"It was the difference between my son going to college or jail." - Governor Chris Christie on speaking with a woman whose number -son's number- was chosen in the charter school lottery.

Mark Zuckerberg's $100million donation is a personal one, and a challenge grant. 

I have no words for what is happening and what will happen. These three men will change so many lives and hopefully, the start of a much needed reform in education.Glad to see so many high profile people ban together for the future of this country. THIS is why Honorable Mayor Cory Booker is going to be President of the United States someday.

If this topic does not interest you, at least watch this clip as Zuck allowed cameras into his home and the Facebook offices.

In case you're wondering why this interests me, I've jotted down thoughts: Our country is in deep sh*t. Why Mayor Cory Booker is my hero and my dislike for New Jersey. 

56 Seconds
Average time an American spends looking at a Web page.
Source: Nielsen

"In another experiment, recently conducted at Stanford University's Communication Between Humans and Interactive Media Lab, a team of researchers gave various cognitive tests to 49 people who do a lot of media multitasking and 52 people who multitask much less frequently. The heavy multitaskers performed poorly on all the tests. They were more easily distracted, had less control over their attention, and were much less able to distinguish important information from trivia."

Some of us have been saying this  over and over and over.

SEO, keywords, optimization, la la la zzzzzzz who gives a crap...right? WRONG. Whether you are a blogger, a marketer, a PR pro or what have you, so long as you are in the Internet business -- specifically social media -- we MUST teach ourselves the basics. Otherwise, our efforts could be moot. As in wasted. As in, wtf are we spending all this time online for?

Listen. Linking well known blogs does not automatically catch Google's attention. It could actually do the opposite, as in bucket you as spam. As Internet professionals, we want to grab Google's attention, get on Google's goodside and keep Google's attention. Otherwise, your site could end up on the bottom of the list. Bottom of the list = no one can find you. There are basic methods and best practices we all should be aware of (at the very least.) And hey, don't beat yourself up if you didn't know this. The most important thing is you want to learn.

So invest a few minutes out of your day to read this post. I'm in the same industry as you, I know how much time, effort, and energy is used to post content. I'm just saying it would be a darn shame if Google wrote you off as spam (or frankly, garbage), only because you don't understand how Google's search engine works.

Read the entire piece "Perfecting Keyword Targeting & On-Page Optimization" here which I found via "Targeting Multiple Keywords vs Singular Keyword Focus" here.

[sidenote]
For the vets out there rolling their eyes: do you give yourself refreshers? I sure as heck do. I force relearning to 1. stay on my toes and 2. to try and keep everything as simple as possible for sometimes, when I am too knee deep in the daily grind it is tough not to over analyze. Thank goodness for people like Rand, who simplifies the complex.

Data compiled from Cision and Don Bates of the George Washington University’s Master’s Degree Program in Strategic Public Relations, in which they: "found reporters depend on social media sources when researching their stories – but not at the extent to transform an industry over night." via Brian Solis's Immediacy vs Accuracy piece. (Great post, highly recommended read.)

Aside from the great points Brian brings up when I look at the numbers, it greatly troubles me.  Take a look: "55% of the journalists said that social media was “important” or “somewhat important” for reporting and producing stories…"
Yet, "84% of journalists indicated that information was much less and slightly less reliable than traditional media based on the lack of fact-checking, verification and reporting standards." 

As a person who is not a journalist, I rely on journalists to bring me the most accurate, reliable news -- whether on or offline. So if journalists don't trust digital mediums, where does that leave us?

Another reason why we MUST kick up our critical thinking skills. Must.

Top All-Time Donors, 1989-2010

Top 20. See the rest at source (click chart.) Why am I posting this? Well, the US Supreme Court made a recent ruling and well, see for yourselves. click.

The foundation works on health in poor countries because we think it’s the best way to improve lives globally. In the United States, we believe the best way to improve lives is to improve public education. America’s education system has been fundamental to its success as a nation. But the way we prepare students has barely changed in 100 years. If we don’t start innovating in education to make it better and more accessible, we won’t fulfill our commitment to equal opportunity, and our competitiveness will fall behind that of other countries.

Hero. Bill Gates is my hero. And I do not throw 'hero' around lightly. I am so in love with is mind.

The relevant point is that the company's operations had long since been sensitive to public concerns, and it could move smoothly into a media spotlight with a clear understanding of its own objectives, and without fear that the world would end if it did not win all the points in the telecast. Such an approach, in my view, is far more sophisticated than conventional public relations.

[...]

The media, after all, live on information, and "others" can influence the outcome by providing accurate material. It is a corollary, of course, that "others" have a right to keep at arm's length media agents who have a record of distorting facts to fit preconceived notions of high drama.

Circa 1981.
Blows my mind this still applies. Separately, can't get off The Atlantic. And it's all your fault, Jim Norris.