Welcome to this week’s top links!
1. Buying an Education or Buying a Brand?
What exactly do students get with the ridiculous amounts of tuition they pay every semester? An important question as more and more students are facing ever increasing student loans. Seth Godin tries to clarify the real value of the money being spent.
2. The Hidden Power of Smiling
In a TED Talk by Ron Gutman, we get a high level overview of just how powerful smiling can be. Some surprising findings include its impact on longevity and how a smile can create positive emotions in others, very interesting stuff.
3. Wait for Another Cookie
Behavioral economist Dan Ariely shares some further insights into the area of self-control. He covers how our self-control is essentially challenged everyday and how we can develop the ability for our own benefit. Also, the marshmallow experiment video near the end is hilarious.
4. ROME
Another showcase of HTML5 is found in the interactive film ROME for the latest collaboration album between Danger Mouse, Jack White, and Norah Jones. Its really cool stuff, but as it says its experimental, so you should use Chrome to watch it.
5. Forget Passion, Focus on Process
A recent post from 37 Signals talks about how it is the process that is more important than the passion, when doing business. There are some great points in the article about the issues with following your passion and how to find meaning in your work. Also for more from 37 Signals, check out their book Rework, that rethinks the assumptions of business settings.
And if you missed last week’s links, check them out here.