When the “A-List” stops being “The A-List”

Feb 8, 2008 | blog

Bill Gates with the Bloggers (By jzawodn) So I was sitting at my local coffee shop this morning reading feeds, Twittering and writing. Not an unusual morning, but like other times a person gets inspired, it came from a comment from someone. This time from Jeremiah Owyang via Twitter. While talking about a the new Egos site created by Guy Kawasaki he Tweeted:

My recommendations to you: somewhere in the middle, develop your own feedreader of high value blogs and alerts everyone is unique

What occurred to me is that I didn’t think much about the a-list much any longer. While the semi-annual meme of beating on the a-list being a favorite sport for many bloggers, something any committed blogger will realize after awhile is that they develop their own a-list. This is simply the list of bloggers that they read and are influenced by.

It becomes less about the celebrity status of the blogger and more about the value of their content. I think it was Chris Brogan who started calling his personal list of favorites “Rockstars“, and it’s an apt title for a list of people who continually influence you on a daily basis. Hey I know good ‘ol Diamond Dave did that back in the ’80s for a heck of a lot of people. 😉

I’m sure a number of people are sitting back saying that I’ve missed the point of “The A-List”. They’d point out that this group of high-profile bloggers control the topics on Techmeme, Tailrank, et al. I don’t see that – I see a *lot* of great bloggers moving that conversation all over the place. At any rate, that’s not the point of this post. I’m really just talking about building your own list of blogs and bloggers that influence you.

Here are some opinions I’ve developed (though some are obvious 😉 )

  • There is no one definition of the A-List – everyone’s a list is different
  • “The A-List” everyone talks about are just bloggers – albeit with industry insight
  • The more time you spend reading in the blogosphere, the more important the content and less the celebrity status of the blogger
  • Your A-List will include high-profile bloggers, because of the value they bring to you, just like the lower-profile bloggers you read

I guess I just want to people to keep exploring and finding that content that has value to you. Don’t worry about if they are part of “The A-List”, there really are some great bloggers among them and many of their observations are relevant to the conversation that we’re looking for.

So, the A-List stops being “The A-List” when the reader realizes that each blogger brings value to the conversation and you start looking beyond who they are and more at what they say. What’s your take on this?

Photo credit: jzawodin

How opinions of others shape our self-image

Oct 6, 2007 | blog

Self Interpretation II by Pulpolux Did you ever stop and think how the opinions of people around you impact your self-image?

While I hope that you’re not self conscious about such things, I do ask how the opinions of your friends or family influence the perception you have of yourself?  How do your co-workers or bosses perceptions affect your belief in you?

Often I’ve wondered how much the opinions of our peers impact us, and do we benefit from their views or are they detrimental to our self image?  Constructive feedback from individuals is an important tool for each of us to use in continuing to improve ourselves.  However, too much information from too small a group can be counter-productive to self improvement.

As an example, I used to detest other people’s criticisms.  I still don’t like it, but have learned to listen for the lessons that help me grow as an individual.  Sometimes they’re hard to find, occasionally layered under unintentional (even some intentional!) barbs or slights.

There are truths to everything, but learning to find what is valuable and what isn’t can be something of an art form.  So how about you?  Have you turned personal critiques into tools for improvement?  What things have you learned that you would add to make people’s opinions more valuable to you?

Photo credit: Pulpolux!!!

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