The top engineers and managers I’ve met all read the latest business and technical books, trade journals, news sources and more. They are all intelligent and knowledgeable people. Reading and thinking are on their personal priority list. What I’ve been wondering lately is whether the way they read has changed over the last couple of years.
There are still books of the paper form. There are still magazines. But there are so many other formats and sources today that you could begin to wonder if you could ever keep up. First there was reading on your computer—as in surfing the Web. Twitter gives you real-time news feeds and conversation. Facebook and LinkedIn applications let you connect with others. But LinkedIn groups also serve a similar purpose as the “User Groups” of the early pre-Web Internet years. Anyone remember comp.realtime or comp.C? These were community areas of questions, answers and discussions.
