Categories: Articles

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #175

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:

How to do good talks at conferences – The Startup Toolshed. "It’s the middle of the fall conference season. In gearing up for O’Reilly’s Strata, I’ve spoken with dozens of sponsors and keynote speakers, helping them to hone their presentations. My one go-to rule is this: ‘If your audience won’t feel smarter for tweeting your slide to their network, delete it.’ This post by Makeshift‘s Nick Marsh tackles the problem of salesmanship that inevitably infects any event as it grows. It’s a great checklist for speakers and event organizers." (Alistair for Hugh).
Stay Put, Young Man – Washington Monthly. "Americans used to be a nomadic country, moving around both physically and economically. That’s changing. They don’t go West, and they seldom move up. ‘Between the 1980s and the 2000s, the percentage of young adults (those aged eighteen to twenty-four) who migrated across state lines declined by 41 percent.’ This piece in the Washington Monthly looks at the changing demographics of US citizens, rethinking a nation we think we know." (Alistair for Mitch).
Why We Don’t Care About Saving Our Grandchildren From Climate Change – Time. "Unless we do something about climate change, we are all doomed. We won’t do anything about climate change." (Hugh for Alistair).
Resource riches pull Canada into geopolitical battle it can’t afford to lose – Financial Post. "Unless Canada does something about aggressively exploiting its arctic oil riches, Canada is doomed to be in the poorhouse. But. Wait. What about climate change? My head hurts." (Hugh for Mitch).
Confessions of a Drone Warrior – GQ. "When killing people becomes like a video game (maybe easier), we have to be able to take a step back and ask ourselves, ‘what really is going on here?’ There has been a ton of ink on the topic of soldiers living in the basement of a Nevada military base blasting enemies away thousands of mile away with a joystick. This is a personal account of one such young individual. It’s kind of chilling to think that these people are handling drone strikes in the morning, heading to Taco Bell for lunch and then off to some cool concert in the evening, as if they just worked a shift at Target." (Mitch for Alistair).
The decline of Wikipedia – MIT Technology Review. "Every organization has its politics, in-fighting and challenges. Ones that are more open, non-hierarchical and Web-based open up a whole new level of issues. Beyond that, it seems like people just aren’t that into Wikipedia anymore. For people like Hugh and I (who love all things Wikipedia), this is somewhat heartbreaking. Personally, I use Wikipedia countless times on a day-to-day basis and I trust the content on there more than the vast majority of gunk I come across in general Web searches. Still, I make sure to double-check facts, etc… I love Wikipedia. I don’t want it to disappear. I hope whatever it is being challenged with gets resolved. Fast." (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.