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 (Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, Interesting Bits, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, FWD50, and Scaletechconf; author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (Rebus Foundation, PressBooks, LibriVox) 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:
- How To Destroy Surveillance Capitalism – Cory Doctorow – OneZero – Medium. “I’ll see your Lanier (posted below) and raise you a Doctorow. This post is actually a short book, and as usual, it’s creative, thoughtful, and hard to disagree with.” (Alistair for Hugh).
- Tetrapharmakos – Wikipedia. “These four ‘remedies’ are the core of Epicureanism. Since the Greeks spent so much time trying to figure out how to lead the happiest possible life, this feels like good advice for 2020: Don’t fear god; don’t worry about death; what is good is easy to get; what is terrible is easy to endure.” (Alistair for Mitch).
- The Conscience of Silicon Valley – GQ. “More from Jaron Lanier on how bad the web has become, how much worse it will get; but also what it has done well to help us get through this pandemic, and how we might make it better.” (Hugh for Alistair).
- Surprising nobody, bats are the best goth dancers of all time – AV Club. “I wasn’t sure who to send this link to: my guess is that Alistair is more likely to have gone through a goth music phase than Mitch, but on the other hand Mitch was a music journalist early in his career. So, I’ve chosen Mitch as the recipient of ‘bats dancing at a goth club.'” (Hugh for Mitch).
- The Event Industry Is Being Confronted By Its Napster Moment – Skift. “I’m a huge fan of Rafat Ali’s writing/work and I look forward to reading Skift. The headline made me raise an eyebrow, but I went along for the ride. Unfortunately, I don’t think that Rafat is making the correct analogy in this piece. He is talking about how the distribution of music changed. Consumer habits as well. But one thing we know for certain, is that the live music space flourished in the music business and continued to flourish until COVID-19 hit. Live music will come back. Much like live sports. And, any other live event (including conferences). Live events are not the same as listening to music (which is really just a content format). Live events are not the same as reading a blog post or seeing someone on Zoom. I also take exception to his comment that running a virtual event has little cost. If you are doing it at a professional level, there are massive costs involved in getting it right. This includes everything from the hardware and software of the technology, to the bandwidth and ability to ensure that you are not having drop-offs. This doesn’t even include things like lighting, cameras, sound, etc. And, let’s not forget about the people – technicians, producers, etc… It’s surprising to me, considering his background, that this article doesn’t show the massive growth that live concerts and festivals experienced from CD through Napster through Spotify. Will more events happen online? Yes. Is this going to destroy the entire live event business? I don’t believe that it will.” (Mitch for Alistair).
- The Origins of Sprawl – The Paris Review. “I have been spending a lot of time reading and thinking about our cities. What happens if people only work 25% of the time at that downtown building? How will it impact the local businesses? Tourism? The pulse of a thriving city? Concerts? Culture?… and beyond. Will the effects of this pandemic push people further and further out of cities? Will this still be considered ‘urban sprawl’ if we’re not extending the core of our major cities, but simply abandoning them? I have more questions than answers.” (Mitch for Hugh).
Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.