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Six Links Worthy of Your Attention #452

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:

BlueHat IL 2019 – Andrew “bunnie” Huang – Supply Chain Security: “If I were a Nation State…” – Microsoft Israel R&D Center – YouTube. “That personal devices aren’t secure is scarcely news. A torrent of unnamed vendors selling connected everything—from toothbrushes to vibrators to nannycams—means many of our houses and lives can be hacked. But what if you were a country, and wanted to really hack things? Bunnie is one of the smartest people on hardware supply chains. This is chilling.” (Alistair for Hugh).
The Literal Translation of Country Names – Reddit. “Pretty much what it says: A map of the world showing what each country’s name means, translated literally into English. Apparently Benin is the Land of Argument. I love me some quirky maps.” (Alistair for Mitch).
The Dig – Contradictions with Eric Levitz. “When president you-know-who was elected, Mitch, Alistair and I agreed that there would be no links about president-you-know-who, and more generally no links about US electoral politics. This podcast, with New York Magazine writer Eric Levitz touches on you-know-who, but is much more about the ways in which the GOP and the Democratic parties in the US are both getting pulled apart by deep, and perhaps irreconcilable divisions within their ranks.” (Hugh for Alistair).
Uber and the ongoing erasure of public life – The New Yorker. “Another article about the ways in which Uber in particular is reshaping cities in counterintuitive (and negative ways). Recent studies suggest that in large cities, Uber has a toxic effect on transport efficiency/gridlock, with twinned impacts: Uber presence means that public transport ridership is declining rapidly, and in parallel, the streets are getting clogged with Uber cars (often passenger-free cars, driving around waiting for rides). In short, Uber may be creating traffic nightmares.” (Hugh for Mitch).
The Pediatric AI That Outperformed Junior Doctors – SingularityHub. “In a nutshell: ‘New research out of Guangzhou, China, published February 11th in Nature Medicine Letters, has demonstrated a natural-language processing AI that is capable of out-performing rookie pediatricians in diagnosing common childhood ailments.’ The question is this: how long before it gets more sophisticated? With the speed of AI? It may have already happened in between this research being published and this post.” (Mitch for Alistair).
Do we write differently on a scree? – The New Yorker. “This is a very astute observation and a truism from my own writing experience. Writing in pen creates a much different result than writing on a keyboard. So, does this change everything – from how literature works to how it is consumed? It sure can…” (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.