We’ve all been there.  You’re at some kind of meeting, event, phone conference and someone says “oh!  We’ve decided to try this new site… xyz.com, what are your thoughts on that?”

And you have no thoughts on that site because you’ve never seen or heard of that site.  You try to remember if you read Fast Company, Inc. Magazine, and Wired this month.  Then you start remembering all of the email  industry news updates that you archived instead of reading.  You suddenly become hyper aware of all of the new sites that you probably don’t know of.  All of the cool things your competitors are discovering that you haven’t because you were working on a  project that had deadlines and a million moving parts all last week.  God, you probably missed eleventy million emails of cool stuff.  In the 5 seconds of silence after that question you realize that your business is hopelessly behind and you’ll never ever catch up. Ever.

Ok, maybe yours is less melodramatic but you know what I mean.  In an industry that changes more quickly than any other, I’ve gotten pretty good at keeping up.  Here are a few tips:

Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT try to know every little thing. Let’s just get that out of the way.  There are going to be certain reports, sites, tools, etc.  that you simply won’t know.  What you can do, is find 2-3 people who have different areas of expertise that you trust to keep you in the loop.  I like:

Convince and Convert, Techipedia, Design You Trust, and Brand Flakes For Breakfast.  I know that between these 4 (and myself), I can get a good grasp on what’s going on if I’m really busy.

Change it up. I used to follow some ridiculous number of blogs and RSS feeds and before I knew it, my Google reader was stressing me out because I had 5,000 articles that I needed to read.  What I started doing was every time I found a new cool person or site that I wanted to follow I had to take one out.  This was good on two counts.  For one, I was constantly assessing the amount of takeaway I was getting from each person.  Two, it keeps my reader fresh with new authors and thought leaders.

The things you really need to know are big. What isn’t important to know is every little thing that gets popular.  What is important is that you know where things are going and that moves a lot slower.  Like  that earned media (not put out there by the brand themselves) is really much more impactful than a banner ad or that people might be 60% more likely to buy from a brand if they heard good things about it from their favorite blogger.  Over time, these are either reinforced or proved wrong (during which time you might, I don’t know, work) so it’s good to know what the big thinkers are saying instead of the sites that pump out every single new item.

Don’t be a follower. Keeping up is only hard if you’re following the curve.  Start forming your own opinions on what sites and ideas are great  and you’ll spend less time trying to keep up.  You know what works for you.

Keep an ace up your sleeve. There’s always going to be a need for showing off because there’s always going to be “that guy” at the meeting that is intent on judging your worth by what cool sites you know.  Keep a secret stash of a few amazing, blow you away sites, stats, or tech tools that you can bust out if you need them.  Good places to find those are at the FWA or eMarketer.