Categories: Articles

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #290

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:

From “A New Hope” to no hope at all: “Star Wars,” Tolkien and the sinister and depressing reality of expanded universes – Salon. “I’ve seen the new Star Wars twice now; the first time was an epiphany; the second, a realization that so much of it was the original trilogy, repeated. But far more depressing than this realization is the thought that modern epics — Star Wars, Avatar, Lord of the Rings – say something horribly bleak about our society, and what we think lies beyond.” (Alistair for Hugh).
The Radical History of 1960s Adult Coloring Books – New Republic. “Those meditation coloring books are all the rage, promising more cognitive benefits than recently-debunked brain games with just a few minutes, and a colored pencil. Know what is good for your brain? Subversion. And the sixties, boy, did they do it right.” (Alistair for Mitch).
Toward Humane Tech – Anil Dash – Medium. “Anil Dash makes a plea for tech to start thinking more about ethics. Good.” (Hugh for Alistair).
It’s time to care about the open web – Scripting News. “Old head Dave Winer makes the old/new case that media companies need to start thinking about the open web… Rather than getting stuck in silos.” (Hugh for Mitch).
The 30 Best Pieces of Advice for Entrepreneurs in 2015 – First Round. “I hate myself for posting this, because I do my best to stay away from listicles or BuzzFeed like headlines for this weekly link pick/share, but the contents of this post far outweigh whatever bait was used in the creative process of writing the headline. First Round has a great blog, and this piece is chock full of smart stuff… even if you think you may already know it all.” (Mitch for Alistair).
Creative people’s brains really do work differently – Quartz. “We’ve tossed around the notion that creative people are different. You know, the whole left brain/right brain argument? Well, what if it could be scientifically proven that creative people really are different? So much so, that it’s not just in how they think, but how their brain changes the physiology of the person.” (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.