CIO - Blogs and forums are online homes for subject experts. Blogs are a fantastic way to see what your colleagues around the world are thinking about on any given topic, from supply chain management to any kind of system implementation.

Blogs also save you time. “If you find people who blog on your topic, then they will link to other valuable and relevant sites. Then you don’t have to read 100 blogs, but you read the blog of the guy who reads 100 blogs,” says West.

If you find a blog you like, subscribe to its RSS feed so you are alerted to updates. Checking to see how many subscribers or comments a blog has is another way to determine how much to trust what the blogger says.

Reading the comments can be as valuable as reading the blog itself. Blogs create an environment for dialog, so it isn’t just the author’s thoughts that are worth reading. Link.