YAYAs of the world…stop Twittering, downloading iPhone games and uploading pictures to Flickr for a moment and read a book. This isn’t to say that YAYAs don’t read, but that exploring the digital world can start through print. A short trip to Barnes and Nobles or the public library will leave you more media savvy then ever before. Marketing to the Social Web by Larry Weber is one such book. It presents the new way of achieving success for businesses by building an interactive community. The best part? The book gives step-by-step tactics to achieving this community-based interaction via instructions that are as easy to follow as an Apple computer set-up manual. So even if we as YAYAs know the technologies in the book, do we necessarily know how to strategically use them to increase traffic or company revenues? Maybe not. I think as YAYAs we are programmed to dive into new technologies. If we can’t figure them out, it’s almost a blow to our pride. But I think by slowing down (just a little bit) and learning through a book, we’ll all be better off. Okay, you can start uploading pictures to Flickr again.

Don’t get me wrong; I await December’s release of the Communication Arts Award Annuals as much as the next creative. I mean, it’s the highlight of my winter. However, sometimes when I’m seeking inspiration, I want to avoid the current ads being produced and look around to see what those non-advertising people think. I want to look away from the stuff that maybe was just produced to win an award.

An Art Director at Core first exposed me to this website. Now I open my bookmark to this site at least eight times a day. It’s a little ridiculous. www.Ffffound.com, for me, cuts back on the time I spend searching the Internet for the latest, coolest design stuff to incorporate into my design work. Anyone can post images on this site of basically things they enjoy or brighten their day. Package design, posters, photos, literally anything can be posted on this site, and it lacks the overwhelming feeling I get from Flickr or Google searches.

If I ever decide to register (I probably should), I can click ‘I ♥ THIS” and voila, ffffound will begin to identify images similar to those I’ve flagged. Sites like ffffound really inspire me to keep up with the latest design trends in a different way I love, because it comes from anyone and everyone and that makes it much more exciting.