Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #141

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, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), 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:

• The Sopranos of Montreal – International Herald Tribune. "The three of us know this story. Montreal’s government is under scrutiny for corruption–everything from sabotaging snow-cleaning efforts to fixing bids on concrete. While much of it sounds like scenes from The Sopranos, it’s happening right here. But many of the people who don’t live in Montreal and read this won’t know the details. And when the New York Times covers it, well, I get a weird sense of civic pride." (Alistair for Hugh).
• Dr. Seldon, I presume – The Economist. "Want to know where H1N1 will spread? Or where someone will be tomorrow? Or how many people it takes to sway public opinion? Or even to generate a working model of a society? Look no further than the rising tide of social data, from which researchers can harvest signals that let them predict the world around us. This piece from the Economist considers the likelihood of a predictable society–and based on what I’m seeing at the Strata conference this week, it’s pretty accurate." (Alistair for Mitch).
• The Shape of History – The Chronicle of Higher Education. "Big Data. Big History. Love it." (Hugh for Alistair).
• 487: Harper High School, Part One – This American Life. "The Sandy Hook massacre was horrific, 20 dead kids, and 6 more adults killed, from a lone gunman. It has focused America’s attention like no other event on guns and gun control. As horrible as Sandy Hook was, it was the most extreme example of a pervasive problem, one that in some communities is not just a single moment of terror, but a constant flood of it. This episode of This American Life examines life in a school in Chicago where last year 29 current and recent students were shot. Not at once, but over the course of the year. In one segment, a member of the school’s football team says that *every one* of his team members has been shot at in the past few years. The most fascinating thing to me about this story, and something that was mentioned just in passing, is this: Chicago’s police have cracked down on gang activity in the past few years, and put most gang leaders in jail. The result? More violence. Whatever else organized gangs do, they also provide a sort of (out)law enforcement in the communities they operate in. When you destroy the bigger organized gangs… what you get is lots of small, unorganized gangs, and much much more violence. I have no idea what the solutions are. Do you?" (Hugh for Mitch).
• Code.org. "How many languages should our kids learn? When I ask that question, many people think I’m talking about French, Chinese, Spanish, Russian and more. I’m not. When I think about true bilingualism or multi-lingual children, I think about learning the language of code. You have to stop everything and watch this star-studded short video about why it’s so important for every child in North America… no, in the world… to learn how to code. Interestingly, the most powerful point comes from The Black Eyed Peas’ Will.i.am who says: not teaching your kid to code – in this day and age – is the equivalent of not teaching them to read and write. Powerful and true stuff." (Mitch for Alistair).
• Content marketing is our next big revenue threat — unless we embrace it now – INMA. "Jay Rosen tweeted out the link to this article. After reading it, I realized that brands and advertisers are quickly becoming the next big threat to the newsroom. It’s not an epiphany. It’s not something that I haven’t written about before, but it’s an interesting thought to read about and think about. Journalism isn’t being threatened by blogs and the Internet. Journalism is now being threatened by brands and advertisers who are hiring journalists and building newsrooms to tell a story. Brands used to have to pay for access to an audience. Now, through the profound power of the Internet and social media, we’re seeing what real and true direct relationships look like… and this is still very early days." (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.