With the New Year just around the corner, I thought I’d put a bow on 2017 by sharing a few lists of my favorite things from the past year. If you have any favorite from any of the categories below, I’d love to hear them! I can’t get enough of lists this time of year.
1. Best books of 2017
My favorite books of the year were an eclectic bunch: a cookbook, a memoir (sorta), two novels set in the late 1800s, and a story about death and dying. Here’re all 85 books I read this year: I’d recommend many, many of them. Please do ask if you have any questions!
Salt Fat Acid Heat
Goodbye, Vitamin
To the Bright Edge of the World
Days Without End
On Death & Dying
2. Best business and management books
There are so many great ones out there. This list just happens to be my favorites that I read this year.
The Signal and the Noise
The 4 Disciplines of Execution
Crossing the Chasm
Shoe Dog
The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Sticky Steps to Creating Killer Presentations
Deep Work
Monetizing Innovation
Your Strategy Needs a Strategy
Tools of Titans
Yes to the Mess
The Coaching Habit
3. Best new tool of 2017
Bonjoro — Send personalized onboarding video
4. Best Slack app
HeyTaco — Praise and recognition for your team (via 🌮)
5. Best marketing message
Drift: No Forms
6. Best newsletters
GoSquared — SaaS marketing articles
Pixels — Beautiful landing pages, sent weekly
The Random Roundup — Interesting Internet stories
Hiten Shah’s Product Habits — Product and marketing advice
Future Crunch — News and science with an optimistic viewpoint
Erin Griffith’s Tribute to the Heroes of Business — Tongue-in-cheek news about tech
7. Best magazine of 2017
I started subscribing to Ad Age this year. I haven’t felt this smart (and professional 🤓) since I subscribed to Bloomberg Businessweek, which I can also highly recommend.
8. Best people to follow
Matt Navarra for social media news
Rand Fishkin for marketing and opinion
Hiten Shah for great links and marketing/product advice
9. Best email copywriting
10. Best podcast
Longform — Great interviews about content and journalism (one of my favorites is with the host of the OnBeing podcast, Krista Tippett)
11. Best microblog
Swiss Miss
12. Best big blog
First Round Review
13. Best blog redesign
HubSpot
14. Best product enhancements
UnSplash
15. Best bold decision
Medium + Clapping
16. Best content strategy
Pillar Content: A More Organized Blog Strategy
17. Best marketing campaign / series
Forget the Funnel
18. Best longform marketing articles
Chris Von Wilpert’s Sumo Growth Studies
… and just for fun …
19. Best purchase
BOSE QuietComfort headphones (these are the ones I own)
20. Best video game
Stardew Valley
21. Best iOS game
Beglitched
