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Six Links Worthy of Your Attention #444

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:

18 striking findings from 2018 – Pew Research Center. “I’ve quoted Pew more than a few times this year; they’re a nonpartisan research organization that tries to better understand technology and society. So in the first of two year-in-review posts, here’s a set of findings they found most interesting in the past year. Some seem obvious; some are surprising—and that’s probably just your confirmation bias speaking.” (Alistair for Hugh).
46 Memes That Defined 2018 – BuzzFeed. “From the other end of the recap spectrum… BuzzFeed has proven itself a real source of journalism this year, but it’s still strongest at Internet minutiae. Here, then, are the nearly 50 memes that dominated our attention and distracted us from the important problems we should be tackling. Zeitgeist in 46 images.” (Alistair for Mitch).
New Office Hours Aim for Well Rested, More Productive Workers – The New York Times. “I have a team of about 15 people who work on various projects with me, some in the office, some remote. I’m a fan of flexible work schedules, with a focus on results, not clocking hours. Research suggests that aligning work schedules with your team members’ ‘natural internal clocks’ can have big benefits.” (Hugh for Alistair).
A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networks – Nvidia – YouTube. “The faces in this video are all artificially generated images. These are not pictures of real people, but images of people as ‘imagined’ by AI.” (Hugh for Mitch).
Top Content of 2018 – Pocket. “If I had to choose one app – and one app only – to have on my smartphone, it would be Pocket. I just love this app for saving, tagging, reading and sharing content. I wrote about it (again) here: How To Stay Organized And Create Great Content the other week. It’s also a great barometer for content that is truly worth reading (and worth your time). I look forward to their annual roundup because – as you can imagine – it is not driven by anything but its users. This could be the best list of the best content to read. It could also be a true impression of our zeitgeist.” (Mitch for Alistair).
Is your writing missing the touch of the greatest writers ever? – Neil Kakkar – The Writing Cooperative – Medium. “It’s going to be hard to write a book if you’re too lazy to read a book on what it takes to write a great book. That’s a lot of words in a sentence. You should probably go back and re-read that first sentence. Still, I liked this piece. It’s a breakdown of two books: On Writing by Stephen King and On Writing Well by William Zinsser. Both books are brilliant. Both are must-reads if you’re writing a book (or even thinking about it). Still, if you’re too lazy… here’s the abridged and aggregated version of what’s deep down inside these glorious tomes…” (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.