Categories: Articles

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #330

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:

Make America Great Again: The Trump Presidency. “I am avoiding posts about the U.S. presidency. There’s plenty of that on my (Canadian) Facebook wall. I’d just like to point out that when political commentary includes a game, in which you can build a wall, buy from Russia, and manage global objections to policies, well, this may be the closest thing we have to an electoral platform. Videos games are satire.” (Alistair for Hugh).
The Binge Breaker – The Atlantic. “If apps are addictive, and developers try to make them impossible to leave under the moniker of ‘growth hacking’, does software engineering need a Hippocratic Oath? Former Google Product Philosopher (yes, that’s a thing at Google, I guess) thinks so. There’s a longer thought in here: Increasingly ad-tech feels like it was built to infer who we are, treating the prospective customer as a hostile witness, harvesting her attention. Maybe a bit of philosophy is a good idea.” (Alistair for Mitch).
The Fencing World Championships Hosted An Awesome Lightsaber Duel – Nerdist. “Fencers choreograph epic lightsaber duel. Check the original and the one with sound effects below. Also, stop reading about Trump.” (Hugh for Alistair).
Five Books to Change Liberals’ Minds – Bloomberg. “It’s been a pretty hard few months for those of us addicted to politics. Hard also to understand those […]s on the other side (whichever side you are on). Well, if you are on the liberal side (as I am), then perhaps you should try harder to understand the conservative side. Here are some books to help you do that.” (Hugh for Mitch).
I’m done pretending that Silicon Valley tech is visionary – Recode. “Are we truly solving big, impactful problems that the world needs resolved? Or, are we solving problems that aren’t really problems and calling this stuff ‘visionary’? There’s a tons of cynicism and skepticism that blends in well with the unicorns and dragons of Silicon Valley. Still, when someone says that the truly meaningful organizations are generally ‘underfunded and unnoticed,’ maybe we should take a deeper look at what we, in fact, do call innovative?” (Mitch for Alistair).
Deep Learning Is Going to Teach Us All the Lesson of Our Lives: Jobs Are for Machines – Scott Santens – Medium. “I’ve been making the argument that robots and machine learning will require humans to work closer than ever before with technology. This argument is being made, because there are many who think that these forms (and other types) of technology are actually going to replace us. It seems far fetched, doesn’t it? Well, read this. Suddenly, I’m left wondering if jobs really are for computers, and us human beings are going to have to find something else to do with our time… and to generate income. Scary.” (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.