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Six Links Worthy of Your Attention #430

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, Pandemonio, and ResolveTO, Author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person “must see”.

Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another:

Goodhart’s Law and Why Measurement is Hard – Ribbon Farm. “I’m doing a flurry of talks this week — on analytics, data science, go-to-market strategy, and government innovation. And a few key points keep coming up. One is Goodhart’s Law, which says ‘When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.’ In other words, once you tell people you’re measuring a thing, they game the system and stop doing what you wanted. In Lean Analytics I’m a strong proponent of choosing one overarching metric to focus on. This article is a great example of why I’m often wrong.” (Alistair for Hugh).
The Oxygen of Amplification – Data & Society. “The problem with the media, is it reports on news that gets attention. So if you can create attention, you can co-opt the news cycle. And that’s what happened over the last few years. Well, the team at Data & Society just released a detailed piece of research on how to deal with extremism, offering some great answers to the question, ‘what do we do about trolls when trolls are the news?'” (Alistair for Mitch).
Safebook: Facebook without the content – BoingBoing. “What it says on the tin, and just in time to save our brains/democracy/civilization.” (Hugh for Alistair).
Studying Greenland’s Ice to Understand Climate Change – The Atlantic. “Some amazing photos of NASA‘s Oceans Melting Greenland project, studying glacial melt and the changing climate.” (Hugh for Mitch).
We hold people with power to account. Why not algorithms? – The Guardian. “People like to hold other people accountable. It’s a simplification, but it is – fundamentally – how our society runs. So, what happens when the algorithms take over? When they get it right, who will be accountable? What about when they get it wrong? Bigger challenge. We are giving algorithms pretty serious responsibilities. Why are we not talking about making them accountable for their results (especially when things go sideways)?” (Mitch for Alistair).
Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke – Full Interview – 2018 Code Commerce. “I’ve been fortunate to watch Shopify grow from day one. This past week, Recode held their Code Commerce event in New York City. Shopify CEO (and Founder) Tobi Lutke, sat down for a comprehensive interview. It’s fascinating. Look past the Shopify story and listen/watch Tobi talk about business, being an entrepreneur and the nascent days of new commerce opportunity that lay before us. It feels magical (because it is).” (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.

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.