Finding Trust In The Fire Hose

During the Summit, there was a lot of great talk around the subject of trust agents and slow technology or quality versus quantity. We all agreed that the fire hose of information that's pointed our way grows exponentially with each day -- making it tougher and tougher to know how to spend our time and which tools and services are worthwhile in our efforts as public innovators.

Along these lines, we chatted about the principles of the Slow Food revolution and wondered if there was a more sustainable means of finding, producing and consuming quality products and content via technology, meaning slow technology. As you may know, the Slow Food movement questions the validity of the fast-food philosophy as an unconscious credo that erodes culinary heritage. Maybe there is a small but growing trend online to find a like-minded collective who shares this philosophy within the technology space?

I'm not sure exactly how this plays out for others -- for me, it's core to my personal beliefs and workstyle and has helped me spend less time sifting through the noise to find the signal. I do much shorter term planning and focus my energies on doing the next right thing. With so much crossing my plate everyday, I've made it a daily process to continually edit down to the essentials and filter to my trust agents, many of whom are key thinkers in the technology space or leaders in the minimalist movement.

My current work bible: http://37signals.com/rework/

A few related blogs and people I follow with interest:

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/
http://bigthink.com/jasonfried
http://www.ted.com/
http://zenhabits.net/
http://www.bethkanter.org/
http://www.shirky.com/weblog/
http://www.perhakansson.com/

Who/what are some of your trust agents?