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…
- Douglas Adams – Hyperland – UJ ObscureMedia – YouTube. “A documentary from 1990 by the author of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Yes, that’s 36 years ago. Yes, that feels very old. But this is the purest form of nostalgia; seeing today from this perspective really drives home how much the world has changed in our lifetimes. Bonus: Tom Baker, the best Doctor Who ever, as a virtual butler. Oh, and Jeff Goldblum in a Watson and Crick sketch. Perhaps the best prediction of all is how the ‘user’ (Douglas Adams) cuts people off by tapping on the next recording before the current speaker is finished—prescient.” (Alistair for Hugh).
- Gods Don’t Give Gifts. “For many people, AI is synonymous with slop. And they’re mostly right, but we had slop long before machines could generate it. Similarly, there are rare glimpses of craft from generative AI creators, and Gossip Goblin is at the top of that heap. Uncanny Valley weirdness I’m not sure I want to see; but it’s definitely something.” (Alistair for Mitch).
- Reasoning Together – Emilie Prattico – Aeon. “Reason seems to have disappeared, on the right (in spades), but also on the left, as a founding myth of how we should build our societies. What happens to us next? Jürgen Habermas, the philosopher who spent sixty years arguing that democracy runs on people giving each other reasons, died in 2026. He was not just a writer about and advocate of reason; he spent a lifetime changing his mind on core ideas as he was convinced by new or newly presented information. When the facts changed, he changed his mind. What do you do, sir?” (Hugh for Alistair).
- Adventurer Karl Bushby Arrives Home In UK After 28-Year Walk – Global News – YouTube. “Amazing interview with Karl Bushby, who after a 28-year project, has walked (and swum) around the world, and arrived home in the UK. Rules were: no forward step powered by anything except his own locomotion (occasionally he had to stop, occasionally he had to go backwards on a vehicle). 28 years.” (Hugh for Mitch).
- Jon Stewart Unpacks AI’s Dubious Promise of a “Better Future” – The Daily Show – YouTube. “A pretty scathing segment on AI… and it’s not the stuff that Jon Stewart says (which is always satirically interesting)… it’s the audience. Just listen to their reactions as AI comes to The Daily Show…” (Mitch for Alistair).
- Book Publishers Are Quietly Using More AI. Staff Are Revolting – Adam Morgan – Wired. “I recently tested out one of the more popular AI detection apps on some of my writing. I had one article that said 15%+ was AI generated. It wasn’t… what makes it more interesting is that you can see which part of the text is the issue. In my case, it was a 1000 word article and it claimed that the last four sentences were AI generated… ridiculous. And, this is the same software that many book publishers are using to see if they’re even willing tosign an author in these strange times. I’m in multiple private groups for non-fiction/business writers and have heard multiple stories of authors losing publishing deals because of these tools. Then… this… total hypocrisy. The publisher is saying that they need the author to be 100% human, but they will use these tools for everything from editing, cover design to marketing and public relations. I’m starting to believe that this issues of ‘is it live or is it AI’ ia not going to matter… it will be about the audience… and if they care… or even care to know…” (Mitch for Hugh).
If one of these sticks with you, pass it on… and let us know what earned your attention this week…
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Mitch JoelMitch 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.