On the way to tour the White House, we had to take two separate cabs, so Char, Marj, the twins and I jumped into the taxi behind Mom, Dad, Lily and Jack. Marj says, “Follow that cab!” I made some sort of off-hand remark about how she’d probably always wanted to say that. A few blocks later, the lead driver turned right and Abby yelled, “Follow that cab!”

The White House tour, in my opinion, was a little anti-climatic. It was actually cooler standing outside the fence a couple days prior and seeing Marine One land and then take off again. The House tour only lets you see about five rooms, and the docents do an admirable job of making sure that everyone moves quietly along. And keeps them moving. I think it took about 10 minutes to walk all the way through.

The Capitol tour, on the other hand, was fascinating. To hear the story of the rotunda painting and all the statues was pure delight, and our tour was very impressive. Someone asked how many statues of presidents were in the building, he thought for about a minute and then said, “Seven.” Of course, he could have been bullshitting us, but he was convincing, nonetheless. (To add credibility, he was able to name the two statues from each state for every member of our tour and knew detailed histories of many of them.)

All in all, it was a great trip. I’ll post more photos soon.

But I certainly understand where she’s coming from. Another classic example of great creativity; a must-see.

The transcript of Steve Jobs’s Stanford commencement address was sent to me this morning as “great career advice.” I couldn’t agree more. Among the highlights:

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

[Read the full transcript]

We had a conversation recently with a prospect who was hoping to boost ad revenue by building page views — at the possible expense of a meaningful user experience. We recommended against it, arguing from the altruistic viewpoint that building a meaningful experience would be far more beneficial in the long run. Plus, we had concerns about the viability of a page view strategy in the face of increasing use of AJAX, whereby results are given to a user without the page reloading at all.

Recently, Nielsen has noted the same thing and has begun adjusting its method of measurement. According to this AP article, Nielsen “will scrap rankings based on the longtime industry yardstick of page views and begin tracking how long visitors spend at the sites.”

Now we’re getting somewhere… Time spent is an interesting and important analytic because it suggests engagement. But, ultimately, I think we’re going to need a tool that can actually measure engagement. After all, if I load up your web site and get distracted (or if I use tabbed browsing and it’s open all day in a tab), I may look heavily engaged when, in fact, I’m not paying any particular attention at all.

I recently wrote an article for the Indianapolis Business Journal about one of my favorite sites, Charity Navigator. In the most recent issue of their newsletter, they’ve highlighted five myths about charitable giving. They are:

Myth 1: Charity executives are overpaid.
Myth 2: After a natural disaster, charities need old clothes.
Myth 3: You can judge a local charity based on a national name.
Myth 4: Excellent charities spend 100% of their budgets on program services.
Myth 5: A good way to support charity is to participate in a special event or buy a special product.

[Read the article, “Five Charity Myths Dispelled”]
[Visit Charity Navigator]
[Read my review of Charity Navigator at Rare Bird, Inc.]