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.]

The next issue of Time magazine sports a graphical representation of what is on Paris’ mind having just been released from the pokey. In her hour-long interview with Larry King, Paris recalled her 23-day incarceration and gave the world great insight into what she’s really thinking about.

To illustrate, Time compiled all the words she used in the interview, noted how many times each was used, and then graphically represented the results.

The finished product isn’t all that surprising, but it does initiate a nice “Aha!” moment: the creativity behind such a simple idea is clear and communicates the concept flawlessly.

[See what’s on Paris Hilton’s mind]

John and Nancy, two of our friends from Cincy, have just taken their brood to Spain. Normally, this would be little or no cause for excitement. But this is John, crafter of Christmas letter messages so tightly woven that they’re gladly shared amongst people who don’t even know them. I’m not even certain if you can fathom the thought, since so many Christmas letters are filled with items like, “Peg broke her leg again when she was computing in the sectional finals of extreme hula-hoop and Bobby finally got his wisdom teeth… left side, uppers.”

The Evans’s letters, on the other hand, contain tidbits that (while possibly just as mundane) have a flair that is rarely seen outside of… well, it’s just rarely seen. Anyway, you can know get a small sample of a classic Evans tale by visiting their blog and reading a few short postings on their trip to Spain. Seriously, if you’re in need of a good chuckle, this is a good place to start.

[Visit the Evans’s Blog]