Sunday’s Top Links (1.27.2013)

2012

Welcome to this week’s top links.

1. Twenty Insights On Making Ideas Happen

A comprehensive guide on making ideas happen, such as keeping a journal, why rejection is good, and much more.

2. How To Savor Life

Time flies by and we all need to learn how to make the most of it. This simple guide shows us how to savor life.

3. Pixar Intro Parody

The beloved Pixar Intro gets a hilarious, but dark parody on the life of the lamp after an unfortunate turn of events.

4. Next In The World Of Social Innovation

What does the future hold for social innovation? Here’s a great summary of the ideas from the recent Social Innovation Summit at Silicon Valley.

5. On Behalf Of Yes

Need a push? A simple yet effective message from Seth Godin tells you why you need to keep saying yes.

And you can find last Sunday’s Top Links here.

Sunday’s Top Links (10.21.2012)

habits

Welcome to this week’s top links!

1. Stop Stealing Dreams

In this free manifesto, Seth Godin asks one simple question: What is school for? Learn why our education system is stuck and how we can fix it.

2. 8 Signs You’ve Found Your Life’s Work

Have you found your dream job? Here are 8 simple ways you can identify that you’ve found your life’s work.

3. What Should I Read Next

This simple tool does exactly what it says. Type in a book you’ve recently read and it’ll give you recommendations on what to read next.

4. The 31 Habits of the World’s Connectors

Connectors have a very unique skill set, which is comprised of specific habits. If you adopt these 31 habits, you too can become a world class connector.

5. A Journey Without a Goal

What if we acted without having a goal in mind? This thoughtful post from Leo Babauta explores the wonder of a journey without the focus on a destination.

And if you missed last week’s links, check them out here.

Sunday’s Top Links (9.30.2012)

alwaysbeclosing

Welcome to this week’s top links!

1. Always Be Closing

Tim Ferriss gives us a great inside look into the prestigious start-up incubator Y Combinator. Learn how to sell anything, why start-ups are HARD and more.

2. The Habit of Starting

The key to forming a habit is starting each day. This post from Leo Babauta goes over how to develop this invaluable habit.

3. How the Internet Will Transform Government

In this TED Talk, Clay Shirkey explains how we can transform government with a solution that is already working in the world of technology: Open Source.

4. 45 Life Lessons

Age brings on wisdom and 90 years sure does lead to a lot of it. This list of life lessons, from a 90 year olds perspective, gives great advice for everyday life.

5. Coming From a Loud Place

Seth Godin does it again with a simple fact that many of us lose sight of: everything start’s out small and steadily grows. You don’t start out on the big stage and shouldn’t chase it.

If you missed last week’s links, check them out here!

Monday’s Top Links (6.12.2011)

do-it-yourself

Sorry for the delay, was travelling and had some technical difficulties, but here’s this week’s top links!

1. Six Common Misperceptions About Teamwork

This HBR articles acknowledges the importance of collaboration for success, but there are a number of misconceptions that can seriously derail productive teamwork. These include harmony, fluidity, size, communication methods, leadership, and talent.

2. DIY U: The Future Of Education

Education has been a hot topic this year and one trend that is apparent is the movement of learning into a digital format, accessible to all. In this video, we are introduced to DIY U and the future of education, based on the new book from Anya Kamenetz.

3. Preferences Leading To Choices

This article from behavioral economist Dan Ariely explores the interesting situation in which we make many of our choices. More importantly he shows how we often alter our choices to match our underlying preferences, despite external pressures.

4. Exploring The Creative Overlap

In this Q&A with Janet Echelman from the TED Blog, we learn more about the creative overlap. She talks about the need for time to stumble upon the creative, the importance of collaboration across fields, and pushing the limits.

5. The Taskmaster Premium

Seth Godin does it again, as he compares and contrasts the work we do in two very different contexts. Either we can work for someone or we can work for ourselves, which do you think is more fulfilling?

And if you missed last week’s links, check them out here.

Sunday’s Top Links (5.29.2011)

Skillshare

Welcome to this week’s links!

1. Looking For The Right Excuse

Seth Godin talks about how we often are looking for the right excuse in preparation of something failing, and how this is often the first warning sign that things probably will not be going well.

2. The 100 Most Creative People In Business

Fast Company has put together a list of 100 individuals deemed to be the 100 Most Creative People in Business for 2011. Of course its essentially impossible to create such a list and I’m sure its mostly filled with well-known big names, but its an interesting list all the same.

3. The Power Of Embracing Failure

As part of Berghs School of Communication’s upcoming exhibition, ‘Could Have. Might Have. Should Have.’, a number of creative professionals share their thoughts on the fear of failure. In this video the esteemed designer Milton Glaser shares his thoughts.

4. Skillshare

Skillshare is a new platform that allows anyone to teach anything to people that are interested. I feel this is a great idea and further allows everyday people to share their knowledge and expertise. Although it has only taken off in New York so far, there’s great potential for such a platform.

5. Creation Myth

In this piece by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker, he explores how creation happens. More specifically he is focused on the development of the PC and the involved parties of Xerox PARC and Apple. He brings up some interesting points about creation and its myths.

And if you missed last week’s links, check them out here.

Sunday’s Top Links (5.15.2011)

rome

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.

Sunday’s Top Links (4.24.2011)

NYT Cascade

Welcome to this week’s top links!

1. Wile E. Coyote and Creative IQ

In response to Bruce Nussbaum’s claim that Design Thinking is finished (read here), frog design gives their take on the future of Creative Intelligence. In particular they touch on the misconceptions of creativity, as well as the fear that Creative Intelligence could face a similar demise as design thinking.

2. Zuckerberg Interviews President Obama

Watch the recent interview of President Obama last week at Facebook HQ. It was essentially Mark Zuckerberg holding a Live Town Hall with Obama and fielding questions from citizens. I find it very impressive how Obama has embraced social media for his campaign and it certainly helps with the younger demographics.

3. Realization Is Now, Opportunity is Here

In this post from Seth Godin, we get insight into the current state of society and the revolution that we are currently in the midst of. Aside from simply being aware of these changes, we also need to recognize the opportunity it brings along with it, which can be explored in the follow-up post here.

4. NYT Labs Cascade

New York Times has developed a new project named Cascade that maps out a timeline related to articles and information they create and share. It’s an interesting project and the information is beautiful, but I do wonder what they plan to do with the data they collect through this platform.

5. Working Best At Coffee Shops

An intriguing article from The Atlantic that focuses on the value of working at coffee shops. The article gives a number of reasons of why coffee shops are an ideal setting for work and some great examples of people who have utilized this avenue for their own creations. I personally love working in coffee shops and I think the article is spot on about the benefits.

And if you missed last week’s links, check them out here.

Learning vs. Creating

library

I recently read Do The Work by Steven Pressfield, the latest book from Seth Godin’s Domino Project. The e-book is free for download on Kindle, so you should definitely get a copy. Anyways, there was one concept he touched on in the book that resonated with me and that I have noticed about myself lately.

I love to learn, increasing my personal knowledge, discovering new concepts, ideas, and truths. Doesn’t sound so bad does it? Well my problem is, I get into this routine where all I do is spend my time learning: reading books, exploring my RSS feeds, watching TED Talks, so on and so forth. As much as I’d like to think of this as productive, it really isn’t, its just another form of busy work or procrastination.

In Do The Work, Pressfield talks about how research (or learning) can essentially be a form of the ‘resistance’ or a force that prevents you from getting work done. I completely understand what he means. What’s important in all this is striking the balance between learning and creating, and more importantly, accepting that learning is great, but creating is better.

I’m sure I’m not alone in getting caught up in this web of knowledge, especially when so much information is readily available to us, but hopefully understanding that these kinds of things are just another distraction, will be the first step to being more aware of how we spend our time.

I enjoyed reading Do The Work, but it’s Pressfield’s other book, The War of Art, that is a must read.

Sunday’s Top Links (4.10.2011)

Welcome to this week’s top links!

1. How to Get a Real Education

In this article by Scott Adam’s, creator of Dilbert (love his comic), we look at how education often takes the approach of one-size fits all, when this shouldn’t be the case. More importantly, we get an inside look at how Scott truly learned, while he was in college.

2. The Three A’s of Awesome

Neil Parsicha, blogger turned author, shares his story of the three A’s of awesome,  in an inspiring TED Talk. Neil is most well known for his blog, 1000 Awesome Things, that shares with the world the smaller things in life that we truly enjoy.

3. Makers and Managers

Both makers and managers have value, but the real key is finding the balance between the two. In this article, Seth Godin explores how such a balance can be established. Also check out the essay by Paul Graham that inspired this article.

4. Five Rules for Remembering Names

In this short video from Fast Company, memory expert Bob Gray talks about some tips on how to remember peoples names, as well as how valuable this skill can really be for business and networking.

5. How to Hone Your Influencing Skills

Another piece related to developing your personal skills, this article from Work Awesome discusses how to improve your ability to persuade. One of the tips is remembering people’s names, seems like its a pretty important one.

And if you missed last week’s links, check them out here.

Sunday’s Top Links (12.26.2010)

Happy Boxing Day everyone!

1. The 10th Annual Year in Ideas

A look back over 2010 through the lens of ideas from The New York Times. The article touches on economics, biology, engineering, medicine, sports, literature, and more. Also check out the The Words of the Year.

2. Google Demo Slam

Demo Slam by Google is a platform that allows anyone to share their technology demos with the world. The premise is to create a competition between demos every week to spice up typically boring demos and it does a fantastic job in doing so.

3. Happiness & Sadness Are Contagious

An interview with David Rand from Harvard goes into how a persons relationships effect them. More specifically, he reveals how people that are happy or sad can spread those feelings, so be mindful about who you spend time with.

4. Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders

At TEDWomen 2010 Sheryl Sandberg, COO at Facebook, spoke about the rarity of women in leadership positions. She sheds some light into this dilemma and how we can make progress towards balancing the sides for the future.

5. Just Looking

We need to make decisions or else we miss out on opportunities. Seth Godin discusses this concept further and pushes us to take a chance, quit browsing, and  buy something, as he puts it.

Sunday’s Top Links (9.19.2010)

1. 20 Inspiring TED Talks for Recent College Grads

Some great TED Talks to get the next generation of the world inspired, with talks from John Wooden, Bill Clinton, Jill Taylor, Seth Godin, and more.

2. The World’s Best Countries from Newsweek

An interactive map rating the best countries in the world based on Education, Health, Quality of Life, Economic Dynamism, and Political Environment. Top 3: Finland, Switzerland, and Sweden.

3. Turning the Table on Critical Trolls

There’s always someone criticizing your ideas, but you need to look at things in a certain way before you discount them… from Seth Godin.

4. Samsung Tablet is Coming

The first true competitor to the iPad? And its packed full of competitive features.

5. What Exactly Is a Doctorate?

Want to better understand why you need to get a PhD? Here’s a great explanation.