So 2016 is here and my blogging has been about as reliable as Brendan Dassey’s legal defence team.

Between an incredibly busy time with the day job and binge watching Making a Murderer on Netflix, it’s taken some time to pull together the inaugural blog of the year.

The last few months have really convinced me that 2016 will be the year when comms people will genuinely be able to leverage online communities to access practical, real world advice that drives improvement and gives free access to the latest thinking.

As training budgets, comms teams and networking opportunities all shrink, the ability to access some really high quality information from your social space is rapidly increasing. These range from high profile collaborative projects by people like Stephen Waddington, to blogs by individuals or groups.

Here are 7 places where you can get stacks of information and practical advice on communications, PR and marketing – all for free.

1. #FuturePRoofed. Sarah Hall created this ebook and online community which has more than 30 chapters of practical, take home communications advice. (As a disclaimer I wrote one of the chapters but don’t let that put you off) The project sells itself as: “The biggest conversation ever around the future of public relations” and is certainly something you should read this year. Click here

2. Comms2point0. A resource that just gets better and better for public sector comms folk. Even if you don’t work in the sector you will get something from these regular blogs and discussions. It also has a huge back catalogue of practical comms advice from some award winning professionals as well as an amazing line in black and white pictures.www.comms2point0.co.uk

3. #prstack. Collated by @wadds PRstack was the first on the block and I suspect represents the future for providing free to use, shared advice across a digital community. PRstack is a crowd-sourced catalog of 250+ PR tools and 48 guides and has been rightly lauded as a fantastically useful tool for PR practitioners.

4. Influence. The latest offering from the CIPR, Influence brings together the best PR content and blogs. Still early days but plenty of practical hints and tips as well as longer form chin scratching about the more cerebral comms problems. Click here

5. Battenhall Monthly is my go to guide on social media news and trends. It comes out by email once a month and does exactly what it says on the tin: “It reviews of all of the key news in the world of social media, digital, mobile and communications technology to ensure you are bang up-to-date.” click here

6. The NE Comms conversation Some light-hearted life advice from the cream of North East PR with more than 25 individual blog posts click here

7. Need to modernise your teams workflow? Try this process based on some of the principles behind Japanse car manufacturing courtesy of Frederik Vincx click here

And why the Bill Murray picture? Well amidst the misery and parsimony of Dry January The Baltic in Gateshead launched an exhibition based solely on the great man. “It’s hard to be an artist. It’s hard to be anything. It’s hard to be.”