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, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, PressBooks, Media Hacks) and I decided that every week or so 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:
- Big Brother isn’t watching you – Guardian UK. "I’m going to chime in on the UK rioting too. And the most eloquent bit I’ve seen is from, astonishingly, Russell Brand, the Katy-Perry-boinking, Get-Him-To-The-Greek-filming, endorsement-flooded British ex-shock-jock. But his background qualifies him to chime in, even from the comfort of LA, and he provides a surprisingly good answer to Why It All Happened. ‘As we sweep away the mistakes made in the selfish, nocturnal darkness we must ensure that, amidst the broken glass and sadness, we don’t sweep away the youth lost amongst the shards in the shadows cast by the new dawn.’" (Alistair for Hugh).
- Why MG Siegler is wrong about email (and right too) – Robert Scoble. "Robert Scoble jumps from platform to platform more than a video game character. He loved Twitter, then Quora, and now he holds court on Google Plus. So you’d think he’d be beyond email as a messaging platform. But in this post on Plus, he explains why email is still an essential medium, and along the way, shares some of his rules and tricks for handling a huge flood of information. Form follows function, he argues, and the function of email is to filter and organize so you can get to the good stuff." (Alistair for Mitch).
- Panic on the streets of London – Penny Red. "It’s been an extraordinary week of riots and unrest in London, and many cities throughout England: a potent cocktail of ghettoized ethnic neighborhoods, chronic and massive unemployment of young men coupled with exclusion from productive society, a good dose of thuggishness and kids who just don’t respect things, police hostility to dark-skinned youth, and also (but not finally) massive cuts to Britain’s social budgets. And much, much more. The results are breathtaking, violent, scary and significant. I don’t know what to make of it, but this essay is a good place to start seeing hints of some of the many frayed strands of the story." (Hugh for Alistair).
- What Happened to Obama? – The New York Times. "Barack Obama‘s election was greeted with an euphoria that people like me (middle-class, white lefty folk), and many people not like me, haven’t had cause to experience from politics in our lifetimes. He talked of hopes and dreams in eloquent and moving ways, and we all thought Mr. Obama signaled a great change in the course of the world. Boy, were we wrong. Hillary Clinton – his opponent in the Democratic primaries – said when they were opponents (more or less): ‘He is all talk, no experience, and the Republicans will walk all over him.’ I don’t know if that is the problem, but one thing is for damn sure: the euphoria is gone, and we haven’t seen a hint of eloquence when it matters. Something else we haven’t seen: a principle Obama is willing to stake his presidency on. What does Obama stand for? Who knows? This New York Times op-ed is an outline of what we (that is, I) would have liked to hear from Obama, but have not. Oh, have we not. The emptiness of what we’ve heard instead is shocking." (Hugh for Mitch).
- The Creator Of TED Aims To Reinvent Conferences Once Again – Fast Company Design. "When people think of TED, they tend to think of Chris Anderson. The real creator of TED is Richard Saul Wurman – a true visionary, artist and entrepreneur for our times. Anderson bought the TED conference from Wurman and brought it to the global conscience that it celebrates today, but Wurman had the initial idea of gathering people from technology, entertainment and design to create the ultimate dinner party conversation. It looks like Wurman is about to re-invent the conference space once again, and this piece details his plans. As always, his ideas are inspiring." (Mitch for Alistair).
- The worst gig we ever played: musicians on their on-stage lows – Guardian UK. "After over a decade in the music industry, you would think that I had seen it all. I thought I had. I have not. This piece is funny, tragic and inspiring as well. People think art happens in isolation. It doesn’t. Much of the great art is created by teams. Art is messy and it gets even messier when you mix in differing personalities, money, personal politics and let’s not forget the sex and drugs." (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.