Categories: Articles

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #292

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:

Why is Your Team Falling Behind? Ask ‘The Penny Game’ – Atomic Object. “Anyone who’s ever tried to deliver software over time knows things tend to come off the rails. Books like The Mythical Man-Month do a decent job of delving into why; but this simple game – played with pennies and dice – is as good an illustration as any of the vagaries of queueing theory. Play it with your salespeople next time they ask why things are taking so long?” (Alistair for Hugh).
Edgar Allan Poe Had a Time Machine and I Can Prove It – History Buff. “Does this really need a description?” (Alistair for Mitch).
How the Labor Cost Competitiveness Myth is Making the Eurozone Crisis Worse – Naked Capitalism. “This is the most interesting article I’ve read in a while on the ongoing crisis in the European monetary system, which has implications for the world economy.” (Hugh for Alistair).
No Parking Here – Mother Jones. “How driverless cars and ridesharing will drastically reduce the number of cars on the road, solve gridlock, climate change, parking congestion, and… possibly cause the total collapse of the North American economy?” (Hugh for Mitch).
Brain Training for Anxiety, Depression and Other Mental Conditions – Wall Street Journal. “Tell me about your childhood… We learn things about science, medicine and ourselves as the years progress. Technology is helping us to debunk some preconceived notions about what we thought we knew about wellness. So, here’s a thought: can looking at a bunch of pictures help to cure what aisles you? Before you go jumping to any conclusions, read this and think about it. Maybe our ability to reprogram how we think can keep us out of therapy… and make us much happier? Not just in our mind… but our body and spirit as well.” (Mitch for Alistair).
The truth about the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists – Tim Grahl. “Do the books that sell the best each week actually make it on to the bestsellers lists? Do these lists still (really) matter? There is a lot of conversation around this topic. It seems to creep into the zeitgeist every so often. This year, this is the article that a lot of the book-like people are talking about. The bestsellers list. Everyone wants to be on it. Nobody knows how it works. Is it really all that complicated?” (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.