I’m a communicator. I communicate… obviously.

I communicate on behalf of engineering, chemical, biotech, automotive, construction (and other) companies. My job is to write things at a level that anyone can understand, which usually isn’t hard.

Thursday, it was hard.

I spent the day with Google open and ready to search engineering and scientific terms. Why? Because engineers write like engineers and scientists write like scientists and I’m neither of those things. But by looking things up, I learn a lot of new information… hopefully someday I can say that I know a little bit about everything!

Today, I can say that I can research anything. And research is an important part of being a perpetual student. And Google isn’t my only research tool (although it’s frequently helpful). On Thursday, I was working on a project using  information provided to me by someone whose first language was German. Online translators had failed me so I called my mommy. Yes, I didn’t know what else to do so I called my mom. That sounds really immature until I tell you that my mom lived in Germany for six months as an exchange student. She couldn’t give me a translation because she is not a scientist or engineer either, but she could point me to the correct subject matter. I call that being resourceful.

I love reference books for the same reason. I don’t have to jam all of this information into my brain and then try to pull it out when I need it most. I can just look it up. Being resourceful today is so easy! If I want to know something, and don’t have my books, computer (or mom) handy, I can consult my iPhone. “i” is for “information” in most cases.

I still have studentlike feelings of trying to memorize information and regurgitate it onto paper for some situations. But amazingly, I can’t easily access that information anymore. When I was taking Geology, I could define “basalt” for you. If you asked me today…. Hello Google!