Though he still prefers print editions for his daily newspaper fix, Kowalczyk tracks other news sources through his personal blog. "I have links to all the [other blogs] I go to for information," he says. "That's how I get my daily feed." Whenever he has a few minutes, he simply goes down the list of those links from his website and reads what he finds. Kowalczyk sticks with the same blogs he's been reading for years, including Romenesko (www.poynter.org/­column.asp?id=45), which serves up a hearty dose of media-industry news, and Washington Monthly's Political Animal (www.washington­monthly.com).

How does he make time for all this reading? He squeezes it into spare moments throughout the day - a morning break, lunch, after work, and so on. "I need to stay plugged in," he says.

The Info Scout
When your job has anything to do with technology, what's new is beyond important - it's your work's lifeblood. "The software industry is full of fads," says Nanette Brown, director of architecture and quality management for Pitney Bowes. You find information about a "new approach, and you have to read through to find what's valid."

Though Brown enjoys a good Google session for the "serendipitous things that can happen when you start out on a web search," she keeps random browsing to a minimum. To help clear out the clutter, she subscribes to e-mail digests, like those from IT consultants Cutter Consortium, which deliver a lot of news in easy-to-handle chunks. She takes business magazines home to read in the evening. And when it comes to finding the latest business books, she'll often start her search with the reader reviews on Amazon