Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?
Yesterday, I had lunch with Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Rednod, GigaOM, Human 2.0, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks) and Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, Bite-Sized Edits, Media Hacks) and – as with all lunches like this – the conversation quickly evolved into something of a human linkbait game of ping pong where all of us wound up starting off every sentence with, "oh, you have to check this out…" Then it occurred to me, "why not share this great content with everyone and have you contribute to it?"
So, check this out…
Every week (or so), The three of us are going to share one link for each other (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".
Check this out…
- Alistair says Hugh should check out: The Gartner Fellows Interview with James Burke. "This is a great interview with James Burke, which I think Hugh should read. Burke is brilliant, and if you get a chance to watch The Day The Universe Changed and Connections (all available on the jamesburkeweb channel on YouTube) it’s time well spent."
- Alistair says Mitch should check out: Mixing Memory – Fart Spray (And Disgust) Makes Moral Judgments More Severe. "Mitch, you mentioned (rightly so) that while a pay-for-change-of-opinion model might work for big-ticket, highly branded, associated-with-self-worth products, there are many things that fall below this, where we have loyalty but aren’t talking about it much because it doesn’t affect our social status (thanks, Alain de Botton.) In that realm, I would submit that there are many hard-to-compute factors involved. Here’s a good write-up on disgust – simulated through a fart smell (no, really) and a messy office – polarizes moral judgments."
- Hugh says Alistair should check out: City Of Sound – Emergent Urbanism, or ‘bottom-up planning’. "Alistair works with start-ups and innovators, and was partially responsible for setting up the informal co-working space that my company has been in for a little over a year. This article explores a more formalized (yet still grassroots) project that answers the question: how can you revitalize an empty downtown while encouraging start-ups? Answer: get cheap rent in empty buildings, wire up the buildings with a free wi-fi network, and offer start-ups rolling monthly leases."
- Hugh says Mitch should check out: The Atlantic – Learns To Out-Innovate Itself. "I recently attended, with Mitch, a panel on the future of the magazine, at the Summer Literary Series. Panelists included: the fiction editor at The New Yorker, the associate publisher of The New York Review of Books, and an editor from The Walrus. The panel was a dud, with very little talk of the present, let alone the future. In counterpoint, here’s a short piece on how The Atlantic has reinvented itself, by taking this radical approach: ‘If our mission was to kill the magazine, what would we do?’"
- Mitch says Alistair should check out: SlideShare – Design For Networks. "You were talking a lot about what we should be measuring online – especially for Marketers. And, while I think that is critical, we also need to better understand why humans do things and design the technology around their needs. One of my team members (Sean Howard) sent me this great SlideShare presentation, and I think this will help you moving forward."
- Mitch says Hugh should check out: Niemen Journalism Lab – Clay Shirky’s “Cognitive Surplus”: Is creating and sharing always a more moral choice than consuming? "I’m cheating here a little, both Hugh and Alistair should check this out. It’s a great review of Clay Shirky‘s latest book, Cognitive Surplus (Shirky is also the author of Here Comes Everybody). I’m almost finished reading Cognitive Surplus and this book is dog-ear marked and written in as if it were one of my notebooks from high school. It’s filled with great thoughts about the Web (with great examples) about how we share, connect and collaborate – which is all topics that drive how you develop new businesses and your perspective on the publishing industry. This review is awesome and the book is better."
Now, it’s your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.
Mitch Joel Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.