Categories: Articles

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #174

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:

Inside 23AndMe Founder Anne Wojcicki’s $99 DNA Revolution – Fast Company. "A few years ago, I interviewed Anne Wojcicki about her fledgling startup. We bonded over the fact that neither of us had cavities until relatively late in life. I’m a user of the service, and a few months later, I filled out a 23andMe survey on whether I had cavities, helping the company point scientists at genes that might be tied to tooth decay. Later, with the arrival of my daughter, we sequenced her, my wife, and my mother. The results were amazing (and possibly life-saving.) I wrote about it, and got some grief for my actions. It reminded me of just how controversial this stuff is. Now, Fast Company‘s Elizabeth Murphy has updated things, and it’s a good read. 23andMe could save your life, and permanently change medicine. Which means it’s a pretty polarizing subject." (Alistair for Hugh).
Hackers Meet Biology: Bio-Renaissance or the Makings of a Killer? – Casey Research. "Now, let’s talk about biohacking. What happens when try-it-and-see’ Maker mentality hits Silicon Valley’s can-do attitude? Plenty. It’s either the new frontier, or the first pages of a Michael Crichton novel, depending on who you ask. In this Casey Research piece by Doug Hornig — with a foreword by chief analyst, Alex Daley — you’ll learn more than you thought you needed to know. A friend of mine whose wife has made more synthetic biology investments than anyone right now bemoans the fact that investors think biohacking is just ‘wet software’, cautioning that DNA is vastly different and we stretch such analogies as ‘coding life’ beyond their breaking point. Read, and be a little afraid." (Alistair for Mitch).
Why mathematicians make great comedy writers – Chortle. "Apparently The Simpsons writing team has been filled with mathematicians from the beginning of the show. Simon Singh explores the relationship between Simpson giggle and complex math. r d r r." (Hugh for Alistair).
Why Can’t a Congressman Be More Like a Mayor? – Bloomberg. "Well, the US government shutdown is over. As a columnist for the Globe & Mail quipped: ‘That was fun! Let’s do it again in the New Year.’ Margaret Carlson muses on the distance between congressmen and reality, and why a city’s government could never get away with the kind of behavior we’ve seen in Washington." (Hugh for Mitch).
Snapchat admits to handing unopened ‘snaps’ to US law enforcement – The Guardian. "24 hours a day. Seven days a week. 365 days a year. They are watching you. We want to think that we have a semblance of privacy. We don’t. Everything we do is being being transmitted and stored somewhere, right? I find it amazingly fascinating that companies like Google and Facebook take so much heat from the public whenever they attempt to update or address their terms of service, and yet this craziness over at Snapchat was hardly a ripple in the zeitgeist. I thought that snaps weren’t stored anywhere and that the people behind Snapchat didn’t have access to these pictures. That’s not true. I never believed that. Now, it’s clear that the content we’re pumping through Snapchat is accessible – in some way, shape or form… and it’s accessible to the government too." (Mitch for Alistair).
7 Ways to Be Insufferable on Facebook – The Huffington Post. "There are days that I wish I had the courage to delete my Facebook account. The truth is that I don’t know how to best use it and I wind up seeing things from people I like… and it winds up making me like them a whole lot less. I hate judging people. I hate gossiping. It feels like this is all that Facebook is for me. I’m not sure why. A close friend sent me this link in relation to a mutual friend and how they poorly manage their Facebook page (you’ll understand it more when you read this article). The truth is, I see of lot of myself in these examples and… it really does sicken me." (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.