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?

Bella Katz on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Recently I’ve become a bit obsessed with reading articles from the great marketing minds, old and new. I can pinpoint this down to three specific events that are going on for me right now.

1. My husband is doing his MBA and I’ve had lecturer and subject envy
2. My increased use of Twitter has led me to follow some exceptional people and read excellent articles (and conversely see how much tat it out there masquerading as marketing genius)
3. Working for myself over the last four years has meant I haven’t had a marketing mentor to work with

Banksy - monkey inspiration

For the four years I’ve worked for myself none of the above seemed to matter too much. I even stopped several papers short of completing my marketing Masters because I was fed up at regurgitating the same essay in slightly different ways to essentially the same marketing papers with slightly different titles. Marketing academia and marketing departments felt like they had frozen in time, the case studies were all the same ones from the first edition of the textbooks (Ford, New Coke etc), I felt I could learn a lot more by doing it instead of studying it.

However, a polite distance from marketing departments and a mood of change in the professional world has shaken things up and made them more interesting again. If anything good has come out the recession, for example, it may be that it’s forcing failing companies that had sat back and enjoyed the lucky good times to realise they had no recipe for success. The mediocre achievements of their mediocre execs was pretty much pure fluke.

As a result, I (would like to) believe that Thinking and Learning are making a humble comeback.

There are some true experts out there - individuals and companies - who didn’t get to where they are without constantly learning, applying good judgement and generally being excellent at what they do. Out of the seemingly endless myriad of online information I’ve found a manageable handful of those I admire and I’m going to make reading their articles, watching their presentations and seeing who else they recommend, part of my routine. There’s a lot I can learn from other fields as well as marketing - economics, science, psychology, sales, business etc. My professional resolutions have been made early this year.

Is there anyone you recommend?