Finding Answers

I've come to realize that the ability to find answers is a skill. I always thought it was something that everyone did about the same, but a couple of recent events have shown me that people have different ability levels when it comes to finding answers. (And when I say finding answers, I'm basically talking about Googling for an answer)
You would think that since everyone has access to the same Google, that answers/solution finding would be about the same, no matter who did the searching. But that is not always the case.

Event 1: A person that I work(ed) with occasionally (often) asks me for help solving a problem. Most of the times, I find the answer with the first Google search. I'm not trying to make myself sound like a Google-savant but it usually isn't that hard. Sometimes it would be a couple of searches, but basically the answer was there. I just chalked it up to that person being lazy.

Event 2: I recently became a ChaCha seach guide. When you research answers to questions, you get to see a log of prior questions and answers. Some of the answers don't seem to have as much substance as others. A lot of times, the client would ask the question again and you can see the different quality levels of the answers.

So then it dawned on me. Maybe the ability to find answers on the web is not the same in all people. I'm not sure what the difference is. It could be different levels of curiosity or persistence. Or maybe the ability to think a bit out of the box and trying different types of search terms when the first, obvious ones, don't give you the answer that seems right.

In any case, I think that as more and more information is available on the Web. Being able to filter through the data to find what you want is a skill that is very valuable.