There are a number of United States of America-based bloggers I follow regularly. Each offers inspiring advice, industry information and hints about new technologies.<\/p>\n
My all-time favourite blogger is Trent Hamm, the author of http:\/\/www.thesimpledollar.com\/ blog<\/a>. Hamm offers great advice for living simply without spending too much in stories that often describe his previous mistakes.<\/p>\n Consider this quote from his June 21st<\/sup> blog post \u201cDebt isn\u2019t Required\u201d:<\/p>\n No one needs debt to finance their life. If you\u2019re taking on debt to finance a purchase that you couldn\u2019t afford out of pocket, not only are you agreeing to hand over a bunch of money to the bank in the form of interest, you\u2019re also adding to your monthly bills, restricting your career and personal freedom.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Brian Tracy, on the other hand, is like an anti-Hamm, which makes him equally entertaining. His useful mottos and encouraging words make people reach for entrepreneurial greatness and financial success at http:\/\/www.briantracy.com<\/a>. Here\u2019s a typical piece of advice from his \u201cget paid more\u201d blog post:<\/p>\n Before you start something new, you must discontinue something old. You can gain control of your life only to the degree to which you stop doing things that are no longer as valuable or as important to you as other thing you could be doing.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Chris Brogan earned a reputation years ago as the go-to guy for discovering social media. Lately, he writes about bringing humanity back into business operations. His blog appears at http:\/\/www.chrisbrogan.com\/<\/a>, but he also has a weekly newsletter, a podcast and lots of books. Here\u2019s the kind of advice he offers, from his latest post about \u201cInstagram and Video and what it will mean for Vine\u201d:<\/p>\n When you worry about where people will spend their time, you miss the point. That\u2019s an advertising mindset. If you\u2019re going to spend MONEY on either platform doing something with ads, well, I guess worry about who can best serve your ad to the very specific people you hope to reach. If you\u2019re looking at this as another social media outpost, then do what I tend to recommend in these cases: use the platform that lets you tell your story the way you best want to tell it.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n For a different kind of off-the-wall-but-informed take on humanity, check out the posts from Dan Ariely at his self-named blog http:\/\/danariely.com\/<\/a> . Ariely comments on the workings of the human mind as related to daily events. Here\u2019s two of is lines from his \u201cOn Disappearing Socks\u201d post:<\/p>\n So we often count as lost each sock in a pair\u2014even though neither is really lost. At the end of the day, the mystery is not due to the suspension of the law of physics but to the much larger puzzle of how our memory works (or doesn\u2019t work). Yet I still feel that, at the back of my laundry machine, there may be a black hole that is suitable just for socks.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Michelle Rafter, the founder of Wordcount, blogs about freelancing in the digital age at http:\/\/michellerafter.com\/<\/a>. My favourite posts are the ones that describe on-line tools for writers in a friendly way that makes using them look easy. Her recent \u201chow-to-use-vizify-to-create-an-interactive-resume-in-a-few-minutes\u201d post for example says:<\/p>\n Speaking of other online resumes, Vizify is by no means the only online interactive resume-building tool out there. In recent months, LinkedIn has added the ability to link to portfolios, projects and other material to a basic profile. I\u2019ve also created a resume on Contently, the publishing management platform, because it\u2019s an easy way to keep my clips updated.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Linda Formichelli runs a really fun blog that she calls a \u201cmagazine for serious writers\u201d at http:\/\/www.therenegadewriter.com\/<\/a>. Most of the posts outline good business strategies for freelancers, often along with stories about writers who didn\u2019t follow the advice. I laughed out loud reading the story highlighted in the post \u201cAre you missing this vital freelance skill?\u201d You wouldn\u2019t expect someone to be so funny in a story with the following two nutgraph sentences, but she is.<\/p>\n One of the most important qualities you can have as a writer is to be polite, grateful, and professional. You can spin prose better than Tolstoy, but if you\u2019re a jerk, no one will want to work with you.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I used to read 10,000 Words religiously when Mark S. Lucker wrote it. These days multiple people, several of whom seem to be interns, post to the site, and they are also worth reading. Check it out at \u00a0http:\/\/www.mediabistro.com\/10000words\/<\/a>. Here\u2019s an example of two lines from Lauren Robaino\u2019s Vox Media: The Company That Did Beautiful Longform Storytelling Before \u2018Snow Fall\u2019:<\/p>\n When Vox launched The Verge, they took their first stab at what some call \u201cimmersive storytelling\u201d \u2014 they just call it \u201clongform\u201d stories, appropriately \u2014 in November 2011. We\u2019re talking about stories that have big, beautiful photos and typography, where the design is tailored to the content, rather than being shoehorned into an inflexible template like most news organization sites.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A lot of talented people write for the Nieman Journalism Lab at http:\/\/www.niemanlab.org\/<\/a> too, but I particularly like Caroline O\u2019Donovan\u2019s profiles of people with new technology projects. Her recent profile of Upworthy editorial director Sara Critchfield included a line designed to strike horror into professional writers:<\/p>\n In other words, Critchfield builds the element of genuine emotional response into her team by hiring people who were never trained to worry about what\u2019s news, and what isn\u2019t.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Randy Seaver, a genealogy buff in California has a fun blog at http:\/\/www.geneamusings.com\/<\/a>. If you\u2019re looking for good articles about researching your family tree, check this one out. Randy comments on conferences, tools for genealogy and the search for ancestors in a friendly style such as:<\/p>\n If there are any researchers reading this who share Esther Waget as an ancestor, or who has found more information about her parentage, or has research suggestions, please let me know in a comment on this blog post.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\nBlogs that Embrace Humanity by Chris Brogan and Dan Ariely<\/h3>\n
Freelancing Hints from Michelle Rafter and Linda Formichelli<\/h3>\n
Exploring Technological Change: 10,000 Words and Harvard\u2019s Nieman Journalism Lab<\/h3>\n
Historical Musings from Randy Seaver and Judy Russell<\/h3>\n