I read a lot of other blogs, and usually find that my colleagues create timely, informative posts in many ways better than I could possibly write. It’s a great way of keeping up with news in the industry and in areas that maybe aren’t specifically related to technical communications but that I really enjoy.

Back in April 2006, I wrote a post enthusing about the blogs I read at that time. The list today has a lot of additions (and a couple that I’ve dropped). Some are related to technical communication, but I find I’m also expanding my areas of interest.

I still follow Scott over at Content Wrangler, and even participate in his conferences (like DocTrain) when I can. He’s also started a social site for the Content Wrangler community that seems to be growing very fast (I’m a member of several of the groups). Warning – this is another site that has so much content and so many different types of offerings that I often spend way more time just looking around here than I intend!! I call it “research”, and enjoy it a lot.

And I still follow STC feeds. Char James-Tanny (current STC Secretary) has created a Yahoo “pipe” called STC Latest News that combines lots of STC-related feeds into a single source. One line in my feedreader, but it displays a picture of what’s going on all over the STC map.

The other major addition to the technical communication feeds is Tom Johnson’s “I’d Rather Be Writing” and “TechWriter Voices”. He hadn’t yet started either when I last posted about blogs, but now he’s got a huge following (and rightly so). I’d Rather Be Writing is a more traditional blog, though he does have polls and other additional things on there. TechWriter Voices is a series where Tom interviews experts in a wide variety of fields and manages to convey the essence of each topic in a short audio file that you can listen to online or download to whatever listening device you want. I’m continually impressed by his timeliness (and I’m not just saying that because he interviewed me twice in 2007)!

I read Bruce Schneier’s blog “Schneier on Security” – he’s got a great common-sense approach to reporting the myriad security lapses that happen all the time, all over the place. From a more business-focused point of view, but still security-related, I also follow the NoticeBored blog. This one talks more about increasing awareness of security issues within a company.

Wil Wheaton’s blog is still one of my favorites. He’s released another book since I wrote about him in 2006 – “The Happiest Days of Our Lives” is every bit as much fun as his prior efforts – and has been busy with tons of other projects. I’m happy to report that I’ve met him at conferences twice now, and he is every bit as charming (and tolerant) as his blog implies. It was through Wil’s blog that I first heard of John Scalzi’s blog “Whatever” – now in it’s TENTH year, and also on my “favorites” list.

My most recent addition/addiction is to the Eureka Unscripted blog – for those who haven’t seen it, Eureka is a SciFi channel show set in a town of geniuses who are always accidentally making black holes, extra suns, or warping time in some way. The sheriff is a normal guy who runs around asking “huh?” so that we, the viewers, can get the explanations we need to follow the story. He also typically then goes ahead and saves the day. Anyway, every week, the producers and writers post behind-the-scenes photos and great discussions of what it takes to put a show like this together.

There are more, but these are the ones I tend to check regularly. Um, after my regular work is complete, of course!