Many of you who know me well are aware of my admiration for Mark Twain. I have always considered him my mentor. Ernest Hemingway believed, and I agree, that all great American writing evolved from his pen. And fortunately, he left behind a great body of work, including some tips on good writing. For example, he shared this observation in his autobiography:  “I made the great discovery that when the tank runs dry you’ve only to leave it alone and it will fill up again in time, while you are asleep – also while you are at work on other things and are quite unaware that this unconscious and profitable cerebration is going on. ” Here are a few of my other favorites:

1)                  Use the right word, not its second cousin

2)                  Use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English – it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in

3)                  A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it

4)                  As to the adjective: when in doubt, strike it out

5) I never write metropolis for seven cents because I can get the same price for city. I never write policeman because I can get the same money for cop

6)                  Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please

7)                  You need not expect to get your book right the first time. Go to work and revamp or rewrite it. God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are God’s adjectives. Use thunder and lightning too much, the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by

8)                  The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug

9)                  Substitute damn every time you’re inclined to write very; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be

10)              The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time, you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is that you really want to say

At SunGard Higher Education’s recent annual user’s conference, we spent the week covering the event on social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and CrowdVine. Many of the 6,000+ attendees followed these reports; questions and comments were almost immediate. For an old timer like me, it was proof positive that social media is more than a fad.

If you are still unconvinced, consider some of these statistics provided by Socialnomics:

• Over half of the world’s population is under 30 years old and 96 percent of them have joined a social network
• 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
• Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in America
• The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
• The second largest search engine in the world is YouTube
• There are over 200 million blogs (I’m in good company ;-)
• Wikipedia offers more than 15 million articles, and studies show it is more accurate than the Encyclopedia Britannica. And 78 percent of those articles are written in non-English

If you’d like more statistics, go to www.socialnomics.net and check out their video. It will make you a believer!

Here’s an interesting fact: the state of Hawaii continues to get so many requests for verification of President Barack Obama’s birth, the state legislature has approved a measure exempting it from the public records law. It made me realize that despite the proof, and long after the legacy of our 44^th president will have passed into the history books, this birther myth will continue to flourish.

Perceived reality is the concept that what is real is simply what each of us perceive it to be. And sadly, our perceptions of reality are largely influenced by our environment.

As an example, in his new book, George W. Bush’s top political adviser, Karl Rove, claims that the former president never would have ordered the invasion of Iraq had he known that the intelligence on the supposed weapons of mass destruction was wrong. And yet, Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made at least 935 false statements in the two years following Sept. 11 about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. As a result, by the time we invaded, the perceived reality of the majority of Americans was that the rogue country possessed WMD’s. We were unwilling to entertain the idea that it was possibly not true.

The truly unfortunate thing about perceived reality is that until we are willing to consider alternative concepts – to un-learn our perceived realities – we cannot open our minds to the truth. And when you think about all the misinformation that we’re bombarded with daily, the need has never been greater.

I think those of us laboring in higher education have a sacred mission before us: not only do we need to keep our fountains of information and truth continually flowing, but we also need to help our students learn to question, explore, discern, and open their minds to alternative thoughts. Our future depends on it.