Categories: Articles

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #135

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:

Hell is my own book tour – Salon. "Adam Mansbach, he of the Go The Fuck To Sleep, is on tour, promoting his new book, Rage Is Back. The bottom line: book tours are awkward, ill-advised forays into manufactured celebrity. This cut close to the bone for Ben Yoskovitz and I, because we just sent our book, Lean Analytics, to production, and we’re gearing up for a few months of speaking gigs around the world. Hopefully more than four people show up." (Alistair for Hugh).
Shut Up and Be Funny! – Distilled. "In my experience, people who really know their stuff are funny. They’re not worried about ‘losing their thread’ and going off topic, because they’re confident they can return to it. The same is true of brands: when you know where home base is, you can cavort a bit. ‘Think Old Spice are glad they chose to take a risk and be funny? Does anyone remember what Dos Equis were doing before ‘The Most Interesting Man‘? This post from distilled says plenty: just shut up and be funny. Of course, everyone wants the lift of virality, but it’s hard to achieve. Here’s where the resistance towards humour comes from, and how to overcome it." (Alistair for Mitch).
Aaron Swartz’s Politics – Naked Capitalism. "Reams have been written about the death of programmer and public domain activist Aaron Swartz, who faced federal prosecution for downloading a few million academic journal articles. This is the article that had the biggest impact on me. In it, you can see the kind of impact Aaron had already had on the world, and you can imagine how much more he could have done. We lost a great one." (Hugh for Alistair).
Corporate Profits Soar as Executives Attack Obama Policy – Bloomberg BusinessWeek. "If you read or watch certain media outlets in the US, you might think that President Obama is the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky. If you look at the numbers, you might think otherwise: since Obama entered the White House, US corporate profits have grown by 171%, and are now higher compared to the size of the economy than at any time since record-keeping began in 1947. I can’t say I believe in the Illuminati, but man, when I look at this kind of data, I can’t help but think the fix is in." (Hugh for Mitch).
Scientists Work To Unravel Mystery Behind Woman Who Doesn’t Grow – Singularity Hub. "In a world that is enraptured with things like Lance Armstrong doping or the first set of ratings from the new season of American Idol are missing something much bigger. Namely: real news items that should capture your attention and give you pause. This is one those stories. We all think that we’re all so unique and individual, when in reality, we’re all quite similar. Then, something, somewhere goes wonky during conception or pregnancy – something minor – and this sort of thing happens (that has a major impact). As science continues to advance, we’re mostly solving the medical and science challenges that affect a lot of people. In reality, there are many stories like this of rare diseases and conditions. How we solve them and the resources that we put against figuring them out is going to define who we are as a humanity." (Mitch for Alistair).
Is the book a crucial cultural artifact, or just an outdated container for content? – Paid Content. "Hugh, I know how much you love the ‘what is a book?’ debate, so I could not resist. Our friend, Mathew Ingram, spent some time dueling this notion over with none other than Nick Carr and Clay Shirky. To say that it’s an enjoyable read about books and publishing would be an understatement. The net result? Well, you’re going to read the article to find out, but make no mistake about it: we’re all grappling with a world where words are simply text, and video is simply video. It’s getting harder and harder to define things like books, magazines, movies, TV show and more." (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.