Digital media can be overwhelming.
Twitter
Facebook
Google Reader
Newspaper Sites
Magazine Sites
Google+
Linked In
Any one of these digital media outlets produces so much content every minute (or every second) that trying to read and digest all of it would be akin to drinking from a fire hose. The key to making digital media work for you, rather than against you, is selecting the right outlets and tapering the flow of information down to a manageable level.
Taming the flow of digital media to optimize your absorption of knowledge is a skill that could take years to refine – and since everyone is different, the optimal mix may be different for everyone. That being said, below is the mix that I’ve found to be best for me. For a long time I’ve considered this recipe of digital media my “secret sauce” – but in the spirit of openness and sharing, it’s detailed below (by category) as it may guide you to find your own secret formula for digital media learning.
News:
· General News: @NYTimes Twitter feed – accessed through TweetDeck on my iPhone
· Industry-Specific News: Rethink Media Newsletter, a great daily email newsletter that boils down all the digital industry’s news into short digestible blurbs.
Thought Leaders:
· Followed through Twitter (TweetDeck): Robert Scoble (@Scobleizer), Chris Anderson (@chr1sa), Dan Ariely (@danariely), Barack Obama (@BarackObama), Harvard Business Review (@HarvardBiz), MediaMind (@MediaMind), Paul Michelman (@pmichelman), Alex Bogusky (@bogusky), Darren Herman (@dherman76)
Audio Books:
· I love to read, but similar to many New Yorkers, I don’t have as much time as I would like to sit around and read. On top of that I also get quite motion sick when I try to read on the train. To solve this problem, I’ve adapted to listening to audio books. I subscribe to Audible.com and receive two audio books each month. I mostly tend toward business and non-fiction (e.g. Malcolm Gladwell, Michael Lewis, Peter Drucker, etc.) and frequently kick my iPhone to double speed to get through the material even faster. The convenient “rewind :30 seconds” button on the iPhone lets you go back just a little bit to make sure you don’t miss anything.
Podcasts:
· This American Life with Ira Glass – syndicated public radio featuring topical vignettes about current events and human interest stories.
· The Moth podcast – an amazing, inspiring (and highly recommended) story telling series.
What do you think? Did I miss anything that you think is important?