Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?
Yesterday, I had lunch with Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Rednod, GigaOM, Human 2.0, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks) and Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, Bite-Sized Edits, Media Hacks) and – as with all lunches like this – the conversation quickly evolved into something of a human linkbait game of ping pong where all of us wound up starting off every sentence with, "oh, you have to check this out…" Then it occurred to me, "why not share this great content with everyone and have you contribute to it?"
So, check this out…
Every week (or so), The three of us are going to share one link for each other (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".
Check this out…
- Alistair says Hugh should check out: The Gartner Fellows Interview with James Burke. "This is a great interview with James Burke, which I think Hugh should read. Burke is brilliant, and if you get a chance to watch The Day The Universe Changed and Connections (all available on the jamesburkeweb channel on YouTube) it’s time well spent."
- Alistair says Mitch should check out: Mixing Memory – Fart Spray (And Disgust) Makes Moral Judgments More Severe. "Mitch, you mentioned (rightly so) that while a pay-for-change-of-opinion model might work for big-ticket, highly branded, associated-with-self-worth products, there are many things that fall below this, where we have loyalty but aren’t talking about it much because it doesn’t affect our social status (thanks, Alain de Botton.) In that realm, I would submit that there are many hard-to-compute factors involved. Here’s a good write-up on disgust – simulated through a fart smell (no, really) and a messy office – polarizes moral judgments."
- Hugh says Alistair should check out: City Of Sound – Emergent Urbanism, or ‘bottom-up planning’. "Alistair works with start-ups and innovators, and was partially responsible for setting up the informal co-working space that my company has been in for a little over a year. This article explores a more formalized (yet still grassroots) project that answers the question: how can you revitalize an empty downtown while encouraging start-ups? Answer: get cheap rent in empty buildings, wire up the buildings with a free wi-fi network, and offer start-ups rolling monthly leases."
- Hugh says Mitch should check out: The Atlantic – Learns To Out-Innovate Itself. "I recently attended, with Mitch, a panel on the future of the magazine, at the Summer Literary Series. Panelists included: the fiction editor at The New Yorker, the associate publisher of The New York Review of Books, and an editor from The Walrus. The panel was a dud, with very little talk of the present, let alone the future. In counterpoint, here’s a short piece on how The Atlantic has reinvented itself, by taking this radical approach: ‘If our mission was to kill the magazine, what would we do?’"
- Mitch says Alistair should check out: SlideShare – Design For Networks. "You were talking a lot about what we should be measuring online – especially for Marketers. And, while I think that is critical, we also need to better understand why humans do things and design the technology around their needs. One of my team members (Sean Howard) sent me this great SlideShare presentation, and I think this will help you moving forward."
- Mitch says Hugh should check out: Niemen Journalism Lab – Clay Shirky’s “Cognitive Surplus”: Is creating and sharing always a more moral choice than consuming? "I’m cheating here a little, both Hugh and Alistair should check this out. It’s a great review of Clay Shirky‘s latest book, Cognitive Surplus (Shirky is also the author of Here Comes Everybody). I’m almost finished reading Cognitive Surplus and this book is dog-ear marked and written in as if it were one of my notebooks from high school. It’s filled with great thoughts about the Web (with great examples) about how we share, connect and collaborate – which is all topics that drive how you develop new businesses and your perspective on the publishing industry. This review is awesome and the book is better."
Now, it’s your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.