There’s IQ, EQ, and now GQ.

GQ is something I made up*, but I think it’s worth keeping in mind when you give presentations or work with students (or anyone you are trying to teach).  It means Google Quotient (like IQ means Intelligence Quotient and EQ means Emotional Quotient).

If you succeed in a presentation, you will not only transfer information or enthusiasm to your audience; you will also implant questions or bits of half-remembered concepts that people will be able to look up (i.e., “Google”) when they are back at work.

So, for example, if you’re presenting to a group and you show them how to assign comments in a Google Doc, they don’t have to remember every single step.  As long as they remember that such a move — assigning comments — is possible, they will be able to follow the Google breadcrumb trail and figure out how to achieve their goal.

When you make presentations, remind people that they don’t have to remember everything you tell them or show them.  All they have to do is remember what to look up, what to Google, and they will have derived some benefit from spending time with you.

*I made up GQ today in that I coined the phrase.  I observed it in the wild the last time I watched Reshan Richards present.  I don’t remember everything he showed me, but I remember something about everything he showed me.  I can use that something to access more detail, via Google, whenever I need to.