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:
- Foundations of Geopolitics – Wikipedia. “I try to avoid getting political when sharing these links. I’m not doing that this week. Instead, I’m sharing some of the things I’ve been reading to better understand the horrors that millions of Ukranians are facing simply for trying to govern themselves democratically. The first is a book on the geopolitical future of Russia, written in 1997, that is a textbook for the Russian military. It calls for the sidelining of NATO and the annexation of nations. If you want to see Putin’s checklist, it’s in here.” (Alistair for Hugh).
- Defending The City: An Overview of Defensive Tactics From The Modern History of Urban Warfare – Modern War Institute. “Despite an unexpectedly strong showing by Ukraine, nobody who understands math expects them to survive against the full force of the Russian military. The fighting will turn uglier still, and roll into dense urban areas. Some folks I trust who’ve served in past wars pointed me to the Modern War Institute, which is part of West Point. I’d imagined that details such as tactics of urban warfare were secret, somehow, but no: Army manuals are there for the reading. This is a gory, but edifying, history of defensive strategy and urban conflict. As I try to build a mental model to understand the war we’re now all part of, this sort of thing has been a useful background separate from viral threads and disinformation on all sides.” (Alistair for Mitch).
- 1001 Albums Generator. “I recently rebought a turntable, and slowly slowly I’m growing a little collection of vinyl. What I like about the format is the forced attention to a whole work, something I’ve struggled with using digital media. This little app will recommend a new album every day to you — which, of course, you can listen to on Spotify or wherever.” (Hugh for Alistair).
- Sebastian Mallaby on Venture Capital – Conversations With Tyler. “Fascinating conversation with financial historian Sebastian Mallaby about venture capital, how and why it works.” (Hugh for Mitch).
- Descript. “I’m doing things a little bit differently this week. I’m sharing two pieces of software that I’ve spent a lot of time learning over the past few months. They have, without question, changed the very nature of how I think about my work… and the possibilities when it comes to software truly eating the world. This first one, Descript, is one of the most incredible editing technologies I have ever used. Now, let’s be clear, I am not good at editing. In fact, I usually don’t edit much of anything, especially when it comes to my podcast or videos. I don’t know what kind of magic this is, but you can import any video or audio and the technology will transcribe it into text. From there, you edit the audio or video file by editing the actual text. It sounds insane, but it works wonders. As an example, many of the guests will often confuse things and call me ‘Joel’, instead of ‘Mitch’. That’s on me, because I have two first names. Still, I don’t like the way it sounds. Now, all I have to do is a ‘find and replace’ for the word ‘Joel’, and it’s done. It’s all so seamless. It’s very difficult to tell that things have been edited to the naked ear. It even has a technology that recognizes my voice. By learning my voice, it’s able to edit out words and change them… in my own voice. Like I said, it is pure magic. It’s worth the investment, if you do any form of editing.” (Mitch For Alistair).
- Riverside. “This is another piece of software magic. When I’m recording either my podcast or videos with a guest, I’m at the mercy of the technology and connectivity on both ends of the conversation. With Riverside, it records natively on each person’s individual system and then uploads and matches it in the cloud, allowing me to either have one final file or multi-track versions of these conversations. This works for both audio and video. The result is also staggering. The quality of a guest’s audio and video, even when they’re just using the internal camera and microphone on a laptop, is significantly better than any other recording software I have used historically. Again, these technologies are not free (or even cheap), but so very worth it if you create any form of content with a remote guest. I can’t recommend this platform enough. The results will impress you.” (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):