Categories: Articles

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #125

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:

Neanderthal Babies All Around: Synthetic Biology Is Closer Than You Think – Bloomberg BusinessWeek. "Sure, 3D printing is going mainstream, and everyone’s a technologist, so we can probably figure out what that will look like. But most of us aren’t geneticists, so the amazing amount of change in that field flies under the radar. According to one person who should know, synthetic biology is much closer than we think — for better or for worse." (Alistair for Hugh).
B.S. Detection for Journalists – Zombie Journalism. "There’s a lot of misinformation on the Web these days. From spurious polls, to photos of Godzilla rising from the waters of Sandy, it’s hard to know what to trust. This should be on the wall of every editor everywhere: some quick tips for how to sniff out spurious stories." (Alistair for Mitch).
Proud my 8yo girl failed this worksheet. Wish she had failed it even ‘worse’ – @gameism. "An 8 year old girl ‘failed’ this school exercise: given a list of activities (‘legos,’ ‘cooking,’ ‘board games,’ ‘computers’… etc), students were supposed to decide which activities were for ‘girls,’ ‘boys,’ or ‘both.’ The little girl who did this test failed miserably… because she decided that just about all the activities should be listed under ‘both.’ The teacher’s comment makes you want to rescue all the girls in this class (and boys for that matter), and have them all shout out, at the top of their lungs, ‘I can do anything!’" (Hugh for Alistair).
Read This Touching Email Louis C.K. Sent to His Fans – Mashable. "I’ve been watching comedian Louis CK‘s really amazing show, Louie, which is produced with a level of raw, personal integrity beyond anything I’ve seen before. Much ‘voyeurvision’ in the form of ‘Reality TV,’ is exploitative, and finally as unreal as reality could possibly be. Louie is something different, and manages to transcend the egoism of ‘look at me’ by somehow getting beyond ‘look at me’ to a very profound ‘let’s look at us, together.’ Louie is also a performer pushing the boundaries of independence and direct connection with his fans, producing and marketing his tours through his own website. In any case, here’s Louie in an email to his fan mailing list, talking about the wonderful strangeness of hosting Saturday Night Live right after the devastation of Hurricane Sandy." (Hugh for Mitch).
Clay Shirky on the Internet as a Distractor and Disruptor – The Atlantic. "The Web went through a massive transition when social media became pervasive. Well, let’s look at the bigger picture: it wasn’t really social media, it was the fact that publishing anything became free, cheap and easy. Couple that with the fact that anyone could also share and curate content and it has become…well, what it has become. Two of my most favorite thinkers on Internet culture, media and technology are Clay Shirky and Don Tapscott. In this piece for The Atlantic, the two discuss not only what the Internet has become… but what it means for media and more. As usual, this is a fascinating read from two deep thinkers." (Mitch for Alistair).
How Authors Write – MIT Technology Review. "What do you think has made authors better and more explorative writers? Many think that technology is the answer. That technology gave writers more access to the tools of creation. This is one of those amazing pieces that makes you wonder if this type of story could have ever made it to publication in a mainstream magazine. It turns out that composition has a lot more to do with the evolution of the author than technology. Another great read about the power of words and their evolution." (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.

B.S. Detection for Journalists from Mandy Jenkins

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.