Is there one link, story or idea that stopped you this week… and made you think, “someone else needs to see this”?

My friends: Alistair Croll (Just Evil Enough, Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, Interesting Bits, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, FWD50, and Scaletechconf; author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (Rebus Foundation, PressBooks, LibriVox) and I made a simple pact years ago. Once a week, each of us would share one link with the others… something we genuinely believed the other two had to see. No trend-hunting… no performance. Just six ideas exchanged with intent. What started as a small ritual between curious friends became Six Links That Make You Think.

These are the six links we passed to one another this week… take your time with them…

• The Gervais Principle, Or The Office According To “The Office” – Ribbon Farm. “From 2009, but new to me: a snarky take on management theory that rings more and more true the longer I work with large organizations. There’s a whole separate post on how these folks communicate. I met the author, Venkat, at an event recently and recognized a fellow overthinker. Must be hard to just watch comedy with him.” (Alistair for Hugh).
• How To Find Magical Travel Experiences Using An AI Travel Buddy – Harper Reed’s Blog. “This is far from Harper Reed‘s first appearance in these links. One of his past posts, at the start of the current AI boom, talked about how he’d wired up the office sensors to a speaker so that a synthetic George Carlin could roast guests with short, caustic bon mots. Harper is an explorer and court jester who lives at the intersection of art and tech. This is a genuinely useful set of instructions for finding hidden gems as you travel.” (Alistair for Mitch).
• How To Lie About Radiation – Alex Chalmers & Ben Southwood – Works In Progress. “On nuclear paranoia and how atomic energy gets a bad rap.” (Hugh for Alistair). 
• Why Does Everything Feel So Joyless? Welcome To The Age Of Decadence Without Pleasure – Michèle Mendelssohn and Charlie Tyson – The Guardian. “We are in such a strange time, that even decadence seems to have a competitive/work-like quality to it. Almost as if… if you aren’t getting some advantage (better focus at work) from your peyote, or psylocibin microdosing then your are doing something wrong. It’s crazy I know, but I get a certain joy when I see young arty people smoking, doing something that’s got no redeeming qualities, for reasons purely of aesthetics and pleasure. I want there to be mess in the world, and space for mess in our lives.” (Hugh for Mitch).
• Consider The AI Tear Down – Seth Godin. “I was talking with a healthcare practitioner about the state of AI. Their main (amongst many) objections is how chtabots feign intimacy… so much so that many of her patients believe they are in actual relationships with their chatbots. What seems implausible to many is also many people’s reality. I recommended this article… as an exercise for their patients… and as I thought about it, it’s important for all of us to do this excercise. Let the chatbot rip you down and then let the chatbot rip down it’s own takedown. Does this help you handle negative feedback without taking it personally? A good reminder that real critical feedback is rare (and hard).Now, how do you feel about your thinking or your work… of yourself?” (Mitch for Alistair).
• Why Is Everyone In Tech So Sad? – Aaron Horwath – Noema. “Is this one of those unspoken truths? Did the author of the article say the quiet part out loud? Is this how the people in tech really feel? I’ve heard this… and… I’ve heard that there’s never been a more exciting time to work in tech? This article claims that many tech workers feel sad because their jobs seem meaningless and make them question their purpose. Which fascinates me. Sure, AI is changing work… but is it really making it feel less human and less valuable? And, the bigger thought in here is that this shift risks breaking the connection people have with their work (which is tied to their purporse and status) and pushing them to seek real meaning outside their careers. I’m not sure if I believe this is the case for a majority… and I’m not sure if the result is this new-found discovery time for the self… you?” (Mitch for Hugh).

If one of these sticks with you, pass it on… and let us know what earned your attention this week…

Before you go… ThinkersOne  is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.