Coming back from vacation is Hard Work, but if that “work” is “play,” then it can be a lot of fun — albeit different from three days in Las Vegas to celebrate my birthday.

So my “coming back plan” is to catch up on my blog-reading and blog-writing at the same time.

Where to start?

At the top of the inbox?

Where I left off last?

Any email title that catches my eye?

I decided to start with Adam Singer’s The Future Buzz [my favorite blog]. Adam is only 26, but his depth of experience and passion is amazing. Today he wrote about speaking at PubCon Nov 10-13, so any of my readers who can get back to Las Vegas, please say HI to Adam for me.

Adam’s post Understanding your audience is underrated touched a few chords for me. Here was my comment:

Two responses come to mind upon reading this post:
(1) As a writing teacher, I am reminded of my advice to students to imagine the reader and it makes the writing task so much easier.
Here was a cool example that worked this past summer: Imagine writing an essay about “Why you should exercise.” With no one person/reader in mind, where do you start? Now imagine the reader is your lazy overweight uncle sitting in front of the TV, drinking beer and playing with his remote. Easier to get started . . . and easier to write.

(2) As a marketing teacher, I’d want to share all of your insights with my students to show them the power of intelligent thinking. In this particular post, your five strategy questions provided a great “lesson.” I especially liked the suggestion to find promotions that work and make those your own.

Have you tried a “News Update Network”?

I like social|median for news updates. It’s cool to read “Sharisax’s News Updates” in my email box every day on these five topics: (a) Tech News, (b) Social Networking, (c) Social Media Watch, (d) Media&Technology, and (e) Twitter.

(b) Social Networking news was of particular interest:

“Why I don’t use Google Reader anymore” posted on Robert Scoble‘s Posterous stream — from his Friendfeed account.

The title of the post appealed to me because — although I have a Google Reader account, I much prefer the blogs and news that comes straight to my mailbox. Here’s why Robert dislikes Google Reader: (1) it’s slow [misspelled “slog” at first; appropriate? :-)]; (2) the UI (user interface)  is confusing; (3) too many items to read, which he doesn’t get to; (4) social networking aspects too slow; (5+++) Twitter is so much better!

Robert’s post goes on to show the versatility of Twitter’s new LIST feature, which will soon be open to all. Robert ends his post in the “recommended” fashion to ask how readers view Google Reader. The first commentor suggested that Twitter doesn’t have an RSS feeder like Google Reader. Robert’s response: Everyone he wants to read posts their info on Twitter.

Checking out Seth Godin’s latest “words of wisdom”:

1) Big ideas . . . are little ideas that no one killed too soon

2) Opt-in or opt-out: a thought-provoking consideration of how personal choices should/shouldn’t be automatic, e.g., organ donation [a public good] is “opt-out” while spammy messages are a definite “opt-in.”

3) What you buy when you buy a lottery ticket: The title alone got me. Seth says that buying a lottery ticket is a lot like writing a blog post, and that the motivation is “the thrill of possibility.”

Seth’s Blog is a great one to check out (a) if you are just starting a blog and you want to have a role model who posts short sharp insights very consistently, i.e., at least daily AND/OR (b) if you want to see how a writer can say a whole lot with very few words AND/OR (c) if you simply want to think about some idea of value.

Where to end . . .

Since this is “play,” I could go on and on. But I’m sure I’d lose too many of you. So I’ll quit this post with one last article glimpse, and what better source than Mashable, the premiere aggregator of tech savvy contributors, the ultimate “Social Media Guide”:

One of the stories that caught my attention was the 4 Emerging Trends of the Real-Time Web: (a) Individuals working together [i.e. collaborating] online via specially designed Web platforms; (b) real-time data on shopping, health info and a host of other categories; (c) more valuable search findings that filter out old information; (d) the BEST prices at any one moment in time — WOW!!

If you check out any of these stories, let me know what you got out of them.

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