In addition to crisp weather, baked apples, crimson foliage, and Halloween, October is

If you’re like most smart, highly educated professionals, you may not be aware that the front page of the Wall Street Journal is written at the ninth-grade level.

With Google’s debut last week of its monster infant, Google+, I can’t help but think of Bette Davis’s famous movie line: “Hold on to your seats. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

How fun is this? At last count, Facebook had upwards of 700 million users. The newborn, who weighs in at a cazillion gigabites give or take, has barely had its first nap. Yet already 10 million users have signed up. Coo coo.

So, what’s the difference? Who will prevail by next year?

David Williams, CEO of Blinq Media, offered some razor-sharp differentiation in the July 15 edition of Ad Age Digital. Mr. Williams works with brands including Baskin Robbins and Mentos. In his words, “Google has expertise in search . . .while Facebook knows who you are, Google knows what you want.”

Facebook knows our interests. But Google knows our intentions. Mr. Williams continued: “Google will have a tremendous amount of intent data that could allow them to create a better ad model for social than Facebook — a very, very powerful ad model.”

Is it fascinating, convenient, or creepy that these monolithic digital giants are dissecting us complicated human beings? I think it’s a bit of all three. What about you?

Happy July, and happy birthday America! As we celebrate the brilliant minds that formed our nation, the outspoken Founding Father, Patrick Henry, comes to mind. Henry was the first among his peers to call for revolution. The same fiery patriot who proclaimed, “. . .give me liberty, or give me death!” also championed the Bill of Rights. For more than 200 years, we’ve been guaranteed freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and many other cherished liberties.

Fast forward from the spring of 1775 to July 2011. Thanks to advances in technology, we no longer have to gather on the town square before taking our message to the street. We can peacefully “assemble” on blogs, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and a mushrooming array of virtual platforms. We can exchange, catalog, curate, facilitate, and distribute billions of bits of information in mere seconds. Digital Media is empowering the freedoms we hold dear like never before.

I have to believe that Patrick Henry, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and many others would relish this democratization of communication.

Perhaps one of the best ways we can honor these liberties is to respect them. To use them wisely, both online and off. How do you think our predecessors would have leveraged today’s digital capabilities?

To its credit, the Public Relations Society of America (www.prsa.org) has a rigorous accreditation program for experienced PR practitioners who wish to earn the APR designation (Accredited in Public Relations).

In Gone With the Wind, Scarlett O’Hara’s frequent refrain was, “I can’t think about that now.

This is the age of empowered consumers.

On the surface, it looks unfair. Just as many well-established professionals hit their stride, all the rules change.