22 kickass resources for staying current on business, marketing, and design

To be the best in your class and stand the test of time, you’ve got to roll with the punches and be ready and willing to adapt.

As as a marketer and creative, you especially need to know what’s going on in your industry and business environment in order to understand your audience’s current mindset and determine what they care about here and now.

We’re all experts in our own rights, but even the pros need somewhere to turn to get the latest news and insights.

While I’m partial to Mashable, Inc. Magazine (print and online), and HubSpot, I was curious to see what resources my IMPACT colleagues keep an eye on. So, I asked them:

Where do you turn to stay up-to-date on the latest industry news and trends?

1. Feedly:

“I don't have one specific blog I go to stay up-to-date on my industry news. Instead I go right to my Feedly app which pulls in the latest articles from all of my favorite blogs. I can get my SEO news from MoZ, my Inbound news from Inbound.org, my design news from Hongkiat, and my feel good articles from Buzzfeed all in one place. It's great!” - Joe Rinaldi, Creative Supervisor

Marketing and business resources:

2. GrowthHackers: “I try to read GrowthHackers and Inbound.org at least once a day. I’ve found a lot of great ideas to use for my clients and even just for my own professional development.”

3. Google Alerts: “I’ve also set up a Google Alerts for Inbound Marketing that I scroll through on Fridays. This gives me really industry specific news along with general Marketing articles.” - Karisa Egan, Marketing Coordinator

4. Copyblogger: “I really love the CopyBlogger blog for actionable insight into social media and content strategies.

5. Inc: “I’m also a huge fan of Inc. Inc is my favorite spot for keeping my sanity at the end of a long day or workweek. I especially like spending time on this site because of the lifestyle, productivity, and general news articles.” - Erica Dube, Account Strategist

6-7: Entrepreneur & Mashable: “I don't get my information from just one source. I find that combined, these sites give me the best trends and news: Inc, Entrepreneur, Inbound.org, and Mashable. I receive daily emails and have a special Twitter list so I can check in on them frequently throughout the day. Four heads are better than one in this case!” - Amanda LeClair, Client Resource Manager

8. IMPACT+: IMPACT+ is a one-stop learning center for high-quality digital marketing courses. It provides a wide variety of comprehensive video lessons to help get you versed in everything you need to be success with digital sales and marketing like content creation, virtual selling, and video.

There are also virtual peer groups based on your job roles to enable you to brainstorm ideas with others facing the same challenges as you and to see and discuss how others are realistically adapting what they learn.

Design, development and tech communities:

9. My Peers: “I turn to the awesome IMPACT creative team for the latest trends. We meet every week to go over new tools, tactics, trends, and software that we’ve come across.” - Melissa Smith, Sr. Front-End Developer

10. Abduzeedo: “...Abduzeedo is one of my top design resources I fall back to for inspiration, designer interviews, and freemiums. It’s a great place to aid my craft and in my professional development.” - Kevin Beaudry, Junior Web Designer

11. HackerNews: “I turn to HackerNews. It offers very high-level content and has a bunch of submission options. “Ask Hacker News,” for example, covers all kinds of topics ranging from development to security to design. They also have “Show Hacker News,” where you can show off cool stuff you’ve done, for free.” - Kyle Sheldon, Sr. Front-End Developer/Tech Architect

12. ProductHunt: “So many places! ProductHunt is a fantastic place to find new apps and software that are just about to hit the point of critical mass. I’ve found a lot of cool stuff there and I’m working on a way to integrating it into part of our strategy for some of my clients.”

13. Reddit: “Believe it or not, Reddit is also a place that cool things pop to the surface - you might have to do a little more digging than just r/technology, but they’re there if you look for them.”

14-16. Webby’s: “Another great source is the Webby’s. It’s a people’s choice awards for apps, software, and tech that ask people like you and me what they liked the most and share the answers with the world. They also have a cool service called Netted, which shares only new apps and software and tech.” - Derrick Weiss, Account Executive

“I mostly use Usepanda, Awwwards, Designer News, Dribbble to help my design endeavors.

17. Usepanda is a great way to have everything you need for design inspiration/news/updates all in one place, while Awwwards is let’s me see the top new sites being designed from across the world.

18-22. Dribbble is a great place to showcase your work to the community (and get High Fives!), but it does lack in useful criticism. Designer News, on the other hand, offers real, constructive, feedback from a growing live community.

Aside from those, I also turn to Fromupnorth, Codepen, Codrops, and of course Sidebar.” - Donny Wilson, Creative Lead