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:
- The dirty secret about success – BBC – Worklife. “Success is mostly luck. Luck is mostly opportunity. Sorry, decades of expertise, but your wealth is more about chances than what you do with them.” (Alistair for Hugh).
- A Teenager On TikTok Disrupted Thousands of Scientific Studies With A Single Video – The Verge. “If you’re doing social science work, the Internet has been a boon. Easy access to millions of respondents mean your studies can proceed quickly, globally. Startups have emerged to help this process, from Amazon‘s Mechanical Turk to tools like SurveyMonkey to research panels like Prolific. But scientific studies require a representative sample—so when a TikTok video on sidegigs went viral, things broke a bit.” (Alistair for Mitch).
- The largest space telescope in history is about to blow our minds – Vox. “Work on the Hubble Telescope started in the 1970s, and it was launched in 1990, as one of the largest telescopes humans have created, delivering some of the most important images of deep space. It’s lead to breakthroughs in our understanding of: the age of the universe, expansion of the universe, prevalence of black holes, size of the Milky Way, among others. Well, there’s a new kid on the block, and on December 18, 2021 the James Webb Space Telescope will be launched. It’ll be 100x more powerful than Hubble, and is likely to shake up our understanding of the universe.” (Hugh for Alistair).
- Estonia calls for tech innovators to collaborate on new government services – Global Government Forum. “Estonia’s Digital Testbed Framework ‘is a new and innovative collaboration model that will give access to the government’s tech stack to build innovative products or services and get proof of concept from one of the most digitally advanced countries in the world.’ The idea is to make it easy for tech companies to develop improved government services without having to go through all the red tape that usually comes with working with the government.” (Hugh for Mitch).
- Clubhouse Needs Creators, But Creators Need Cash – The Verge. “I still believe that there is value in a platform like Clubhouse. At the same time, I’m not ‘in there’ like I used to be. There are still a handful of rooms that I either co-moderate or pop into on a weekly basis, but that’s about it. Clubhouse is finding its own culture and pulse, and it’s not all for someone like me (which is fine). The business of Clubhouse continues to interest me. With so much money at their disposal (a valuation in the billions), it seems like the creators on the platform want a piece of something. Which is different than before. Other digital platforms would flounder from the get-go, so the creators and the platform are ‘working together’ to go somewhere. This seems different, as the creators see the platform as having millions of dollars to play with, and very little of that cash trickling down to the people hosting rooms. Here’s an interesting business problem…” (Mitch for Alistair).
- Pinker’s progress: the celebrity scientist at the centre of the culture wars – The Guardian. “I’m a fan of Steven Pinker’s work (he has a new book out called, Rationality – What It Is. Why It Seems Scarce. Why It Matters). He’s a Montrealer (who doesn’t live here anymore). His mother was my principal at elementary school, and I’ve gotten to know his sister, Susan Pinker (another big brain writer/thinker worth knowing/following), over the past few years. Is Steven’s work universally accepted? No. Is his work worth consuming, analyzing and criticizing? Yes. Here’s a very long read about what happens when a thinker’s work breaks through, and how culture/society often reacts. Does popularity immediately make someone contentious? It might be the case…” (Mitch for Hugh).
Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.
Are you interested in what’s next? How to decode the future? I publish between 2-3 times per week and then the Six Pixels of Separation Podcast comes out every Sunday. Feel free to subscribe (and tell your friends):