One of my very favorite blog posts of the week is Six Links Worthy of Your Attention that Mitch Joel does with Hugh McGuire and Alistair Croll every week.
It typically has links I wouldn’t otherwise read because they’re outside my scope of work and personal passions. But I learn something every week and I appreciate the work these guys put behind each blog post.
After asking Mitch if he wouldn’t mind if I shamelessly steal the idea, I asked Michael Schechter and Howie Goldfarb to join me in a weekly post in the same vein.
So welcome to the new edition of The Three Things!
It’ll arrive in your inbox on Sunday mornings (if you don’t subscribe, you’ll have to check in here on Sundays…or you can just subscribe already!), which means you likely have some extra time to read stories you wouldn’t have otherwise be able to get to during the week.
The Generational Podcast: Preparing for the Worst-Case Scenario
Michael on Technology. As more of our lives exist on hard drives instead of photo albums and filing cabinets, there’s a lot that needs to be considered. Hard drives fail, personal information gets stolen, and essential information for loved ones live behind a myriad of passwords. Two of the smartest (and geekiest) guys I know, Eddie Smith of Practically Efficient and Gabe Weatherhead of Macdrifter, help you better understand why you should care and how to better manage digital planning. This gets geeky (and a bit paranoid), but it’s too important to ignore.
Do Not Track is Worse than a Miserable Failure
Howie on Privacy. I am a huge proponent of privacy, or at least having proper controls online to manage your presence. It has been one of the bigger beefs I have with Facebook and I champion opt-in versus opt-out in the advertising, marketing, and technology industries. When asked if people care, they do. In a 2009 study by the SSRN, not only do a majority of people reject tailored advertising and being tracked across websites without their knowledge, more than 50 percent felt managers at companies that do this should go to jail.
So it didn’t shock me the Do Not Track voluntary industry initiative has been a failure. What did shock me is companies such as Google who claim, “Do no evil” and Apple allow mobile app developers to watch not only where you go and what you do on your phone, but even see the numbers you dial.
Bearded Sikh Woman Teaches Reddit a Lesson in Tolerance.
Gini on Decency. We’ve all done this and now I feel badly (I just posted a photo of the back of some guy’s head because he was cutting me in line). Someone took a photo of a bearded woman standing in line at the airport and posted it to his Reddit page, where hundreds of people ridiculed her. When the woman found out, she acted with grace and charm, while teaching the users a lesson or six about her religion and beliefs.
There you have it. The very first edition of The Three Things. If there is anything you’d like to see us include or do differently, you know the drill. Comments, tweets, direct messages, emails, texts, pigeon carrier all work.
P.S. I know the image doesn’t really make sense, but the Three Amigos made me laugh. So there you have it.