This great article on NYtimes highlighted something I have thought about for a while and that’s about one of the downsides of the digital age, things are can be less discoverable. Or as Damian Darlin puts it, the digital age is stamping out serendipity. I’ve posted before about the way I buy books on Amazon compared to shops and the same is true for music. One is generally directed; the other is more like meandering.

From my own personal point of view, these days I tend to learn a lot more about fewer subjects rather than a little about a lot. It’s not only because stuff is behind little screens and in devices as opposed to being on display for the world to see, it’s to do with developments in CRM, RSS feeds, bookmarking tools and the tightening of people’s social networks.

I tend to discover more offline and then find out the detail of specific subjects online. Neither is a good thing, the more you rely on one or the other the less fulfilling things become. All media is getting better at doing the things that hold them back but to be honest what you put in is what you get out.

Things I did last week

Read the Sunday paper for the first time in ages. The Sunday paper is still cool

Unless you really, really feel the need, don’t merge your social networks, use different ones for different interests and groups. A bit of overlapping is obviously inevitable

Treat yourself to a book that has cool looking cover

Ensure your RSS reader has some variety

Learn or download something random off iTunes. There’s heaps of free stuff