Categories: Articles

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #114

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 (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, PressBooks, Media Hacks) and I decided that every week or so 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 Only Recipe for Ice Cubes You’ll Ever Need – Slate. "The Web is full of recipes. And it’s even more full of people who comment on those recipes, often changing them entirely and then complaining they didn’t turn out; or arguing over tiny details, or rating them without ever trying them. So what about a recipe for ice cubes? Turns out, it’s pretty funny stuff." (Alistair for Hugh).
Crazy Smart: When A Rocker Designs A Mars Lander – NPR. "Curiosity is merrily cavorting around the Red Planet at this time, and the accomplishments of the London Olympics pale beside the insanity of the program that put it there. This NPR interview with Adam Steltzner looks at one of the people behind the project, one with pierced ears, snakeskin books, and an Elvis ‘do. NASA needs more people like this. In fact, we all do." (Alistair for Mitch).
Andrew Scull on All We Have to Fear: Psychiatry’s Transformation of Natural Anxieties into Mental Disorders – Los Angeles Review Of Books. "What happens when everything is a psychiatric disorder?" (Hugh for Alistair).
Space – Radio Lab. "Do you like stars? Romance? Have a listen to the story of how astronomer Carl Sagan proposed to his wife, Ann Druyan, from an old episode of Radio Lab." (Hugh for Mitch).
Robot learns to recognise itself in mirror – BBC. "This is where technology gets interesting. Personally, the minute something feels creepy is usually the same moment that it starts to become more and more commonplace (and acceptable) by the human race when it comes to technology. I remember people wondering why my family needed a computer in our home when they first came out, and I remember how the vast majority of people would laugh at people speaking on a cellular in public when those first came out. Now this. A robot that can recognize itself in the mirror. Somewhere on this brave new planet, Ray Kurzweil is smiling." (Mitch for Alistair).
What Successful People Do With The First Hour Of Their Work Day – Fast Company. "I think I just uncovered my lack of success. Yes, it’s a little sarcasm. In short, the idea is to do the one, big thing first – the stuff that you really have to get done. Not email. Not responding to Facebook requests. This concept was first introduced by Brian Tracy (who wrote the famous book about this, exact, topic: Eat That Frog). I’m the opposite. I need to get the little things out of the way, right away (emails, quick news review, responding to some tweets, etc…). For my dollar, that frees me up to spend the rest of my day eating the frog. Regardless, this awesome article is filled with links worthy of clicking on, so don’t miss out on where this piece will take you… just make sure you read it after you’ve done the real work first ;)." (Mitch for Hugh).

Now it’s your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.

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.