Read Like Me

By Aram Zucker-Scharff Tuesday September 13, 2011

A mostly complete guide on what I'm reading.

Image via CrunchBase

A while back I was in a professor’s digital journalism class talking a bit about what I do for Student Media at George Mason University. When I had finished the professor told his students that they should be more like me. While I’m not sure I can recommend “being like me” to anyone, I’d agree that anyone who works with media, in any format, needs to stay on top of the latest innovations, ideas and tools. My method isn’t very complicated, in fact I’d be happy to let you in on my secret. I read a lot.

Blogs, novels, papers, and pretty much anything else you can think of, I read. So, if you’re really that interested in how to “be like me” you can read like me.

First up, I use Google Reader heavily. You can follow the stories that I think are really important through my shared items on Google Reader.

Also in Google Reader, I have a number of topic folders. Each folder bundles feeds for that I think are important to keep an eye on. I’ve compiled them into Google Reader Bundles, which allow you to subscribe to all the individual feeds with one click. Here they are:

If you look through the feed bundles you may notice that it is a lot to handle. The primary way I handle the large volume of feeds is through Feedly, which helps sort out things that are important to me and bring them to my attention. Both the Chrome/Firefox plugin and the mobile application come very much in handy. Also useful, if you have an iPad, are NewsMix and Flipboard.

If you have free time or a quiet office, podcasts are another way you can keep up to date on the world. I use an Android app by Google called Listen to catch podcasts. It’s integrated with Google Reader and generates its own folder of feeds. I’ve made it public with a podcasts bundle.

I also read a lot of non-fiction books relevant to the fields I’m interested in. You can see many of them, along with some great fiction, on Goodreads. You can find the rest, along with my notes and highlights, on my Kindle profile. I also read a ton of Sitepoint books.

Finally, I share a lot of what I read online to Twitter. You can follow most of my Google Reader shares along with a lot of other links on my Twitter. You can also find a lot of stuff I’m saving for future reference at my Delicious account.

If you found all this useful, you can keep me in the know! Just head over to my Kindle wish list and gift me a new ebook.