Categories: Articles

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #54

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:

Google and the Gang of Four: Eric Schmidt’s Full D9 Interview – All Things D. "Two videos for the long weekend, whichever side of the border you live on. (but if you’re not in Canada or the US, you’ll just have to chug some maple syrup, fire a gun, and pretend) First off: the tech world was abuzz this week with Google +, a new entrant into social networking from a giant that seems to have learned the lessons of Buzz and Wave. According to Google chairman, Eric Schmidt, Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google are the ‘gang of four’ that dominate consumer technology today. This is a nearly 90-minute video from last month’s D9 conference, but if you want to understand the world we’re going into, watch it." (Alistair for Hugh).
Everything Is A Remix. "The third part of this four-part series on the history of sampling and repurposing is now out. ‘Nobody starts out original,’ says producer Kirby Ferguson. Having seen the first three, I’m waiting for the fourth to come out so that I can screen them as one." (Alistair for Mitch).
How China Sees The World – Boston Globe. "There is a big internal debate in China between moderate internationalists and hard-line unilateralists, jockeying over foreign policy direction. The road China chooses will shape global politics for years to come." (Hugh for Alistair).
The Joy of Secularism: 11 Essays for How We Live Now – New Statesman. "Whether or not you are interested in the debate between religion, humanism, and atheism (I am), this article/review is worth reading just because it is so well-written." (Hugh for Mitch).
Branding Is About Creating Patterns, Not Repeating Messages – Fast Company Design. "For a long while, I’ve been saying that branding and great advertising is no longer about one big idea, but rather many big ideas in many different spaces. There is a new brand narrative and it’s not the same old story. ‘Brands today exist in multiple mediums, defined by multiple voices. The media brands inhabit is iterative, with no beginning, no end, and little permanency. In that context, adherence to a big idea and endless repetition of centralized, fixed rules can make a brand seem unresponsive and out of step with its audience. But without repetition, how does a brand create consistency? And without consistency, how does a brand maintain value?’ It turns out this article argues that a great brand is about the patterns that it weaves. Data is also about patterns and I’m beginning to wonder if data and branding are becoming more intrinsically connected." (Mitch for Alistair).
Thumbs Up for Rock and Roll! – YouTube. "This short, home video requires no description or commentary. It’s a slice of life. We often forget that the best stories and most compelling pieces of content usually wind up as stories told at family reunions or collecting dust on our shelves at home. When people ask what makes the Internet so amazing, the answer is simple: it’s the ultimate archive… and this is proof of it." (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.