Dan Sweet

Imagine a leisurely lunch followed by a stop at the espresso machine on the way back to your desk. Suddenly, your boss’s boss strolls up and your mellow afternoon vibe instantly fades. Boss^2 makes some polite small talk and comments on a recent industry event.  You respond by … staring blankly? This happens to people all too often, and it is completely unnecessary. With three simple tweaks, you can be the master of the latest news in your field and securely enjoy your espressos from now on. Read on to see how I keep up with industry news.

Disclaimer: I work on battery innovation, strategy and finance in my day job and I also have some geeky leanings in my personal interests. Apologies if the topics I mention sound deathly boring. Please take away the concepts and the tools and just replace the specific sites and topics mentioned with your much more interesting content!

Principles:
• Always be learning
• Use “spare” time efficiently

Step 1 – Source Basic Content with a Combination of Apps, Email, Blogs:
• Stitcher – Great mobile app for listening to podcasts. Download it via your app store of choice.
– Subscribe to “This Week in Startups” podcast (2x / week – 1 interview with a startup founder or investor, 1 news roundup)
– Add other podcasts of interest (I like WSJ this Morning, NPR Hourly News Summary, etc)
• Digest emails – Tend to send daily or weekly emails that might surface interesting reads I have missed in my normal workflow. Medium.com, Quartz.com, Digg.com, Slideshare.com, Quora.com, Twitter.com Sign up on the individual sites? (Not sure how I started getting these.)
• Quora.com – I search on Quora to research new areas, find subject matter experts to follow on Twitter, share opinions, be amused, connect, etc.
• Blogs – I used to use RSS via Google reader to follow 30+ blogs regularly. Now if they write something good, people in my network tend to tweet it and I’ll see it. If I want to “catch up” on a specific person I’ll go to their blog directly. AVC.com, Feld.com, cdixon.org, bothsidesofthetable.com, bhorowitz.com, a16z.com, bostonvcblog.typepad.com, reidhoffman.org (all prominent VCs or entrepreneurs)

Step2 – Take Conscious Steps to Build in Serendipity:
• Twitter.com – I use it almost exclusively through mobile app. Sign up at Twitter.com. Facebook is the people you know. Twitter is the people you wish you knew. I either get things directly from Twitter (via random browsing) or from a product/service that lets me log in with Twitter. That product then knows my taste graph based on who I follow on Twitter and can serve me relevant content.
• LinkedIn.com – follow companies and Influencers you are interested in to get good content in your news feed and digest emails.
• GetPrismatic.com – algorithmically-sourced news from around the web –define topics you are interested in and get relevant news automatically in an infinite scroll newsfeed style – I use it primarily on my desktop.

Step 3 – Give Back by Curating and Sharing:
• Bufferapp.com – Chrome Browser extension allows me to easily comment on and share any Chrome tab to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or any combination thereof.
• Evernote.com – I use the Google Chrome Web Clipper browser extension and “Save Full Page” anything I want to be able to access in the future via a keyword search on mobile or desktop. Sign up at Evernote.com for free.

Simple Steps to Integrate Into Daily Life
• Mowing the lawn, buying groceries, commuting – listen to audio via Stitcher
• Downtime btw meetings / lunch at desk – GetPrismatic.com – open a bunch of interesting stories in new tabs then scan and close 90%, archive 5% via Evernote Web Clipper, share 5% via Buffer with appropriate social network.
• Brief downtime away from a desktop – click through to a story from a digest email in my inbox, or open mobile Twitter app, read interesting links, RT, see what buzz is about.
• Sitting on couch watching TV with the wife – Same as downtime btw meetings above.

Dan’s personal content sources below:

Entities I follow on LinkedIn that might be of general interest:
People: Tim Brown, Reid Hoffman, Paul Kedrosky
Companies: YouTube, Microsoft, Dwolla, P&G, Evernote, Netflix, Twitter, Amazon, Uber, Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, Cintrifuse, Dropbox, Lego Group, Greycroft Partners, @WalmartLabs, Metamarkets, dunnhumby

My “Interests” as explicitly defined by me on GetPrismatic.com:
YouTube, Mobile Technology, Online Advertising, Silicon Valley, Marketing, Data Mining, Poker, Google Chrome, Statistics, Machine Learning, Startups, Productivity, Android, Data Visualization, Venture Capital, Management, Innovation, Procter & Gamble, Artificial Intelligence, Entrepreneurship, Google, Computer Science, Duracell, Facebook, Batteries, Robotics, Twitter

The 100-ish most-followed people I follow on Twitter: (generated using twitonomy.com)

@a16z
@adage
@AlexiLalas
@AliceMartin8
@AllthingsD
@AlpMimar
@annieleibovitz
@AntDeRosa
@baratunde
@bfeld
@bgurley
@bhorowitz
@biz
@buffer
@BuzzFeedBen
@cdixon
@chr1sa
@chriswolferts
@claychristensen
@clint_dempsey
@DanielPink
@DaveRamsey
@dickc
@dongatory
@Duracell
@elonmusk
@eMarketer
@ev
@firstround
@FiveThirtyEight
@fredwilson
@Gartner_inc
@garyvee
@googleresearch
@GoogleVentures
@hnshah
@howardlindzon
@hunterwalk
@jack_welch
@jack
@jasonfried
@Jason
@JeffBooth
@jeff
@jennydeluxe
@Jermainejunior
@johnbattelle
@johndoerr
@joshk
@kevinrose
@KISSmetrics
@levie
@LIVESTRONGCEO
@mattyglesiast
@mcuban
@Medium
@MichaelHyatt
@mkapor
@mlevchin
@mqtoddl
@MrKRudd
@MSFTResearch
@msuster
@NateSilver538
@naval
@newsycombinator
@nickbilton
@om
@paulg
@petershankman
@PeterWinick
@pkedrosky
@pmarca
@RaviZacharias
@reidhoffman
@sacca
@satyanadella
@Sequoia_Capital
@sherylsandberg
@ShowtimeTate
@sorenmacbeth
@StartupReport
@StartupWeekend
@steverubel
@SwiftKey
@techstars
@ThomRainer
@tide
@tim_cook
@TimHowardGK
@timoreilly
@UpshotNYT
@venturehacks
@vkhosla
@voxdotcom
@WarrenBuffett

That is it.  Go sign up for some accounts, follow some people, subscribe to some podcasts, etc.  Do some listening, some reading and some sharing. Please leave a comment below sharing your favorite resources for staying current.

Most importantly though – go enjoy that espresso with confidence!