Power Searching for Business Journalists: Online, March 19

Photo by flickr user toprankonlinemarketing.

Did you miss our live sessions?

Check out archived recordings and materials at the self-guided training page.

Not often do you get the chance to learn new search skills from the scientist at Google whose job is to understand users’ search satisfaction.

In this free, hourlong, online training, Google senior research scientist Daniel M. Russell will offer his tips, techniques and strategies for using Google to find what might seem to be impossible.

As he says on his home page:

“Most recently, I’ve been focusing on what skills searchers need to have in order to be effective searchers. Not surprisingly, just a few key skills can make your searching MUCH better.”

In addition to his research credentials, Russell is a much sought-after presenter for journalists, librarians, teachers, researchers, investigators and others for whom search is a critical part of their jobs.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN?

• What’s out there to be found on the Internet? Where’s content located? How’s it organized?
• How to use advanced searching techniques, such as define:, filetype:, site:, Control-F, antireading, and search-by-image.
• How to use search strategies, such as how to frame the question and when to switch approaches.
• How to quickly come up to speed on a topic.

IS THIS TRAINING FOR YOU?

Any journalist who would like to improve his or her search techniques and strategies on Google will benefit from this training.

YOUR INSTRUCTOR

Daniel M. Russell

“Daniel Russell is a research scientist at Google, where he has been working in the area of search quality, with a focus on understanding what makes Google users happy, skilled and competent in their use of Web search.  He is sometimes called a search anthropologist because of his focus on understanding how people use the tools of technology to amplify their intelligence. But his research methods draw equally on ethnography and field work, lab studies, classical usability analysis, eyetracking experiments and large-scale logs analysis….Russell received his B.S. in Information and Computer Science from U.C. Irvine, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Rochester.” — from Russell’s website

He blogs at SearchReSearch.

OTHER TRAINING BY RUSSELL

• Advanced Google Search Methods presentation at Investigative Reporter and Editors Conference in June 2012.
• Report on Russell’s IRE presentation: “How to solve impossible problems: Daniel Russell’s awesome Google search techniques” by San Antonio Express-News reporter John Tedesco.
• Power Searching with Google archive of six online classes that Russell conducted in July 2012.
• 20 Things You Probably Don’t Know about Search…But Really Should presentation in June 2010.
• A Google A Day offers a search query a day to keep your search skills sharp.

WHAT IS GOOGLE+ HANGOUT ON AIR?

A Google+ Hangout on Air live-streams video of Russell and his presentation. Registrants for this training will receive an email with the URL at which they can attend the training. To submit a question before the training session, log into your Google account and contribute a question here. You can also vote for your favorite questions to be answered. During the class, attendees can submit questions as comments under the embedded video. We will archive a recording of the session at http://bit.ly/self-guided-training.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

This online training is presented by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism.

Those who attend three of the Reynolds Center’s training events are eligible to receive a Circle of Achievement certificate.

If you have any questions about the center’s training, please email Executive Director Linda Austin or call 602-496-9187.