The Blogenberg team’s list of recommended reading this week:

• More and more, businesses are looking to inject right-brained thinking into management practices, leading the Harvard Business Review podcast to ask whether the MFA is the new MBA.
• Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg discusses how the word “elite” is used and abused in American politics with NPR’s On The Media.
• The New Republic provides an update on Rupert Murdoch’s effort to remake our favorite paper The Wall Street Journal.
• As a group, and perhaps not suprisingly, senior executives are heavy consumers of all forms of media.
• In this interesting run down of recent B-School research, Business Week looks at studies dealing with gender differences in saving money, talking up your competition, and whether the mere sight of the Apple logo makes you more creative. Check it out.
• How social media is changing and moving the stodgy PR field.
• The ongoing battle royale: Social networks vs. TV networks.
• Over at the Freakonomics blog (add it to your reader, it’s great), Arthur C. Brooks is writing an interesting and provocative series on research indicating that conservatives are happier than liberals (the series is called “The Politics of Happiness”). The discussion is well worth reading and participating in - even if you think that’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard.

This week’s recommended reading from the Blogenberg team…

• If marketing guru Seth Godin edited the New York Times. Actually, he points out what newspapers are still good for.
• If you haven’t already, check out The Washington Post’s coverage of the death of Mildred Loving.
• More on Twitter: Zappos has found other, less dramatic, uses for the growing online tool.
• Still trying to figure out what this RSS thing’s all about or what a “news feed” is? Watch this video to find out.
• Dave Morgan says Yahoo would have been bad for Microsoft, and predicts what really will happen next.
• How on earth can you find time to blog? Here’s 10 tips for making it happen.
• Blogenberg loves Washington, DC (notwithstanding our war over why Virginia is better than Maryland). But this podcast  offers some interesting insights on how your choice of cities can determine a lot of things about your life.

A few items the Blogenberg team recommends for your reading pleasure this week…

• Student uses Twitter to contact friends and get out of jail in Egypt.
• Interview with entrepreneurial guru Guy Kawasaki on pitching your product for venture capital.
• In this edition of BNET’s Useful Commute podcast Dan Roam explains how to use simple pictures to explain concepts that typically require complex presentations (at great expense of time and energy). Also discussed at Fast Company.
• Poet Taylor Mali on speaking with authority. (hint: learn to articulately express what you’re “like” actually thinking).
• A recurring theme in this feature is dealing with the rush of content (e-mail, blogs, facebook, etc). Steve Rubel offers tips for dealing with Attention Crash.
• Eight reasons small businesses are good for America.
• The Pentagon Experts story offers an excellent view at how the media (in this case the television) media shy away from certain stories the public cares about - so they go online and to print sources to find the info.
• BNET discusses how to build, run, and duplicate effective teams in the workplace.

Recommending reading for this week…

• Business Week ranks The World’s Most Innovative Companies.
• Wikileaks is a great site for finding leaked information and documents.
• Slippery versus sticky - Strategic Public Relations discusses the difference between websites that offer an experience versus just a visit.
• What is a blogger? The most recent (and interesting) demographics of bloggers.
• A few days old, but still a very good read on building a small business and sweating the small things.
• Blogenberg lives in this county. Blogenberg is disgusted, yet not surprised, by this example of racism by wealthy “enlightened” white people.
• At CNET, Charles Cooper explains how PR is changing in “Revenge of the Flacks“.
• How can a good video get millions of views, yet still leave unanswered the most important question: did we sell more shoes? MediaPost explains how with the new Kobe Bryant viral video.

Recommended reading for this week…

• What is “news”? Mathew Ingram takes a look at the changing news cycle and process of news development.
• Tiger Woods on always improving: “The greatest thing about tomorrow is, I will be better than I am today.” Good advice for golf, life, and business.
• As always DoshDosh provides incomparable insight into how to navigate online communities for fun and profit.
• The move towards more environmentally-friendly living will accelerate the decline of print journalism. (Will the same reasoning apply to cars and SUVs?)
• Malcolm Gladwell, author of “Blink,” explains the effect of too much information.
• We all get stuck sometimes - whether it’s writer’s block or that difficult item on our To Do List. Here’s some advice on how to get unstuck.
• John Jantsch offers some useful tips for small businesses on finding high-quality images.
• It’s not all fun and games. An appearance on the Colbert Report can help a candidate gain more donations and media coverage.

Here are some stories we’ve found interesting this week…

• Death by blogging. This just in: Work is hazardous to your health. (don’t worry we here at Blogenberg are in tip-top shape)
• On The Media covers the end of the TV show, “The Wire,” and asks “what happened when ‘The Wire’ turned its attention back on the media“?
• China has realized it has a real problem on its hands with the Olympics so it’s looking for PR help. (gratuitous editorializing: it’ll take more than a fresh batch of talking points and ads.)
• NPR’s Marketplace covers Wal-Mart’s efforts to get its Chinese suppliers to go green.
• The sheer volume of information we’re exposed to causes us to jump to conclusions on little bits of data. Seth Godin asks: “Where do you want me to jump?“
• New York Magazine chronicles how Facebook tore apart one of the nation’s most elite private schools.
• How not to reach out to bloggers… You can’t force your way into a reporter’s blog or story by referencing random Twitter postings (”tweets”).
• Speaking of which… are you wondering what the heck this Twitter thing actually is? Here’s a simple explanation. And Jason Calacanis shows actor Matthew Modine how to build a Twitter following of several hundred people to support his new effort, Bicycle For A Day.

Stories we’ve found interesting this week…

• Bad news for newspapers keeps on coming (Editor and Publisher).
• Are you asking the right questions about your blog’s audience?
• The Good Experience blog offers some useful insight on how “usability research” can be useful for getting your site up and running, particularly if you’re in the e-commerce biz.
• Truth in green. Adweek reports on how the blogging community is responding to various corporations green claims.
• More of our lives move online: Apple passes Wal-Mart as #1 music retailer.
• Social networks not making money, but they need to… and fast.
• Who do you trust? Steve Rubel points to a study showing that people trust peers more than the “A-List.”
• John Jantsch offers some useful tips for searching with Google.

This is the first edition of Blogenberg News Links. Each week we’ll compile, in no particular order, a few stories that we’re following that you may not have noticed, that we’ve found interesting and that provide insight into communications, media, business and culture.

• True to form, Marc Gunther takes a provacative look at business and the potential costs of carbon emissions caps.
• Seth Godin sort of perfectly captures the definition of good writing.
• NPR covers the impact of blogging on sports reporting in “Blogging the Name of the Game in Sports Coverage.”
• Conde Nast Portfolio explains why CEOs should be aware of what their kids post online.
• Newsweek predicts the “Return of the Experts” will define the future of the Web.
• The Harvard Business Review podcast looks at how to make your business a learning organization.
• Brandstorming explains that a small business’ online marketing budget is better spent on blogging than Pay-Per-Click advertising.
• From Good Experience, a look at the ultimate example of corporate citizenship.