Categories: Articles

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #327

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 Morality Changes in a Foreign Language – Scientific American. “Something native Quebeckers have intuitively known for a while, is that the language you speak changes the way you think. It turns out that moral reasoning in your native tongue yields different results. Wonder how this contributes to the Two Solitudes?” (Alistair for Hugh).
Crowds And Technology – Ribbon Farm. “Renee DiResta is a brilliant founder and champion of online sanity. Pilloried by organized mobs for her work in several social causes, she’s written extensively about how online groups behave. ‘Taken together, the two books suggest that all crowds emerge as a combination of a fear of the unknown, and a need to believe. Together they make crowds a source of power to those who seek it.’ A great, chewy, long primer on how technology changes the ability to form – and channel – the digital mob.” (Alistair for Mitch).
A Timeline Of Earth’s Average Temperature – XKCD. “Alistair and I have had a couple of conversations about climate change, and finding ways to help people visualize what the problem is, or might be. The always-great Randall Munroe, creator of the XKCD comic does an impressive job here. One refrain you often hear is: the earth’s temperature has changed before. Well, yes it has. And while humans, or humanoids have been around for 100,000 years or more, human civilization (farming, buildings) has existed really only about 10,000 years, and during that time the climate has varied, but within a pretty tight band. This infographic will show you how this gradual shift within a narrow band has, since industrialization in the mid-1800s, taken a sharp turn unlike anything humans have ever experienced.” (Hugh for Alistair).
Where to find school bullies? Not where you might expect – The Globe & Mail. “Some interesting studies show that mixed-race schools, with lots of immigrants and non-immigrants have low incidence of bullying, and score well on mental health. Whereas mostly-white schools? Not so nice.” (Hugh for Mitch).
Where Creativity Comes From – Scientific American. “Wouldn’t you like to know? We all need to be creative! We all need to be passionate! This is where creativity lives and breeds… right? Maybe not so much. Creativity is, in its simplest form, how us human beings solve problems better than we did before. How do we connect the dots in a unique way? How do we make something that gets attention… and traction? Do you have to be a creative type? Well, here are some more answers for this well-worn topic. This time, it’s new and improves and backed by science.” (Mitch for Alistair).
Seth Godin on Creativity, Writer’s Block, and What It Sounds Like When You Change Your Mind – Slate. “I have been loving a podcast called, The Moment With Brian Koppelman. Brian Koppelman is an amazingly creative spirit. Most currently, he is the show runner for Billions (great show, have you seen it?). Well, for the third time since he started his podcast, he’s got the one and only Seth Godin on his show. Now, they’re friends, so the banter, insights and conversation is riveting. Wow. Just wow…” (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.