If you can sift through the selling, a blog is a great way to get information, West says. Technorati, a site that aggregates user-generated content like blogs, has a popularity index for its material that is a good way to gauge how reliable the information you're reading is. Cullen says, "If you can move through the noise on blogs, depending on the subject they might be a great way to get insight on what people are thinking."
Blogs also save you time. "If you find people who blog on your topic, then they will link to other valuable and relevant sites. Then you don't have to read 100 blogs, but you read the blog of the guy who reads 100 blogs," says West.
Anther Web site that helps locate blogs is Blogdigger.
If you find a blog you like, subscribe to its RSS feed so you are alerted to updates. Checking to see how many subscribers or comments a blog has is another way to determine how much to trust what the blogger says.
Reading the comments can be as valuable as reading the blog itself. Blogs create an environment for dialog, so it isn't just the author's thoughts that are worth reading.
To that end, finding forums of real people's discussions is a great way to learn about trends and hot topics, as well as to get feedback on a specific software or company. For example, Cullen points to Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge, which is a forum for business innovation conversations, broken down by topic and industry. Vendors such as Oracle and Microsoft have user forums. And users have their own forums, for subjects like extreme programming and software quality assurance.
3. Study Business School Web sites
Academic institutions share their knowledge online. If you locate a school with a good MBA program, one that has incorporated technology elements into its curriculum, you can read the information being released by the students or professors. "Academics are often the only people publishing statistics on business technology," West says. "And if they are into a particular technology topic, they are likely to blog about it."
You can use Google to look for business school Web sites and their library branches; there are more than 200 of these universities and associations, and more than 200 MBA blogs. Each site has different research resources. Cullen also directs Harvard MBA students to BizSeer, a free online database of academic business literature (that also allows you to search business schools).
Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.