the folks who have the money, make the hiring decisions and might just provide you with your next big break? Or, do you want your profile to be groomed and looking its best, like Ian’s?

And, if you’re still not convinced, even by doing your own vanity search, consider reading what Meridith Levinson had to say January 9th in CIO Magazine: “The Two Websites Every Job Seeker Needs to Join.”

To be clear, Ian Griffin is not looking for a job. He already has several, thank you. But, as someone very wise once said – you should start your job search as soon as your get your new one. And, in this economy, who can argue with that?

So, before you head back out into the online world, for goodness sakes, remember my mother and put your face on!

Dan Powers is the Community Affairs Manager for the Boulder Chamber of Commerce, but he also has enough other irons in the fire to be called a Colorado Renaissance Man.

We’ve written about Dan before in “Who Killed East Boulder’s Blog?” It’s a frightening and cautionary tale. And the experience temporarily drove him away from a leadership position in the discussion about citizen involvement in East Boulder county politics.

So, to make sure he connects with people in his area who are talking about the issues he cares about we wanted to make sure he “Advanced” on Search.Twitter.com. We just wrote about this site in “Going Next Door for a Drink.”

And, yes, just like any good search engine, the brilliant minds over at Search.Twitter.com once again named their “Beginner” button the “Advanced” tab. Nuts, isn’t it? – because all you have to do is fill in the little boxes.

Anyway, Dan can look to see who’s just written the word “politics” in Twitter – and limit that search to only those within 15 miles of his own home. Cool, frightening, weird, but entirely useful if he wants to find like-minded people right away.

Why are we so happy to see Dan Powers back in the Web 2.0 saddle? Because he’s the perfect “Patriot 2.O.”

You’ll get a better idea of what we mean by that term if you read Andrea Baker’s blog post from yesterday over at ZDNet – “The (Government 2.0) revolution should be televised.”

I agree with Andrea that we need more Citizen 2.0’s and Patriot 2.0’s, but in order to do that we need more folks like Dan Powers – writing blogs, sharing important topics on Twitter and bringing another slug of people along with him in the process.

And, believe me, we need as many citizens and patriots as we can get these days.

What is Twitter? Well, it’s instant and text messaging gone berserk on a global scale. You can Twitter from your computer, cell phone, Blackberry (TwitterBerry), and heck, even from your Xbox.

Now that I have your attention, here’s one more definition of Twitter from Wikipedia:

“Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.”

We hesitate to declare new technologies loathsome before we use them, but I have to say that Twitter is a huge challenge to our objectivity.

Most Tweets (remember, those are Twitter messages) are inane, self-absorbed, nasty or juvenile. It appears to us to be navel starring on a colossal scale.

And, yet, if you try it, the thing you may notice the most is Twitter’s ability to distract you.

Twittered to Distraction

The most disturbing article we’ve seen about this phenomenon was in this summer’s Atlantic Monthly. It’s Nicolas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stoopid?” What the Internet is doing to our brains.”

The villain of the article is not really Google, but it is scarier than a Stephen King story:

Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading… 

Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.

Read the full article – if you still have the attention span.

It scared us. We just attended a technology convention where nearly everyone in the room was Tweeting the convention away. The true believers would tell you that they were smoothly multi-tasking. We tried it – and couldn’t follow what the panelists were saying, lost the thread of questions and conversations and began to feel that insidious creep of nervous inattention.

And yet, we’re also intrigued. We’ve already found a myriad of ways that businesses, especially small businesses, are using Twitter to build their sales. And, as a social connection tool, we’re surprised. Twitter just connected us with another National Speakers Association member – this time from Australia.

The question, really, may come down to the one that was asked near the end of that convention – the sense of it was – just because we can, does that mean we should?

Thomas Friedman has covered the world of online connectedness in many award winning books and articles. Listen to what Mr. Friedman wrote in an article called Foreign Affairs; Cyber Serfdom – and when you read this remember that he wrote it in January of 2001:

My favorite, though, was that we now live in an age of what a Microsoft researcher, Linda Stone, called continuous partial attention. I love that phrase. It means that while you are answering your e-mail and talking to your kid, your cell phone rings and you have a conversation. You are now involved in a continuous flow of interactions in which you can only partially concentrate on each.

”If being fulfilled is about committing yourself to someone else, or some experience, that requires a level of sustained attention,” said Ms. Stone. And that is what we are losing the skills for, because we are constantly scanning the world for opportunities and we are constantly in fear of missing something better. That has become incredibly spiritually depleting.

…. The assumption now is that you’re always in. Out is over. Now you are always in. And when you are always in you are always on. And when you are always on, what are you most like? A computer server.

What about you? Are you comfortable with Twitter? Are you comfortable with “continuous partial attention?” How do you see the future – and what is technology and the Internet doing to you?