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, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto) 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 do good talks at conferences – The Startup Toolshed. "It’s the middle of the fall conference season. In gearing up for O’Reilly’s Strata, I’ve spoken with dozens of sponsors and keynote speakers, helping them to hone their presentations. My one go-to rule is this: ‘If your audience won’t feel smarter for tweeting your slide to their network, delete it.’ This post by Makeshift‘s Nick Marsh tackles the problem of salesmanship that inevitably infects any event as it grows. It’s a great checklist for speakers and event organizers." (Alistair for Hugh).
- Stay Put, Young Man – Washington Monthly. "Americans used to be a nomadic country, moving around both physically and economically. That’s changing. They don’t go West, and they seldom move up. ‘Between the 1980s and the 2000s, the percentage of young adults (those aged eighteen to twenty-four) who migrated across state lines declined by 41 percent.’ This piece in the Washington Monthly looks at the changing demographics of US citizens, rethinking a nation we think we know." (Alistair for Mitch).
- Why We Don’t Care About Saving Our Grandchildren From Climate Change – Time. "Unless we do something about climate change, we are all doomed. We won’t do anything about climate change." (Hugh for Alistair).
- Resource riches pull Canada into geopolitical battle it can’t afford to lose – Financial Post. "Unless Canada does something about aggressively exploiting its arctic oil riches, Canada is doomed to be in the poorhouse. But. Wait. What about climate change? My head hurts." (Hugh for Mitch).
- Confessions of a Drone Warrior – GQ. "When killing people becomes like a video game (maybe easier), we have to be able to take a step back and ask ourselves, ‘what really is going on here?’ There has been a ton of ink on the topic of soldiers living in the basement of a Nevada military base blasting enemies away thousands of mile away with a joystick. This is a personal account of one such young individual. It’s kind of chilling to think that these people are handling drone strikes in the morning, heading to Taco Bell for lunch and then off to some cool concert in the evening, as if they just worked a shift at Target." (Mitch for Alistair).
- The decline of Wikipedia – MIT Technology Review. "Every organization has its politics, in-fighting and challenges. Ones that are more open, non-hierarchical and Web-based open up a whole new level of issues. Beyond that, it seems like people just aren’t that into Wikipedia anymore. For people like Hugh and I (who love all things Wikipedia), this is somewhat heartbreaking. Personally, I use Wikipedia countless times on a day-to-day basis and I trust the content on there more than the vast majority of gunk I come across in general Web searches. Still, I make sure to double-check facts, etc… I love Wikipedia. I don’t want it to disappear. I hope whatever it is being challenged with gets resolved. Fast." (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.