Categories: Articles

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #42

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, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, PressBooks, Media Hacks) and I decided that every week or so 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:

Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1% – Vanity Fair. "The many conflicts raging around the world — from violent ones in the Middle East, to less physical, but equally polarized, ones here in North America — have one thing in common: they’re about the distribution of wealth. Too much disparity between the rich and the poor, and you have a media that can convince the downtrodden that they want the freedom to be poor and sick. Too little disparity and you destroy the incentives that fuel a healthy economy. Where’s the balance? This superbly written essay in Vanity Fair is well worth a careful read." (Alistair for Hugh).
How "The Fighter" shot 35 days worth of fight scenes in only three days – Signal Vs. Noise. "For anyone trying to get things done fast, this blog post from the guys at 37 Signals is a good reminder not to accept conventional wisdom, and to really consider what you’re trying to accomplish. ‘The goal was to make the fights seem real. Not to make them look good.’" (Alistair for Mitch).
Cry havoc! And let slip the maths of war – The Economist. "The statistical patterns of warfare, with insurgency attacks in Afghanistan as the dataset." (Hugh for Alistair).
On the Set of Apocalypse Now – Maureen Orth. "Maureen Orth‘s 1977 article about the (insane) making of Apocalypse Now." (Hugh for Mitch).
The Sleepless Elite – The Wall Street Journal. "’When do you sleep?’ It’s a question I get asked more often than I care to admit. The truth is, I sleep as much as I need to – mostly because I don’t stress about it. I made a promise to myself when I first became an entrepreneur: I would go to sleep when I was tired and wake up without an alarm. With the exception of some very early morning flights, I’ve stuck to this promise. Some people are just wired to be happy about life and everything that’s going on, but is there science behind how much sleep we need? Are those who sleep less more inclined to be successful? Are you one of the sleepless elite?" (Mitch for Alistair).
What Do Kids Say Is The Biggest Obstacle To Technology At School? – ReadWriteWeb. "To think that kids in the future will carry a backpack overfilled with textbooks, notebooks, pens, calculators or whatever is crazy. Let’s face it, an iPad will/should do the trick. We have to accept that young kids using computers and technology is not the same as when we were kids and watched TV as a distraction from learning, etc… To kids, an non-interactive screen is broken. So, where does that leave us now? How well are we truly serving the workforce of the future, today? If we take away modern technology or raise an eyebrow when young people have a smartphone (let’s put aside the potential health issues, because I have no insights on that topic), are we passing our traditional values on to them or are we able to rethink what education can (and should) be in 2011?" (Mitch for Hugh).

Now it’s your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.

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.