Why I like Medium in a Big way
Recently I got asked a question by a regular reader of this newsletter: where do I get my news (so I can think about it and share my insights with you every week)? Or to put it another way, how do I support my learning?
Before we deal with the where, let’s deal with the “how.” On my iPad, I have apps from news agencies, newspapers, audio and video streaming platforms, reference sources, email, collaboration tools, Internet search, book library, access to databases, social networks. It sounds like a lot. It is. But I need all of these sources to keep learning all of the time.
My iPad tells me that I spend on average 3 hours a day interacting with all the resources. I am not sure if that's a lot or little. But anything I can find there, I can use as a pointer to other information, It helps me to validate (or negate) my assumptions. It provides me with topics to think about. And it connects me with others who are also interested in the samne topics. It helps me with my projects.
That’s the “how” - so now let’s deal with the “where” I visit online to get the best quality stuff. That’s Medium.
I first learned about Medium from the entrepreneur and bestselling author John Battelle, in 2015. Medium was founded by Evan Williams.-- you know, the cofounder of Twitter. Williams realized that 140 characters was not enough to get across real ideas.
As a proper startup, Medium evolved and pivoted, but kept to a vision of providing a platform for quality over quantity. They wanted to prove that people would pay for that kind of content. It works.
What do I read on Medium? Here are some very useful publications.
Netflix Technology Blog. This is a place to learn about scaling technology, managing subscribers, market to billions of other people to convince them to sign up and data analytics. Learn how they’re managing the complexities of streaming thousands of movies to over 200 million subscribers.
Towards Data Science is another great Medium publication for learning about Data Analytics. Yes, some of the articles are very technical. However, there are also big-picture discussions about Ethical AI, how to become a data scientist or what would happen if you gave genetic algorithms the ability to trade.
The Palantir blog comes from the company that’s (in)famous for working with the intelligence community and governments. It discusses topics like how best to provide access to vast amounts of data from various sources, helping with the pandemic response, or how to build a Federated Data Infrastructure for Europe. These are all very difficult problems to solve, so the discussions are always thought-provoking.
The Startup is for you, if you are (surprise!) into learning more about the startup world. You can find a wealth of information about value proposition, marketing, investing, managing, product strategy ... you get the point.
The final way I’m using Medium to learn: that’s where I’m publishing my own writing. Many people learn by doing. I find it helpful to learn by writing.
Medium really did achieve what they set out to do, creating a platform for high-quality, long-form ideas you can’t get through short bursts of ideas on Twitter. The best part? When you do find a great idea, it is easy to connect with the author and start a meaningful conversation. For me, that always leads to more questions and more learning.
And that for me is the recurrent pattern.