Where do I find inspiration for blogging?
Kevin Chern, President of Chicago based, Total Attorneys, Inc., posed the question on our legal blogging group yesterday, ‘Where do you get your inspiration for blogging?’
I’m interested in hearing from you guys in a comment here or over in the comments following Chern’s question in the legal blogging group discussions.
I find my inspiration from others. I find great truth in Coach Lou Holtz’ counsel that “The only things that’ll change you from the person you are today and the person you’ll be five years from now are the books you read and the people you meet.” Admittedly Coach may not have envisioned reading blogs and meeting people virtually when he made that comment. My job is the best in the world in that regard.
I draw great inspiration from the people on my LexBlog team, my clients, and the people I meet through blogging, in person, and via other social media.
When it comes to the net, I follow sources and subjects in my RSS reader and on Twitter. I follow about about 500 RSS feeds in my RSS reader. On Twitter I follow influencers (people and mainstream media) and search terms/phrases.
I don’t follow all those 500 RSS feeds each day. My feeds are broken into folders in my RSS reader by subject, ie, legal blogs, social media, journalism etc. I let my attention flow to folders of RSS feeds that draw my interest that day. The best analogy may be walking into Barnes and Noble. Though there may key sections I always go to, I let myself wander a bit based on my interests that day — knowing that no matter where I may go I am apt to learn something — and more often than not, be inspired.
By subscribing to keywords/key phrases (subjects) via Google Blog Search, Google News, and Twitter search I get to read from blogs and news sources I may have never seen before. Lots of inspiration from the thoughts, insight, and commentary of people I have never ran across before.
On sources, I tend to follow influencers. In addition to key news sources such as Harvard Business Review, The Guardian, The New York Times, and Ad Age, I follow lots of bloggers. My list of bloggers is always growing — though I’ll let some go when the list gets too long and a certain person’s value offering drops.
An ‘off the top of the head/scan of my RSS reader/TweetDeck list’ of bloggers and twitters who inspire me include (don’t get upset if you’re not included, I am missing many):
- Jeff Jarvis
- Scott Greenfield
- Kristine Lowe
- Thom Singer
- Dave Winer
- Steve Case
- Mitch Joel
- Dave Weinberger
- Katie Paine
- Mark Cuban
- Cordell Parvin
- Laura Fitton
- Doc Searls
- Robert Scoble
- Shel Israel
- Seth Godin
- Tim O’Reily
- Bill Pollak
I find inspiration from others and the ideas they share. Chern inspired me to write this blog post. I thought what a great question, “Where do you find inspiration for blogging?” That’s something I’ve been thinking about, I ought to share my thoughts and see what others say.
I am also into sharing. When I read things on Twitter, on blogs, and from traditional news sources, I want to share what I am learning. Often I do that via Twitter. When I have more time, I do it with a blog post. Sharing inspires me as well as what follows — meeting new people.
Where do you as a blogger find inspiration?