Bella Katz on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

What I’m reading (and RSS subscribing to) this year:

• The Gates Notes: Bill Gates has this week launched his personal new website The Gates Notes which is, of course, exceptional in many ways. The navigation reminds me of mind flow - an information collective set out in an intuitive way. Includes updates of what the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are working on and sections titled What I’m Thinking About, What I’m Learning, Infrequently Asked Questions.  This is someone who could have spent their early retirement perma-cruising the Bahamas on a 20,000 foot yacht and has instead put money and full time resources behind philanthropy on an immense scale. If I had big charitable donations to make, this is where I’d put the money.
• Freakonomics blog: This is the New York Times blog from journalist and economist (respectively) Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt, authors of the bestselling Freakonomics and the new Superfreakonomics. The blog was designed to “keep the conversation going initiated in their books and includes guest contributors from different worlds, whose common connections is the application of data and numbers in unique social contexts.
• Branding Strategy Insider: The comprehensive blog of branding strategists Derrick Daye and Brad VanAuken, with regular contributions from the world’s top marketing specialists such as Mark Ritson, Al Ries, Martin Lindstrom. There’s such an overwhelming supply of marketing reading and”gurus” online that you could simplify things for yourself by reading the articles here once a week.
• Brand New: If you have an interest in corporate and brand identity (AKA logos) this blog gives unbiased reviews of who is doing what, and why it does or doesn’t work. Of course a totally subjective topic, but always with a sharp view and copious comments from copious other readers.
• Marketing Ritson: The website and article archive of marketing expert and ‘International Consultant to many of the World’s Greatest Brands’ Mark Ritson. He is a hilarious and totally brutal writer who isn’t afraid to call out a disaster piece of marketing regardless who it comes from. Harvard Business Review Columnist of the Year 2009.

Whose writing do you read regularly?