Earlier this month, I declared the first annual “Unsubscribe December.” Yes, finally I would make a concerted effort to reduce the number of low/no value subscription emails I receive. I hoped to benefit from a tidier inbox — but to my surprise, I also discovered that some of the newsletters that populate my unread email list are full of golden bits of information well worth both reading and also sharing with my social networks on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Living in the Motherlode of California (San Andreas in Calaveras County to be exact), Unsubscribe December reminds me of the process of panning for gold in a Sierra snow-fed creek. As I sifted through all the mud of the junk emails (and cleared them forever by unsubscribing), the heavier gold flecks remained in the pan —little nuggets of valuable information for the innovation and technology communities.

The biggest surprise was the YouNoodle Monthly Newsletter. I’ve never read it before and was only receiving it because I was “forced” to join YouNoodle to participate in a community focused around an NSF grant a few years ago. I thought YouNoodle was just a group organization tool but upon finally opening the monthly newsletter email in search of the “unsubscribe” link, instead I found myself truly interested in the content. And also curious about how SARTA might use what YouNoodle has to offer in the way of building Sacramento’s Startup Community. Check out how it works. Some of the features I really like in the Newsletter are the Start-Up Showcase (check out Stickety) and the Hot Resources (as a social media enthusiast, I particularly enjoyed “The NOOB Guide to Online Marketing”).

TechConnect’s Newsletter was the other nugget I found wasting away in my inbox. In particular I liked the Funding Opportunities section that lists open NSF, NST, DOD and DOE grants that may be of interest to the technology innovation community. TechConnect collects news and information for a number of industries including clean tech and bio tech.

I’m still sifting through the mud but now with more of a “what will I discover today?” attitude than a “search and destroy” one. What email newsletters do you find valuable for the technology and innovation community? Are there newsletters you read that are of particular interest to certain industries like clean tech, med tech, or ag tech? Or ones that software and app developers should be reading? Please share! Now that I’ve cleaned out the junk, I have a little more room to subscribe to something worth reading.