Introducing “Links I Loved”, a Legal Nomads Newsletter

In my Istanbul through a Pinhole post, I hinted at the fact that I would be starting a Legal Nomads newsletter. I’ve quietly put up the enrolment form on the sidebar, as well as on my Facebook Fan page. I’m thrilled to see so many of you signing up without an announcement. But I wanted to explain a little bit more about why I’m starting a newsletter, and how it will be different from Legal Nomads.

The Legal Nomads Newsletter

Thanks to my friend Wes from Johnny Vagabond for putting it together for me. It’s simple, clean and matches the scripting on the sidebar. Also, it has lobster font – and we already know I love the lobster font.

But back to the “why”…

Before I quit my job as a lawyer, I would aggregate “daily linkies,” a compendium of science, technology and other interesting online reads from my day. These were culled during long conference calls, and probably not what my employer had in mind whilst negotiating indemnities. Regardless, I still got my job done and managed to send out a few daily linkies before I left the office.

When I joined Twitter in late 2009, I started sharing those same links, but in real-time. The feed was (and continues to be) vaguely travel-related, with the majority of the postings a sprawling bucket of assorted nerditry to learn from. My business card has the word “curator” in my bio and while these days, curation is a very popular buzzword, I think it does hone in on what I’m trying to do. In a world of informational abundance, it’s great to sift through the noise and pull out the links that you want to learn from. And I love sharing them, too, as many people don’t want to do the sifting – but I do.

Maria Popova, one of the best curators out there, noted last year

“Ultimately, I see Twitter neither as a medium of broadcast, the way text is, nor as one of conversation, the way speech is, but rather as a medium of conversational direction and a discovery platform for the text and conversations that matter.”

When I say “sprawling bucket of assorted nerditry”, this is what I mean:

Oh xkcd, I do love you …. http://t.co/nanaZNMn

— Jodi Ettenberg (@legalnomads) March 7, 2012

Detailed data visualization of how the Kony2012 video went viral: — Jodi Ettenberg (@legalnomads) March 16, 2012

Beautiful bookstore in Maastricht, in a converted 13th century church. Love the photos: http://t.co/fC5KI6be

— Jodi Ettenberg (@legalnomads) March 18, 2012

Your weird tumblr of the day: “Cat Scientists of the 1960s” http://t.co/aYEjn3UI (via @borntotrek) — Jodi Ettenberg (@legalnomads) March 17, 2012

Ideally, I want to share those links to everyone, and not everyone is on Twitter.  And there are just too many “space is awesome” links to post on Twitter alone. But also, friends like Christine and Shannon and Michael all urged me to take these links and put them into a more digestible format.

Thus, Links I Loved, my Legal Nomads newsletter was born.

I’m going to start with a bi-weekly newsletter, perhaps moving it up to once a week if people enjoy it. I plan to divide it up into sections – photography that resonates, space is awesome, brainfood on the web, and others – with links that I hope will be interesting.

In addition, as my 4-year anniversary of departure approaches, I’ve maintained the same philosophy I started out with on Legal Nomads – namely that while I will occasionally hop on press trips and partner with companies I really respect and enjoy (e.g. my Wanderers in Residence gig with G Adventures), I have continued to decline advertising or sponsored links on this site.

What this means is that my income derives from revenue sources outside the blog, and I’d like to share those projects too – I’m proud of them! I’ve recently been hired as a contributing editor to Longreads.com, one of my favourite sites on the web, and I’ve been writing for the Hipmunk and other companies for quite some time. I’m looking forward to showcasing some of those outside sources, as well as recent press for the blog, in a section of Links I Loved.

Thank you, as always, for reading and I hope you enjoy this supplemental batch of Legal Nomad-ism. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, you can do so on the sidebar, on the Newsletter tab of the Legal Nomads fan page on Facebook or by clicking here.

-Jodi