I think I’m one of the last few people still using RSS. I subscribe to a ton of blogs in Feedly, and I go through every morning and clean out my RSS feed.

When I was a kid, I was a huge fan of the Weekly World News.

On paper, a big display advertising campaign seems like a good marketing strategy to try. It sounds like an easy way to build brand awareness, and get your business in front of thousands of people who are in your target audience.

I spend a lot of time thinking about ways to improve. Reading books written by experts is a huge part of my own professional development, and I’ve read a ton of old school advertising books this year. Earlier this week I finished Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz. Reading Ogilvy, Caples and Schwartz has been integral to improving my understanding of advertising and copywriting. But I don’t have much interest in being an ad man.

I briefly considered studying psychiatry when I started college, but I gave it up. I loved studying how people work. I’ve always been interested in what makes people tick. Why people make the decisions they make. But I wasn’t interested in treating sick patients, or helping people work through deep seated emotional issues.

I’ve been playing Alphabear by Spry Fox since early July. It’s a word puzzle game with progressive difficulty, tons of unlockables, and adorable graphics. Right out the gate, Alphabear is hitting me on a lot of levels. These are some of my favorite things! But I’m not interested in talking about the game mechanics.

The term “growth hacker” has sprung into vogue in the last few years. I’ve seen it on job boards at technical companies, on reddit, and in the titles of recommended books on Amazon. I’ve always found the phrase irritating. It sounded like a trendy way to repackage “marketer.” It sounded like a way for technical people to talk about marketing, without actually talking about marketing. Like “marketing” is a dirty word!

A well-written marketing page sells your product 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all around the world. Marketing copy doesn’t take days off, and it doesn’t call in sick. Your marketing page is your best salesperson.

I recently finished Contagious by Jonah Berger. It’s a fascinating look at why we spread certain types of information, how to identify the factors that makes information worth sharing, and how to apply those factors to marketing.

Sometimes I’ll finish a book and think “Man, I should have read that years ago.” Snow Crash was one of those books. Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples is another. Much as I love cyberpunk, I’m not here to talk about cyberpunk. Not today, anyway.

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell is about why ideas spread. Why teen smoking continues to rise, despite vigorous anti-smoking campaigns. Why cracking down on graffiti and fare jumping in New York City lead to a steep decline in violent crime. Why Airwalks were everywhere for a few years in the mid-90s, and why their popularity died off.

I finished reading Letting Go of the Words by Ginny Redish this week. Redish is a usability and communications expert, and this book takes a shotgun approach to writing good, usable content for the web. I don’t say this to be disparaging. As any of my friends can tell you, I’m a big fan of shotguns. She covers everything from organizing content in a way that makes it easy for readers to scan, to ways to improve your site for usability, to some basic tips on SEO.

I’ve not been looking forward to writing this wrap up post. My current system of blogging once a month about the books I’ve read isn’t ideal. I’m not writing well about what I’ve read, even though I’ve been taking notes and sending myself email reminders for points I want to make in my wrap up post.

There’s something about the third month of any new system I try that often proves to be the failing point. I tend to lose motivation around month 3. My famous enthusiasm wanes, and I get bored. I move on to something else. I stop caring as much.