Categories: Articles

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #277

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:

Thomson Reuters at the Open Data Science “Science Against Slavery” Hackathon – Thomson Reuters. “Last week, I sent a couple of links that were pretty down on the impact of big data. So, here’s a brighter story: Thomson Reuters, led by Mona Vernon‘s data science team, is using data science to tackle slavery. Using deep analytics, they ran a hackathon that revealed things like where buyers come from (Arizona, for example.) Tragic, but good to see the harsh light of data shone on a problem of this magnitude.” (Alistair for Hugh).
Featured Eyesore of the Month – James Howard Kunstler. “Someone turned me on to James Howard Kunstler recently; boy, does he ever not take ‘no’ for an answer. His monthly post – showcasing horrible architecture is worth a look, if only for the critique. On the new Google HQ: ‘They say that empires build their most grandiose and grotesque monuments just before they collapse, and Google is kind of a sub-empire of the greater USA techno-clown empire. As the late Rod Serling might say: ‘…submitted for your approval, a mausoleum for the Information Age….”.” (Alistair for Mitch).
The Amazing Inner Lives of Animals – The New York Review of Books. “This article about the sophistication of the emotional lives of animals is extraordinary, and makes you question just how special humans really are.” (Hugh for Alistair).
NYC Subways In The 1980s Were No Joke – The Roosevelts. “New York is a great city now, but it used to be a very different place, grittier and much more dangerous. In the 1990s, Mayor Rudy Guiliani cleaned up the city, literally and figuratively. While it’s nice not to fear for your life walking the streets of NYC at night time, New York now feels a lot like a much bigger version of just about any city in the world now – cleaner, and more homogeneous. There was a time, when New York really was its own planet, and these gritty images from the NYC subway in the 80s are a reminder of a place that is gone now.” (Hugh for Mitch).
Study Says Uber Putting The Brakes On New Car Sales – MediaPost. “We’re all familiar with the cab drivers that are blocking our streets in the hopes that they can stop Uber from coming into our cities. Last week, a cab driver was speaking so loudly on his Bluetooth, that I could not even have a conversation with the person I was with. Did I mention that the same cab driver also hocked a loogie that missed the open window, and I had witness his ‘clean-up’ process? Ugh. Also, the cab company’s response to Uber is to offer the same services that Uber already offers. Huh? Well, maybe the car manufacturers will need to start paying more attention too…” (Mitch for Alistair).
Taking Medium to the Next Level – Ev Williams – Medium. “It seems to me that digital publishing is about to change. The end of blogs? Maybe. Why force people to come here, when platforms like Medium, Facebook’s Notes and LinkedIn seem to be the new WordPress?” (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.

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.