Categories: Articles

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #132

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 (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik) 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:

Ten Lessons from Peter Thiel’s Class On Startups – Forbes. "If you want to learn how to build tech companies, Peter Thiel is a good place to start. He taught a class at Stanford — even though he’s famous for telling people to drop out — and it was the hot ticket on campus. Here’s a student–and prolific note-taker–Blake Masters‘ summary of the course." (Alistair for Hugh).
Napster, Udacity, and the Academy – Clay Shirky. "Since we’re all about the future of business this week, it being the cusp of the New Year and the Mayans being all wrong and stuff, let’s kick it off with Clay Shirky. In this post, he looks at how MP3s were about more than free music–and by analogy, how Massive Free Online Courses (MOOCs) are about more than free, but rather represent a complete upheaval of how we learn, just as MP3s were the tip of a music industry iceberg. ‘The risk,’ he concludes, iis that we’ll be the last to know that the world has changed.’" (Alistair for Mitch).
Ottawa’s $800-billion housing problem – The Globe And Mail. "I’m endlessly fascinated by the global financial crisis of 2007/8/9/10, and how it came to be… Canada seems to have escaped. Or, maybe just delayed the crash." (Hugh for Alistair).
‘I Pretty Much Wanted to Die’ – Grantland. "We live in a time of great television. I’m not quite sure what to think of Lost – but it sure was addictive, and … well … completely nuts. Here’s part of the story of the unlikely show came to be." (Hugh for Mitch).
Joi Ito’s Trends to Watch in 2013 – Think With Google. "I hate end of year lists. The only think I hate more than end of year lists is ‘things to watch in 2013’ type of lists. So, here I find myself at a crossroads. I love the way Joi Ito thinks and I love (even more) that he took over at the MIT Media Lab. I often find myself telling audiences that I am not a ‘Futurist’, because I consider myself a ‘Presentist.’ In this piece, Ito calls himself a ‘Nowist,’ so I figured it was only fair to share what he’s thinking about as a courtesy to someone who shares a business title with me." (Mitch for Alistair).
Do We Still Need Libraries? – The New York Times. "This is a debate and conversation piece that keeps creeping up in the media from time to time… and, here it comes again. On one hand, I love the look, feel, concept and reason that we have libraries. On the other hand, I often find myself looking around at the vast amount of books, magazines, content and more, and wonder why we have such large institutions for something that can now fit on a memory stick." (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.