Categories: Articles

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #52

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:

Hundred Flowers Campaign – Wikipedia. "After the people’s revolution, Mao encouraged dissenting thinkers to speak up. When activists and pro-democrat supporters were reluctant, he encouraged them to come forward, ‘Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend’ – but when the outspoken spoke out too much, it quickly turned into a way to identify and silence contrarian thinkers. I never knew where the term ‘let a hundred flowers bloom’ came from until I heard it used by someone suggesting that the recent increase in high-profile hacktivist groups could include honeypots. It serves as a reminder that there are two sides to every online battle, and that we shouldn’t believe everything we read." (Alistair for Hugh).
Invasion of the body hackers – Financial Times. "I’m fascinated by the convergence of humans and machines. To bastardize two otherwise decent lines: the singularity is upon us; it’s just not evenly distributed. One place it’s more obvious is at the Quantified Self conference, which this piece in the Financial Times does a good job of covering. From optimizing health, to correlating moods with productivity, to achieving fifteen-minute orgasms, it’s all here. It’s early days for this Homebrew Human Club, but as we move into the feedback era, this stuff will become commonplace." (Alistair for Mitch).
The Easiest Way to Succeed as an Entrepreneur – The Altucher Confidential. "I dislike most start-up blogs I read, and I think most entrepreneurs would do well to spend less time reading blogs and attending start-up events, and more time talking to their customers. But what do I know? Anyway, this has never happened to me, but I read one of James Altucher‘s posts this week, and then ended up reading 7 more in the space of two days. Great stuff." (Hugh for Alistair).
How to Turn a Fan into an Enemy in Under 140 Characters – Powazek. "Mitch and I are both big fans of On The Media, a podcast about… media. I like co-host Bob Garfield‘s grouchy take on the universe usually, and his slight aversion to the things webby has always struck me as reasonable, if a bit… dated. Well, an old web salt, Derek Powazek, took issue with Bob’s latest episode, and things did not go well on Twitter. I’m curious to see if there is any follow-up from Bob." (Hugh for Mitch).
Abracadabra! Magic Trumps Math at Web Start-Ups – DealBook. "Business is actually pretty simple: what do you sell? How much margin do you make on that business? What’s it worth to an investor? Everything else isn’t magic… it’s BS. Unfortunately, this is one of those articles that makes you give pause and realize that we’re in the midst of another technology bubble. During the last Internet bubble, we were focused on what could be in a world where the technology could not deliver and there weren’t enough people online. For the bubble we’re probably in the middle of right now, we’re trying to use funky business instead of the real metrics to figure out value and worth. Here’s the truth: if you’re not making good margins on whatever it is that you’re selling, you don’t have much of a business – regardless of how cool your new measuring metrics sound." (Mitch for Alistair).
Post-Artifact Books And Publishing – Craig Mod. "Hey Hugh, are you tired of the whole, ‘what is a book?’ discussion yet? Seth Godin recently Blogged about it over on The Domino Project (more on that here: 1500:1) and I liked this passage: ‘Some are saying that the future of books is in the direction of apps, videos and other multimedia productions, entire experiences that express an idea. The problem: none of these can be created by a single individual. The magic of a book is that it is largely the work of one person. Yes, she’ll need some help from editors and distributors, etc., but they sometimes come and go, while the author remains.’ Craig Mod also has a unique perspective on what a book means in 2011. I’m starting to learn towards Seth’s direction: ‘the work of one person’. I like that." (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.