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Six Links Worthy of Your Attention #525

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, 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 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:

Atlas of Surveillance – Electronic Frontier Foundation. “Of all the things the EFF has done, this may be the largest in scope. A detailed, interactive website detailing surveillance tech deployed by UE police (for example, Florida has an astonishing number of facial recognition systems compared to elsewhere). If you wonder who’s watching the watchers, wonder no more.” (Alistair for Hugh).
Are Business Models Changing Our Relationships? – Jen van der Meer – Substack. “Jen Van Der Meer has spent much of her business life studying design and business models. This is a fascinating reflection on the topic: If as McLuhan said, the medium is the message, then in capitalist democracies the business model is the behavior. Worth a thought as we try to heal some of our ills and make a fractured society whole.” (Alistair for Mitch).
Building the Perfect Squirrel Proof Bird Feeder – Mark Rober – YouTube. “Former NASA engineer builds an obstacle course to find out how skilled/smart squirrels are. Turns out pretty darned smart.” (Hugh for Alistair).
YouTube’s Psychic Wounds – Columbia Journalism Review. “Nicholson Baker articles about technology are always great to find. This one on YouTube is a darker article for these darker times.” (Hugh for Mitch).
How Remote Work Could Destroy Silicon Valley – Steve LeVine – Marker – Medium. “It’s been fascinating to follow the discourse on how we’re all adapting to work from home, working without our peers, and what work might look like if we can ever dig ourselves out from under this pandemic. The quick truth is that we don’t know much about anything just yet. Locally, they want to open up offices at 25% capacity, but what does that mean? No access to common areas (so, no kitchen-area, etc…), hallways will be for one direction of walking only, and other ways to – essentially – ensure that humans have a little contact with one another as possible. I’ve been in situations like this over the past few months, and they are not social, they are weird, and they create a challenge for real interactions. I don’t think that this article is just about Silicon Valley. We are facing a stark world for business, if we’re forced to not interact with our peers and our customers in a very human and experiential way.” (Mitch for Alistair).
How objectivity in journalism became a matter of opinion – The Economist. “As blogging took hold – well over a decade ago – I was writing (furiously) about my general concerns that opinions can look exactly like facts and vice-versa. That the only path forward was a major step-up in how we educate the masses about the media. It didn’t happen at scale, but there has been more and more media literacy making its way into both formal curriculums and in the general public. It’s not enough. If you don’t believe me, here are two words for you: fake news. Pushing beyond that, any journalism that I see tends to have more opinion sprinkled into the facts that make me question the journalist’s and the publication’s real objectivity. So, how do we deal with a news cycle that is more opinion than fact?” (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.