IN today's info-driven world, there's a talent emerging among workers that I call "getting smarter faster."

It's what you know and how fast it takes you to learn it.

In fact, when my kids were younger and asked me a question, they'd wait less than a nanosecond before saying, "I know, we should look it up on the Internet."

Learning through Internet search engines and other Web resources is a great equalizer. It doesn't matter if you work for a large or small company or if you have access to thousands or just one computer.

Pick your partner — Google, Yahoo, Excite, Lycos, or Mamma.com, the mother of all search engines — and within seconds you zip through millions of pages on the Web.

But, this is no secret. The folks at Nielsen NetRatings say that 115 million Americans, or 39 percent of the population, already use them.

Ah, but the speed and quality of the search differ greatly. Most people need a little help getting the best out of search engines.

The University of California at Berkley has a great online course for mastering the search. The tutorial has been the most heavily used and linked tutorial on Web searching that exists anywhere in the world. Its URL is www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/About.html.

According to the tutorial, Google, www.google.com, is the best place to start a search. For a second opinion, others like Teoma, www.teoma.com, which is a part of Ask Jeeves, or the meta-searcher Vivisimo, vivisimo.com.

It also takes a little practice forming the words for your search. If you want to know the latest about computer mouse technology, simply making "mouse" the search term will get tens of thousands of hits with information about a furry rodent as well as a computer interface device. The trick is using the correct combination of words to home in on your topic and weed out off-topic search returns.

While general search engines are a great place to start, it also helps to dig into industry-specific sites.

Many trade organizations and magazines help to focus on the details of a topic.

Future technology promises to make searching even easier. In one camp, search agents will monitor your general topics and store them. In this case, the agent will know that if you use the term "mouse," the type you are referring to is for a computer.

IBM has started a project called Web Fountain that reads text and uses natural language algorithms to make correlations between words.

Unlike traditional search engines, Web Fountain searches everything on the Web, including chat rooms, and tries to understand the commentary.

Originally developed for a record company, the Web Fountain could determine the buzz in chat rooms for an upcoming CD and could tell what was going to be a hot seller.

For now, search engines have caught the interest of many. It's interesting technology for some, a competitive edge for others, but not considered mission critical for most. Few businesspeople feel it necessary to search on detailed topics, clients or pressing business issues.

I predict that soon, going anyplace or talking to any client without a careful search could make you appear dumb. So start your search engines.

The next step will come when wearable and wireless technology connects with search engines. Business smarts will likely change forever.