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Six Links Worthy of Your Attention #443

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, FWD50, and Scaletechconf; author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (Rebus Foundation, PressBooks, LibriVox) 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:

The World of LEGOs – Tableau Public. “I’m a sucker for a good visualization. And I was weaned on LEGO—seriously, I’m unusually flexible – even in my advancing years – largely because of a childhood spent sitting akimbo, stretching for that three-by-one piece that was just out of reach. And as a purist, I hate those custom-made pieces; I’d rather build it out of primitives. Anyway, this interactive visualization lets you look at piece variety by color across decades. Is it useful? Nah. It confirms my smug superiority at the few pieces I had to work with. But it sure is pretty.” (Alistair for Hugh).
‘Artifact’ Isn’t a Game on Steam, It’s Steam in a Game – Waypoint. “With the subtitle ‘Imagine if we monetized the rot,’ you know this is interesting. You may not know a lot about gaming, but it is huge. HUGE. Bigger than movies. And as I mentioned in last week’s link, games are becoming Third Spaces for a generation. Well, for decades Magic – The Gathering has been a titan of battle-deck gameplay, dealing with counterfeits and cheating. But what happens when that goes digital? Game business models are canaries in the business model coalmine, and we can learn a lot from them. If you’re not a gamer, this may be a bit of a slog, but it’s also a crystal ball on business models in an age of digital abundance and crowd monetization. And I’ll lay off the game links for a bit after this.” (Alistair for Mitch).
How Google Tracks Your Personal Information – Patrick Berlinquette – Medium. “What is this world we have built?” (Hugh for Alistair).
Make Orwell Fiction Again Part 2: Micro Moments – Patrick Berlinquette – Medium. “What is this world we have built?” (Hugh for Mitch).
I Spent a Week Living Like Gary Vaynerchuk – Vice. “You may think it’s all posturing, pop psychology motivation and selfies. It is not. This article shows/demonstrates something I’ve known about Gary Vaynerchuk for a very long time: he’s willing to work harder and longer than most. Is that the reason he’s successful? It plays a bigger part in it than most people think. ‘Work smarter not longer’ is what most people think. That works too. But he may be working harder, smarter and longer, and that’s the equation that works for him. This article is interesting, on many levels.” (Mitch for Alistair).
Stanford professor: ‘The workplace is killing people and nobody cares’ – Fast Company. “We’re not exactly digging mines without the proper equipment in our offices today, but this is both an illuminating and terrifying read. On the one hand, the premise of this article makes a lot of sense. On the other hand, I could not stop feeling like everything (literally everything) is killing us. If this article is true, the bigger question remains: who is going to do anything about it?” (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.