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:
- How To Destroy Surveillance Capitalism – Cory Doctorow – OneZero – Medium. “I’ll see your Lanier (posted below) and raise you a Doctorow. This post is actually a short book, and as usual, it’s creative, thoughtful, and hard to disagree with.” (Alistair for Hugh).
- Tetrapharmakos – Wikipedia. “These four ‘remedies’ are the core of Epicureanism. Since the Greeks spent so much time trying to figure out how to lead the happiest possible life, this feels like good advice for 2020: Don’t fear god; don’t worry about death; what is good is easy to get; what is terrible is easy to endure.” (Alistair for Mitch).
- The Conscience of Silicon Valley – GQ. “More from Jaron Lanier on how bad the web has become, how much worse it will get; but also what it has done well to help us get through this pandemic, and how we might make it better.” (Hugh for Alistair).
- Surprising nobody, bats are the best goth dancers of all time – AV Club. “I wasn’t sure who to send this link to: my guess is that Alistair is more likely to have gone through a goth music phase than Mitch, but on the other hand Mitch was a music journalist early in his career. So, I’ve chosen Mitch as the recipient of ‘bats dancing at a goth club.'” (Hugh for Mitch).
- The Event Industry Is Being Confronted By Its Napster Moment – Skift. “I’m a huge fan of Rafat Ali’s writing/work and I look forward to reading Skift. The headline made me raise an eyebrow, but I went along for the ride. Unfortunately, I don’t think that Rafat is making the correct analogy in this piece. He is talking about how the distribution of music changed. Consumer habits as well. But one thing we know for certain, is that the live music space flourished in the music business and continued to flourish until COVID-19 hit. Live music will come back. Much like live sports. And, any other live event (including conferences). Live events are not the same as listening to music (which is really just a content format). Live events are not the same as reading a blog post or seeing someone on Zoom. I also take exception to his comment that running a virtual event has little cost. If you are doing it at a professional level, there are massive costs involved in getting it right. This includes everything from the hardware and software of the technology, to the bandwidth and ability to ensure that you are not having drop-offs. This doesn’t even include things like lighting, cameras, sound, etc. And, let’s not forget about the people – technicians, producers, etc… It’s surprising to me, considering his background, that this article doesn’t show the massive growth that live concerts and festivals experienced from CD through Napster through Spotify. Will more events happen online? Yes. Is this going to destroy the entire live event business? I don’t believe that it will.” (Mitch for Alistair).
- The Origins of Sprawl – The Paris Review. “I have been spending a lot of time reading and thinking about our cities. What happens if people only work 25% of the time at that downtown building? How will it impact the local businesses? Tourism? The pulse of a thriving city? Concerts? Culture?… and beyond. Will the effects of this pandemic push people further and further out of cities? Will this still be considered ‘urban sprawl’ if we’re not extending the core of our major cities, but simply abandoning them? I have more questions than answers.” (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 JoelMitch 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.