Social/Professional media

Over the last 4 or 5 years social media space has become quite a large part of my life.  I embraced Twitter early on and make (too much) use of it.  I have a Facebook account but don't use it.  I don't check-in, but i do blog in various guises.  I have always read feeds of various blogs.  Is all of this a waste of time?  Undoubtedly some is but then again, who hasn't been in a job where you've come out of meetings feeling your brain is about to implode due to the banality and waste of an hour of your life you're never going to regain? It happens regularly.  With careful filtering social media gives you a really great window into the wider professional world; and a platform to contribute...so rather than thinking of it a social media, I prefer to think of it as professional media.

I like map blogs, design blogs, infographics blogs...they give me a space in which I see what is going on, to inspire me and help the creative juices flow....they can also be an antidote, a refreshing break to remind you that there are people out there who share your own values and approaches.  They keep you focused on what you enjoy when you're struggling to work out why some people simply don't get it.

One of my favorite blogs is Nathan Yau's Flowing Data. This blog entry is simply a round-a-bout way of encouraging people to go visit his site if you haven't already. It's a shameless plug...but then again, I was pleasantly surprised to see my Cartonerd blog appear on a list he recently published on Data and Visualization blogs worth following so I'm biased. More seriously...go to that page, take a look. There's lots of really great links to useful content out there in Professional media space.