It’s become a bit of a June tradition around these parts to kick off a Summer Reading challenge to inspire our #ContentChat community to share the content that’s sparking their imaginations and keeping their creativity on point.

If you haven’t participated recently in a summer reading challenge, it’s evolved a lot over the years to include more than just books. While reading books is still encouraged, today it’s more of a summer learning and exploration challenge. That means in addition to books, the things you track and give yourself credit for include:

• Listening to podcasts
• Watching a movie or video
• Participating in a webinar
• Taking a course
• Visiting a museum
• Reading a blog
• Writing something

All Marketers Need a Development Plan

You’ve heard me say it so many times before but it’s still true— as marketers, we’ve got to commit to life-long learning to keep our skills sharp and remain employable. When we’re heads down and focused on work deadlines, it can be tough to make this happen. But over the summer, between our own vacation time and the slower pace at work as our customers and colleagues take their own vacations, we’ve got an extra window of time that we can at least partially use to focus on our own professional development.

If you’re not sure where to get started, I recommend looking at our most recent round-up of marketing books we love. On the other hand, if you have a big stack of books and a huge bookmarks file of things to dig into, consider reply in the comments here or on LinkedIn to answer one or more of these questions to help us find our next big inspiration boost:

• Q1: What is the most recent marketing, content marketing, or business book you read that we should all add to our reading lists?
• Q2: What are the marketing, content marketing, or business podcasts you listen to regularly and always learn something new from?
• Q3: Are there any email newsletters focused on marketing or business that you recommend? Share a link!
• Q4: Which blogs do you regularly read for marketing and business education and inspiration?
• Q5: Have you taken a marketing or business course in the past 6 months that you highly recommend?
• Q6: Are there any marketing, content marketing, or business communities you are a member of and would recommend joining? Share a link and tell us why.
• Q7: Is there a marketing, content marketing, or business-related webinar or video you’ve recently watched and would recommend?
• Q8: What is one thing you’d like to learn this summer, and aren’t sure where to start? After you answer, reply to someone else’s answer with a source you’d recommend for their learning quest.

I can’t wait to see what everyone has to share!

And spoiler alert — I’m going to be posting these same questions every week, one-by-one, on LinkedIn to get the conversation started and the ideas flowing.