My day is an endless combination of meetings, deliverables to be developed, casual stop-bys by my office, hit-and-run conversations in the hallway, and the ever-present really-unnecessary “crisis” launched by someone higher up. I would love to read endlessly and yet get all things done at work. I do also want to have time at night to read stuff that is not about work, as well as do 20 other things that can be more fulfilling than work (yes, there are such things!).

With that background, I cannot be digesting too many books, long articles or expert reports as much as I would like to learn and research. However, in between the meetings, crisis, hit-and-runs, I love to be able to scan a variety of material and then choose where I dive in. I like “blogsnacking” as a way to distract my brain for 5 minutes from the last meeting, for example. Blogs usually give me that opportunity. Sometimes, just reading random content triggers an idea related or unrelated to the core of the entry (to me, the most satisfying outcome!). So, to give the “blog customer” viewpoint, I read blogs to learn, to connect with new people (though I am new at this and don’t have great results yet), to expand my mind, to trigger the random new thought.

If a blog can help me with those things, depth is not always the most important element I need from the blog. Of course, if a blog is directly relevant to a key issue I am looking at, then depth would be nice but I always have other ways to get the depth (commenting, contacting the blogger, contacting a commenter, etc.). So if you have a lot of ideas to blog about, as long as you don’t sacrifice writing quality, velocity has the edge for me.

My day is an endless combination of meetings, deliverables to be developed, casual stop-bys by my office, hit-and-run conversations in the hallway, and the ever-present really-unnecessary “crisis” launched by someone higher up. I would love to read endlessly and yet get all things done at work. I do also want to have time at night to read stuff that is not about work, as well as do 20 other things that can be more fulfilling than work (yes, there are such things!).

With that background, I cannot be digesting too many books, long articles or expert reports as much as I would like to learn and research. However, in between the meetings, crisis, hit-and-runs, I love to be able to scan a variety of material and then choose where I dive in. I like “blogsnacking” as a way to distract my brain for 5 minutes from the last meeting, for example. Blogs usually give me that opportunity. Sometimes, just reading random content triggers an idea related or unrelated to the core of the entry (to me, the most satisfying outcome!). So, to give the “blog customer” viewpoint, I read blogs to learn, to connect with new people (though I am new at this and don’t have great results yet), to expand my mind, to trigger the random new thought.

If a blog can help me with those things, depth is not always the most important element I need from the blog. Of course, if a blog is directly relevant to a key issue I am looking at, then depth would be nice but I always have other ways to get the depth (commenting, contacting the blogger, contacting a commenter, etc.). So if you have a lot of ideas to blog about, as long as you don’t sacrifice writing quality, velocity has the edge for me.

My day is an endless combination of meetings, deliverables to be developed, casual stop-bys by my office, hit-and-run conversations in the hallway, and the ever-present really-unnecessary “crisis” launched by someone higher up. I would love to read endlessly and yet get all things done at work. I do also want to have time at night to read stuff that is not about work, as well as do 20 other things that can be more fulfilling than work (yes, there are such things!).

With that background, I cannot be digesting too many books, long articles or expert reports as much as I would like to learn and research. However, in between the meetings, crisis, hit-and-runs, I love to be able to scan a variety of material and then choose where I dive in. I like “blogsnacking” as a way to distract my brain for 5 minutes from the last meeting, for example. Blogs usually give me that opportunity. Sometimes, just reading random content triggers an idea related or unrelated to the core of the entry (to me, the most satisfying outcome!). So, to give the “blog customer” viewpoint, I read blogs to learn, to connect with new people (though I am new at this and don’t have great results yet), to expand my mind, to trigger the random new thought.

If a blog can help me with those things, depth is not always the most important element I need from the blog. Of course, if a blog is directly relevant to a key issue I am looking at, then depth would be nice but I always have other ways to get the depth (commenting, contacting the blogger, contacting a commenter, etc.). So if you have a lot of ideas to blog about, as long as you don’t sacrifice writing quality, velocity has the edge for me.