Knowledge is power: a guide to some of our favourite tools and resources

By Helena Wennergren

We all want to stay informed – and preferably ahead of our peers! Learning from others is a great way of doing just that. Here we have collected some of our favourite websites, podcasts, and other assorted sources. Use them to get inspired, find new heights to reach for, and yes, overtake competitors. Happy learnings!

According to our Web Management Survey, European communicators already use several digital channels to keep an eye on trends. Among other things, 51% of respondents read LinkedIn posts and 41% subscribe to newsletters. We would also like to throw in the option of using apps like Feedly and Flipboard to collect inspiration and news based on your chosen topics. The Pocket app also helps you bring together interesting articles that you might want to save or read later.

Here are some of the sources we use ourselves:

Management, organisation, business

The Harvard Business Review and McKinsey Quarterly give broader perspectives on management and business as well as personal development and innovation. The HBR Ideacast is a podcast covering many of the articles from the magazine, including interviews with a wide range of thought leaders and businesspeople.

Similar sources include:

• Fast Company
• The Verge
• Wired magazine

The digital communications category on Medium is another useful source for articles. Try having a browse around to see if any writers catch your eye!

Design, UX, development, tech

There's no shortage of websites and bloggers covering anything that has to do with creativity, design, and user experience, as well as development and tech. Our designers, UX experts, project managers, and researchers recommend:

• NN Group – UX and accessibility insight based on research.
• Smashing magazine – design and development
• Boagworld UX, web, digital transformation
• The Drum – Advertising, marketing
• Mashable – Tech, business - everything
• Searchengineland – everything related to search, search engines, SEO, and SEM
• TNW - The next web – tech, social media

The UX Podcast is a good source if you prefer listening instead of reading (or if you know you have a long commute ahead of you!). 

Content 

Many content tools providers and developers have interesting blogs discussing content production, management, and copywriting. Hubspot and Gathercontent are the two that we find the most valuable. We would also like to recommend content strategy guru Kristina Halvorsson (no relation to our sister agency Hallvarsson & Halvarsson) contentstrategy.com, where you can find both blog posts and podcasts.

IR and sustainability

As a communicator, there are more things you need to worry about than the digital (although we would contend that the tips above are more widely applicable). To keep up to date with trends in investor relations, follow IR societies - both local and international. Responsible Investor is a good one to follow for news on sustainability. On a similar note, it’s also important to find local sources to help you stay up do date on regulations. Many of these will only have a selection of their articles open to all, so it can be worth following them on LinkedIn or Twitter to keep an eye on trends.

And if you haven't read them yet, our own spotlight reports are based on data collected from communicators, analysts, investors, and jobseekers:

• The Web Management Report 2019
• The Capital Market Report 2019
• The Career Report 2019