Where I Learn Things - Cinque

I want to begin by saying how happy I was with the way my Listening post was received last week. That was very nice of all of you. I promise a follow-up post sometime in the near future to answer questions, and talk more about being a good listener.

Today I'd like to make a belated return to my series about Where I Learn Things. I've been weeding through my RSS feeds (down to 61 as of today), adding and subtracting, discovering and rediscovering some great content and I am excited to be able to share that with you today.

Right out of the gate I want to introduce you to Perry Maughmer's blog - A Wider Lens. Perry blogs about leadership, life, being human, looking in the mirror, business, strategy, and emerging trends. In other words he makes me think, (without over-thinking) and that is always a good thing. Too often we get stuck in our day-to-day, and forget to look at the bigger picture. If you read Perry's blog, chances are that's not gonna happen.

(I've only recently discovered Perry's blog. I followed a link from my friend Nate Rigg's, and my friend Christa pointed me that way as well so a big thanks to those two great folks.)

Of course the day-to-day is still a big part of who we are, and a big part of who I am is being a Dad (although happily my girls still call me Daddy). For great stories from Dads I check out a number of contributing authors over at Dad-O-Matic. From their "About" section:

Dad-o-Matic was founded in 2008 by Chris Brogan who was inspired by the work of Doriano Carta (now Editor-in-Chief) on his personal blog where he shared interesting experiences about being a dad.

The concept was simple: build a place for dads to share thoughts and ideas about parenting. This can be views, news, reviews, and advice. You don’t have to be a dad to participate. It’s just a blog from the Dad’s perspective.

For more day-to-day, keeping it real content I check in with my friend Oneita who blogs for the Detroit Free Press at her blog O Street. While it's true that a lot of Oneita's content is about Detroit, it's not just about Detroit. It's about growing up, and parenting, and being a good citizen, and even controversial topics like racism, and politics.

Oneita fosters a discussion in her forums that is both respectful, and insightful. I've had the opportunity to talk to Oneita a couple of times. She caught me off guard one day by calling me. I was at work when my phone rang. I recognized the area code as being from Michigan, thought it was one of my relatives, and picked up.

Me: Hello

Oneita: Hey, what are you doing?

Me: (Not recognizing the voice.) Um, I'm okay. How are you?

Oneita: Oh, hey sorry it's Oneita.

Me: (Thinking in my head: Holy Crap, Oneita Jackson just called me.)

At this point I remembered that I had emailed Oneita requesting a copy of her free blog tips, and my phone number is in the signature line of my email. As Oneita and I discussed, why would I put it there if I didn't expect to be called?

We chatted for a few minutes, she said she would check out my blog too, I requested an RSS feed to her blog specifically (instead of all of the Free Press blogs collectively), and we hung up.

A few days later Oneita called back. She needed to explain to her IT folk exactly what I wanted re: the RSS feed.

She emailed it to me a little later that day. It was pretty cool to be honest. How about that for listening to your readers?

The last blog I want to share with you today is from my colleague at the library Helene Blowers. Helene blogs about libraries, and social media, and changing trends in user experience on the Internet among other things. In other words all the stuff that occupies my attention just about every day. Needless to say, reading Helene's blog, well... I learn a lot.

What occupies your attention on a daily basis? Where do you learn things?