Tag: search

All We Need is Somebody to Lean On

Random woman (not the one from the story). Pic: source

Sometime before lockdown, I was in another city, attending a wedding. The reception was in this beautiful open ground. I’m no fan of wedding ceremonies, so once I was done admiring the place, I was a little bored. After some time at the bar, I caught up with a few people, and was back to getting a bit bored. That’s when I noticed one elegantly dressed woman who seemed to have dropped one of her earrings in the grass. Three or four of her family members spent a minute or two trying to spot the earring in the grass in the dark, before giving up.

With absolutely nothing better to do, I thought this might make for a nice social experiment, and jumped right in. I walked up to them, offered to help, asking to see the other earring so I knew what I’d be looking for. I switched on my phone light, and started searching. Glancing upward, I noticed 2 of that family joined in the search again. Another 20 seconds or so, and all of them were back to searching for the earring too. About 5-10 minutes later, we had covered a reasonable area around where she thought she had dropped it, but with no luck. I could hear her tell one of her family members something about when she got them or who gifted them to her, or something to that effect. She clearly had some sentimental value for the earrings. However, she also seemed practical enough to know when to stop searching for it in the dark, at a wedding reception.

But I had nothing better to do, and wanted to see what happens when a stranger is willing to look for something that’s lost, when its owner (and family) have long given up. So I continued looking. Two or three times, the family told me to let it be, and stopped looking for it themselves. But the moment I’d say let me just look for another minute or so, they’d join back in.
Probably about 15 minutes in, one of them found the earring. They were all thrilled. The woman thanked me, and I was back to getting bored.

But I had seen something interesting as a result of that little social experiment.
Many a times in a work or social setting, a group tends to quit something soon after the first person gives up. It’s almost like everyone is waiting for someone to call quits, so they can (without suffering the shame of being the first to).
And yet, in some situations, it is possible to reverse that effect, to get the group back in the game after it has quit.

Of course, I’d doubt it would work multiple times in a similar setting. So any corporate bosses or parents getting smart ideas for your team or kids: don’t!

About the cheesy sounding title for the post, I happened to be listening to the CRNKN remix of Lean On (below) when editing the post. 😛

Books Recommended in Books

I mostly read only ebooks since a few years now.
 
A lot of good non-fiction books usually mention a few more good books that the authors found relevant. However, even if you highlight them as you read, it is tough to find the names later on. Especially if you didn’t make a note of them. You’d have to go through the book or highlights to find those names again. Before you forget.
 
What if authors did one of the following:
  • Used a common phrase each time they referred to or recommended a book in their book. Something like ‘XYZ, a book written by ABC’
  • Or separately list out the books at the end of the book
The latter would help both physical books and ebooks. The first would help search for the specific phrase (“a book written by”) in the ebook, thus turning up results of all the books mentioned in it
 
Now all that needs to be done is suggest this to authors, and to remember it myself if I ever get to writing another book.
Pic source: link

Google, Search Better

Google, Search Better

You know how you sometimes Google something, but the results are random or irrelevant.

And you know how Google has the +1 recommendation option on search results.

Now, here’s a suggestion that should be considered for Google, shopping sites, and those offering search directly via Google. How about an option similar to the FB ‘Like’ button? Individuals who have entered a search, can click on results that they feel do not match the search query. That way, after a listing hits a predetermined number of ‘clicks’ on the ‘wrong result’ button, it would alert the IT/ admin folk, who could then verify and accordingly change tags, etc. to improve all future searches progressively. Alternatively, the Google algorithm could rework the search results based on user input. Even though their algorithm already factors it in some way.

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