For my friends at Boulder Digital Works: books, blogs, people to follow
Today I am once again flattered to be speaking at Boulder Digital Works with the likes of Gareth Kay, Matt Howell and all the other incredibly smart folks who have welcomed me into the digital fold.
I think of myself as an advertising refugee and a digital immigrant. Not sure if I qualify yet for full citizenship (can’t really code) but I’m working on it. What’s amazing to me is the openness of the digital community. I have been embraced on Twitter, at SxSWi, at SoDa meetings, by IAB (where I’m hoping to make a contribution to the future of online advertising) and here at Boulder Digital Works.
Had the advertising community learned earlier to be as open and collaborative as their digital counterparts it would be in a lot better shape than it is now and all those people still spending their energy defending traditional messages could instead be focused on inventing and creating new experiences and ways to tell stories. “Hello Ladies.”
Anyway, back to Boulder. The session this week is called Making Digital Work. It’s a two-day workshop compromised of small lectures, group discussions, and projects all designed to give attendees a better understanding of their role in the digital age. Of course the real purpose of any learning isn’t what happens in the classroom, but rather what you do with the experience after the fact.
With that in mind, I offer you my list of lists – books, blogs, creative – something to take with you as you depart Boulder and continue your digital evolution.
Forgive me if it’s content, people and ideas with which you’re already familiar. Last time I was at Boulder there were people who’d never been on Ted.com and who had never even heard of Slideshare. Of course, this list of lists will be better still if you share yours, whether it’s decks, docs, or apps.
Five books you should read
Pick and choose from the list below. Some are already a few years old, but they lay out the background and cover a lot of the disruption we’ve been living through. Change by Design and Cognitive Surplus might be my favorites.
Groundswell, Charlene Li, Josh Bernoff
The Shallows, Nicholas Carr
You are not a Gadget, Jaron Lanier
Change by Design, Tim Brown
Cognitive Surplus, Clay Shirky
Five more books if you’re really determined
If you really want to download some ideas, keep going. Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead is fast and fun with a few useful tips. Free is controversial but worth the read. Anything by Jonah Lehrer will make you think. The Checklist Manifesto has nothing to do with digital, but it’s filled with rich ideas you can extend into your own business and behavior.
Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead, David Meerman Scott, Brian Halligan
Crowdsourcing, Jeff Howe
Free, Chris Anderson
How we Decide, Jonah Lehrer
The Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande
Five big blogs you should have on your RSS
If your RSS is anything like mine it constantly grows until its out of hand and there’s more there than you can ever consume. My colleague Stuart Foster often reminds me to pare things down and focus on the content that matters. I admit to an inconsistent and erratic consumption of content, which is why I sometimes just visit the New York Times. They filter stuff for me.
PSFK
Mashable
Read Write Web
Five small blogs you may want to include
There are many more I could have added here, but it strikes me that these may be more relevant to the audience attending the BDW digital workshop. Faris and BBHLabs will keep you up on digital and marketing trends and innovation. David Armano is a good source for social media. Joshua Porter offers insights on UX and design. And Rob Schwartz is great filter for cool creative, some of it digital, some not.
Talent Imitates, Genius Steals, Faris Yakob, Chief Innovation Officer, MDC
BBH Labs, Ben Malbon and Mel Exon, co-founders BBHLabs
Logic + Emotion, David Armano, SVP/Digital, Edelman
Bokardo, Joshua Porter, experience designer
Metal Potential, Rob Schwartz, TBWA/Chiat Day CCO
Five platforms worth knowing about
There are now 70,000-plus Twitter apps and new platforms being introduced daily. Some will burn out before they ever catch fire and the next big thing is hard to predict, but these all seem to have potential, or at least make you think about what’s possible.
Kickstarter: crowdfunding
Philo: Foursquare for TV
Placecast: opt in to receive mobile marketing
Plancast: announce and share your plans
Springpad: save the plethora stuff you find online via photo, geo, notes, url
Five creative ideas you should dissect
I suggest everyone master the skill of dissecting creative ideas. What makes them great? Technology? Story? Juxtapositions? Consumer participation? Viral technique? You don’t want to copy, but tear them apart and use some of the components.
The Colony: transmedia story telling
Art of the Trench: simple crowdsourced content creation
Chrome: interactive video
Olympus Augmented Reality: useful camera demo
Wheat Thins: social, TV, viral
Five small ideas that might inspire
What individuals and small teams are doing is way more interesting than what most big brands are doing. These are a few of my favorites at the moment. And yes, one of them is mine.
@BPglobalPR: reminder that consumers want to create, control, take over
The Uniform Project: new business model blending cause and fashion
The 3six5 blog: simple crowdsourcing project to generate year’s worth of content
Brandbowl: turn an analog event to a digital event
Bud Caddell on Kickstarter: new way to fund creative projects
Five Ted videos that will inspire you
Find your own, but these are five that I’ve watched more than once and find both motivating and thought-provoking.
Malcolm Gladwell on Spaghetti Sauce
Sir Ken Robinson on Finding Your Passion
Tim Brown on Creativity and Play
Benjamin Zander on Music and Passion
Steve Jobs on How to Live Before You Die
Five people to follow on Twitter
Everyone starts out following the people on the Twitter lists who have the most followers. But that’s an easy system to game. These are people who get it, who live it, who are digital natives. Most are young, interesting, opinionated and share some pretty good stuff. Hoping you don’t already know all of them.
@StuartFoster: social strategist, digital cool hunter
@thaz7: connected planner often the first to know
@lenkendall: smart, forward thinking digital guy
@mikearauz: he’s from the Internet
@conradlisco: mobile and emerging platforms
Five things you should do yourself
Be on Twitter
Have a Posterous or Tumblr
Make movies on an iPhone
Crowdsource something
Connect with five influential people you’ve never met in person
Hope these are useful. What about you? Got a list you want to share?
Comments
Danny - thanks for pointing me to this amazing resource.
Edward - thanks for making the resource in the first place! Great picks all around - at least 50% is completely new to me, which makes this an amazing find in my books.
It's not marketing related, but this TED Talk is the one that I find the most inspiring in that Pranav really breaks down the genius that is design-thinking without intentionally doing so:
http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilli...
Thanks again for putting together such a tremendous list. I'll be visiting it again.
Thanks for the list, it's nice to see some different recommendations for people and blogs to follow.
Thanks for taking the time to put together these great resources. I maintain lists of stuff I'm into on my blog for visitors to review and love hearing about what others are into.
Jeff Shattuck -great stuff in your comment, thanks for sharing that as well.
Edward, you are a frequent guest on The Beancast and I can't recommend that podcast to enough people. My favorite shorter podcast is Marketing Over Coffee. I also listen to Adverve but if anyone has any recos for other's I'm always open for suggestions. As a bit of a tech fan, I also enjoy This Week in Tech as well.
I think everyone needs to read Seth Godin's latest Linchpin. That book is a gift and it needs to be shared.
A post to save. Thank you Edward
Edward,
Thank you for this list, very generous of you to take the time to write up what you have discovered.
I don't have much to add, but here are a few:
u00e2u0080u00a2 Jill Bolte Taylor at TED, hands down the most inspiring TED talk I have ever seen (but I'm partial, as I've had a brain injury). Why does this talk relate to social media? Because knowing how your brain works is critical to thinking about how other people's might work and how better to connect with them and be a civilized member of society. See it here: http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_power...
u00e2u0080u00a2 The Ordeal of Change, a book by Eric Hoffer, which looks at how society deals with, you guessed it, change.
u00e2u0080u00a2 http://passivepromotion.com/, a blog by Brian Hazard, which outlines ideas for leveraging the Internet for independent musicians who don't have the time or money to promote themselves actively.
u00e2u0080u00a2 The Lessons of History, by Will and Ariel Durant, because there is nothing new under the sun. It's all been done, truly, it's only a matter of scale and knowing about the past can help guide you into the future.
u00e2u0080u00a2 http://bobsutton.typepad.com, a blog about how to spot, deal with and get out from under asshole bosses, very important!
u00e2u0080u00a2 This blog! Really, I have not seen another blog about social that comes close.
Jeff
Good list!
I absolutely agree with the inclusion of the TED talks in that list.
When your RSS reader is filled the brim with articles on digital stuff, the seemingly unrelated to digital subjects of TED talks can provide some real inspiration.
Thanks Edward,
This is an excellent list! I actually just ordered Groundswell last night so I'm glad to see you approve.
@DennisDemori
[...] Books, blogs, ideas and people to follow. A fucking awesome post by my pal Edward. [...]
[...] One of the underlying themes of the BDW workshops is around ‘getting digital’. It’s a tricky phrase, implying various unprovable states of binary and raising the question of whether digital is even a useful word (much better, to my mind, to use interactive to emphasize behaviors and relationships over technologies and channels). Anyway, below is my list of things for my planning presentation. Interestingly, I had no overlap with any of Edward Boches’s books on his BDW list. [...]
[...] Books, blogs and people to follow for my friends at BDW. [...]