Categories: Articles

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #173

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, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto) and I decided that every week 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 Long Tail of Hardware – Slash Blog. "This is a great post by Amanda Peyton about the future of hardware. She wrote a widely viewed piece about how Best Buy is going out of business (I’ve heard it referred to as ‘the Amazon showroom’) but she has since concluded ‘it’s not just Best Buy that’s going to fade away, it’s our entire notion of ‘Consumer Electronics’. It will be gradual, but there are already signals that indicate a shift is happening.’ I think she’s right, and that this will shape what the next decade of electronic innovation looks like." (Alistair for Hugh).
Why – and how – I wrote Bad Pharma – Bad Science. "Ben Goldacre spoke at Strata in Santa Clara a couple of years ago. He’s a doctor, a skeptic, and above all, very curious. He’s the author of Bad Science, which sold 400,000 copies in Engalnd alone. And he’s just come out with a new book on the pharmaceutical industry. In this post, he explains why. As I see stories about healthcare in the US (including this heartbreaking/heartwarming one on Obamacare), I wish more people would write books like this." (Alistair for Mitch).
Tesla’s $110,000 Model S is now Norway’s best-selling car – The Globe & Mail. "Is Norway really Valhalla or what? Not only is the Tesla (Elon Musk‘s amazing electric car) the country’s best-selling car, but… that means that everyone is rich enough there to make a $100,000 car a best-seller! Some parents at my kid’s daycare have a Tesla. I’m not much of a car guy, but when that thing glides silently out of the parking lot, I confess to some coveting. Fire or no fire." (Hugh for Alistair).
Watch This Girl With Telekinetic Powers Freak Out Coffee Shop Patrons – Gizmodo. "OK, it’s a ‘viral marketing’ video. But it’s good. Great even. What makes it great, I think, is that we are in on the prank from the beginning. The reactions of the unsuspecting patrons – what looks to be genuine horror – are all pretty amazing. As is the whole set-up. Happy Halloween, a bit early." (Hugh for Mitch).
The mental block – Aeon Magazine. "Stressed out? Worried about that upcoming job review? Excited about the holiday season? Whatever you’re feeling, blame consciousness. This is an amazing (and long) piece that asks a massive question. It’s a question that most of us don’t think about, because – like most depressing philosophies – it will lead you to realization that it is consciousness that is to blame for everything we feel, because it is this one thing that makes us aware of our own mortality. Without getting too morbid, consciousness is what drives everything we do – the negative and the positive… and we have no idea why." (Mitch for Alistair).
Great Spinal Tap Quotes You Can Use in Almost Any Professional Situation – LinkedIn Today. "OK, that last one might have been a little too depressing/freaky, so let’s turn it up to 11. The mockumentary, Spinal Tap, is probably (still) one of the best big-movie inside jokes of all time. You’re either in on the jokes or you’re not. I’m not sure if you could actually apply any of these quotes to a professional situation, but I’ve been ‘in’ on the Spinal Tap joke from day one. This one made me crack up, and was a fun romp down memory lane from my days when a lot of this stuff wasn’t just movie comedy and satire, but a sad reality of the people I interacted with day in and day out." (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.