50 Blogs for Your Must Read List

If you're like me, you like to find stimulating and thought provoking content online beyond the obvious and often recommended small group. People who ask questions differently, or maybe from a new domain and subject matter.

People ask me what I read all the time. It's been a long while since I've done one of my totally subjective list (more below). When I published the 100 PR people worth following on Twitter, the list received many reactions, public and private.

There are many great lists of marketing blogs like AdAge Power150, business catalysts, and miscellaneous lists with blogs about PR, social media, marketing, branding, and many Alltop categories.

My intent is not to duplicate one of those.

Lists create culture

Umberto Eco proclaimed that:

"The list is the origin of culture. It’s part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible.

It also wants to create order — not always, but often. And how, as a human being, does one face infinity?

How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists, through catalogs, through collections in museums and through encyclopedias and dictionaries.

There is an allure to enumerating how many women Don Giovanni slept with: It was 2,063, at least according to Mozart’s librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte.

We also have completely practical lists — the shopping list, the will, the menu — that are also cultural achievements in their own right.” ~ Umberto Eco [hat tip Maria Popova]

We like lists because we want to matter.

List as signal

I view lists as signal. Lists indicate what we pay attention to, get done, remember, speak to us, endorse even when not necessarily agree with completely, appreciate and are grateful for.

My subjective criteria for this list include people who help me think, have a different point of view that keeps me honest, are resourceful, creative and generous, include awe, inspiration, and surprise and don't take themselves too seriously.

Yes, there are (at least) 100 people who meet some combinations of these criteria and are still active bloggers (publish at least monthly, most weekly, some daily).