This morning Fred Wilson on his blog A VC can be read lamenting how hard it is getting to find people and ideas that are able to get his creative juices flowing. As he points out in his post he has spent the better part of the last years relying mostly on services like “.. delicious, digg, Techmeme, hacker news and reddit”. What he doesn’t seem to include in this list is his heavy involvement with Twitter and FriendFeed which is also where I am sure he is trying to find inspiration.
I hate to break it to you Fred but you are looking in all the wrong places.
Aggregators like the ones mentioned above are great tools but that is all they are. They are tools in that they give you a brief glimpse of potential about what the post might be. However a glimpse is never a substitute for a complete thought. I have lost count on the number of times when I have read a complete post by some-one and suddenly had an idea that was sparked by something that person may have said but that spark lead to a totally different idea. Reading an aggregated post headline will never let you do that.
Sure aggregators like those mentioned are a great way to ease our workload – up to a point. What they don’t do is let us see into the thinking process of the writer that lead them to write the post in the first place. For that you have to go to the horse’s mouth Fred .. you have to go to the beginning of where that stream of thought started. No aggregator is going to do that for you.
Now being the helpful type of person I am; and now knowing you are looking for some original thinking to get your creative juices flowing once more will list you out some of the people who I always look to in order to get my ideas flowing
1. Alexander van Elsas
2. Colin Walker
3. I’m not actually a geek
4. notes, thoughts, ideas and responses
5. echovar
6. Mark Evans
7. The Technium
Not a single one of those listed could be considered a part of the A-List crowd you like to hang out with or who find themselves at the top of things like Techmeme. They are people though who love to think about and write about the Internet, technology and social media. They may not be a part of your mainstream Fred but they should be and I can almost guarantee you that they will get your creative juices flowing once more.
So step out into the wild side of the blogosphere Fred and see where the real idea action is taking place.
Conversation Tags: Fred Wilson, aggregators, blogs, creative juices
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I'm back now, however, and looking at how I can take my usual ponderings in different directions.
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http://davemartin.blogspot.com
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Here are two others of mine:
-Rolf Skyberg, disruptive innovator at eBay, but also gifted Pattern Hound: rolfskyberg.wordpress.com
- Lynnetter, a girl from google that has the power to add great quotes to great pictures, always make you think! There is a feed on the page as well. http://www.flickr.com/photos/lynetter/sets/7205...
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I'm flattered to be on your inspiration list. :)
In terms of personal inspiration, I find that getting away the Web can be pretty effective. I've gotten some of my best ideas talking to people over a beer in the backyard or after playing hockey.
cheers, Mark
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