Welcome to the long weekend. And I’m hopefully going to get a bit more reading in.
My long weekend starts today as my daughter’s school has a development day. These random days off creep up on me every month, because they do happen every month. And I have to scramble to make sure I’m ready with work done and lots of fun for my daughter. But this month seems particularly hard because I feel like we just got done with the holiday vacation. I even asked her what she wanted to do, and she replied, “I want to go to school.” Cool, kid. Not gonna happen.
So now I have to make sure that I’m as fun, if not more fun, than school. That’s a lot of pressure, because I do not have the energy of eleven toddlers. But I’m gonna try. Wish me luck.
And now, let’s get to what I’m reading this week.
Reading Social Media News
There’s a little bit of a theme here this week. Why? Because everyone is scrambling to get on top of AI and when I see good AI articles, I’m gonna share them.
The first is the news that LinkedIn articles are being cited by AI. Honestly, considering that Reddit is super popular with AI, this is not surprising at all. It’s a reminder that LinkedIn can be super powerful despite not being the flashiest social network.
And then HubSpot did a study of how semantics affects AI mentions. I love information like this because it backs up the idea that scannable writing is the best for humans, algorithms and AI. I highly recommend experimenting with some of this and see what it does for your brand.
Reading Books, Books and More Books
Past
Isola by Allegra Goodman was added to my list and then one of my friends said it was her book of the year. Well, that just made it go to the top of my list. Is it my book of the year? No. But I did enjoy my time with it. The story was original, and the strength of the main character was admirable. Her journey home was reminiscent of the Parable of the Two Sons (a fact that was mentioned several times). But really, her story was about loss and then finding the strength to keep going. And I think that’s a story a lot of us could relate to right now and thankfully this is one that’s easy to recommend. Score: A-
Present
I was scratching my head how The Sisters by Jonas Hassen Khemiri ended up in my holds request and then I turned the book over to look at the back. There was a quote by Fredrik Backman. He so rarely recommends books, so I always happily pick up any book he puts on his Instagram. That’s how I found my book of the year, When the Cranes Fly South. I’m trying not to hold this book to those same levels. But it’s LONG. I’ve read a decent chunk of it, and even though I’m into it, I’m not entirely sure what’s going on. I’m hoping I figure it out soon.
What are you reading? What books are you looking forward to?