Social Networks and innovation content

What’s your favorite social network -Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Quora, Pinterest, other?

Sorry I asked and started a debate :) That’s the new reality, is it not? People have vigorous views about how much they like one versus another. 

With the hungry New Florence blog and its appetite for 600-700 posts a year, you would think I would be agnostic and mine any and all of these sites. I do, but surprisingly, less than 10% of all the posts comes from these sources.

For me, more reliable sources are:

Case study interviews

The 15-20 case studies in my books every couple of years provide plenty of side bars which with a bit of research become blog posts

My iPad

Several of my magazine subscriptions show up on the iPad and provide a steady stream of stories.

Barnes and Noble

Once a month I go into our local store and scour 15-20 magazines for blog post ideas. While the social world believes the print world is dead, I am pleased high quality work continues at so many publications.

Industry Events

Most industry events will provide the opportunity for several product, customer and often event location posts. This is where Twitter does come in handy for events I cannot attend – I will scan tweets that came out of an event. But, usually after the fact. To me, quality is far more important than speed, so I like to mesh input from Twitter from other sources.

Client consulting

This is usually under NDA but as with the books above the research often allows for the side bars which can become posts

Travel

Whether on business or pleasure, innovation in planes, airports, hotel rooms, local museums and architecture provide plenty of fodder

The Calendar

Holidays, events – be it Halloween, or the Super Bowl - allow for several entries. I also like to go back and look at entries for the event over the last few years to see how the holiday is evolving with technology.

Of course, people love social sites for camaraderie, entertainment – not just for innovation ideas.  Just saying the yield of innovation stories for my blog is pretty low.