Blueprint for Design

Today’s post carries on with the topic of listening. I wanted to share a program I use daily to help organize all the different websites that I follow in attempt to make me smarter.

Listening

Before talking about Google Reader, I want to discuss a key reason to use the program. That reason would be to improve your online listening skills.   I wish I could take credit for the idea, but this guy is The Man when it comes to online listening. Please go here to check out his post after reading this one.

Traditionally, we would read the newspaper every morning, read trade magazines once a month and have as many conversations with others to keep us up on current events.

Now, the rules have changed and the way we listen needs an update.  Perhaps, that prospective client has their own website, writes in an online journal (blog), shares photos and other information in web based communities and is a member of many different social networking websites. Besides that, they’re mentioned across the web in other places we can’t begin to imagine.

How do you keep up?

Here’s a web-based program that I frequently use to keep me informed to whatever RSS feeds I subscribe.

(A quick video on what an RSS feed is.)

Google Reader

My RSS feed reader choice is Google Reader. It’s part of the Google family and it’s FREE. You can subscribe to any site that has a feed,. (Actually, they just added a feature that allows you to subscribe to any site and it will do somekind of mystical majic to keep you updated.  I don’t know how it works, but it does, rather nicely.

I subscribe to local newspapers, architecture magazines, business websites, and friends’ blogs and websites.

(A quick video on Google Reader.)

I would encourage you to give it a try and please share your thoughts!!