By Lindsay Bell-Wheeler
Welcome to the 43rd edition of The Three Things, the weekly update of three links, podcasts, videos, or books you can’t miss from Michael Schechter (Honora, A Better Mess), Howie Goldfarb (Blue Star Strategic Marketing), and yours truly, Lindsay Bell.
For those of you new to this series, The Three Things arrives in your inbox on Sunday mornings (unless you don’t subscribe, but that can easily be fixed if you hurry over and enter your email address or add to your RSS feed) so you have some extra time to spend perusing the obscure content we’ve curated for you (and one another) before your week begins and deadlines, meetings, and work takes over.
This week we look at marketing and the NSA, how easy it is to whitewash our lives, and whiny well-off white women.
Michael on Self-Censoring. One of the best things about the web is the ability to personalize your experience. You can pick which sites you visit, who you follow, and how you spend your time.
This gift can also be a curse.
If we allow ourselves, we never have to see a single thing we dislike or disagree with. Don’t like what someone said? Block them. Tired of hearing about a certain topic? Mute it. This is tempting, but it’s also dangerous. It leads to a web and a world where we can close ourselves off to reality.
Matt Alexander has touched on the risks a few times on his podcast Bionic, but I was glad to see him flesh his thoughts on his site. This is a quick read and is well well worth your time, especially if you tend to be heavy handed with the filters now available to you.
NSA Cites Case as Success of Phone Data-Collection Program
Howie on Social Media, Facebook Ads, and Social Influence. Marketing success is like the NSA. So much going on yet when asked to prove success instead of an overwhelming volume of proof, they tout the one or two random success stories.
The Opt Out Generation Wants Back In
Lindsay on Women and Work. Nine or so years ago, you couldn’t swing a cat without reading articles or seeing magazine covers expounding upon a massive sea-change in the working world: Women were *gasp* sacrificing it all – high paying jobs and prestige – to stay home with their children.
Well, apparently this highly-educated, mostly white, mostly married (to high-earning spouses), country club cohort has grown tired of volunteering at the kids’ private schools, overseeing “comfortable” renovations on their large, comfortable homes, and shuttling their broods to sporting events and summer camps.
I say broods because they all seem to have have three to four children – “How will we ever afford to put them all through college?”
They want back in, and can’t believe how much they’ve sacrificed. Complaining about a ‘less than’ job that only pays 100 grand a year? Cry. Me. A. River. Marriage breakdown because of the stress of these life choices? Get. In. Line. Clearly this is not ‘me’ at my most unbiased. This New York Times Magazine ‘follow-up’ article really got under my skin. I’m interested to hear your thoughts.
Now it’s your turn. Is there a podcast, video, book, or article you think we need to see?