Welcome to the 56th edition of The Three Things, the weekly update of three links, podcasts, videos, or books you can’t miss – from Laura Petrolino, Joe Cardillo (Visual.ly), and yours truly.
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.
Today we explore interest and influence, how indescribably awesome San Francisco is, and – following on the heels of that – how there really ARE fantastic people in this world.
Joe on The Influentials Myth. One of our co-founders and I were talking recently about the difference between data driven and data informed, the latter which we both agreed is more important. It reminds me of how people like Malcolm Gladwell describe disruption as a special gift based on someone’s influence. In fact, I believe strongly (as Greg Satell argues in this piece) that the interest graphic is much stronger than the influence graph. The latter is a function of the former. We are defined by our interests, but it is our networks that give them reach.
Of course we don’t have artificial intelligence yet, so we can’t accurately pinpoint the relationship between interest and influence, but I suspect with time the interest graph will be proven stronger, and the reason for disruption. Now we just need Google to finish up whatever secret semantic web stuff they’ve been working on for the last decade…
Laura on Heroes. Congrats folks, today I’m bringing you the BEST story of the year. This holiday season when you are just about to reach your break point of fighting crowds, dealing with obnoxious store clerks and having screaming sticky fingered children wipe their noses on your pant leg, take a deep breath and remember bat kid. In order to fulfill the dream of Miles Scott, a five year old diagnosed with leukemia when he was 18 months, the city of San Francisco came together in amazing ways. Many people and organizations stepped out of their comfort zone to create a magical and amazing world for a child who has only known it through the eyes of illness.
To me this story represents our capacity as a society to support each other in amazing ways. To breakdown the silos we sometimes put around ourselves and extend our lives beyond our own egos and self focused daily activities. Sometimes we forget, sometimes we disconnect, sometimes we get so distracted by the stressors of live we ignore the fact that despite all of our differences we will always be connected as humans. And that really is where our power lies.
No doubt there is a lot of crud in our world, but I’m a firm believer that for every person out there that tries to tear the world down, there are five others doing their best to build it back up. Sometimes people just need a reason to come together and let the world see how awesome they can be. Bat Kid gave San Francisco that reason. He not only saved the city, he saved humanity.
These 20 Photos are Going to Make You Cry
Lindsay on Redemption. So, here’s the deal. Those of us who work in the digital marketing field, or let’s even say those of us who are “online” for a good part of our days – see a lot of hate. There’s often articles and news stories shared that exploit with shock and horror the evil that mankind can do to each other. Seriously – at least once a day I say “What the H**L is WRONG WITH PEOPLE!!??” It does get to be a bit much at times.
This week for me has been particularly rough. No big deal, just some extra stress. And some “I hate the world!” thoughts. Hey, I’m only human. And that’s why, when I stumbled upon this post – these incredible, heart lifting, human race-redeeming photos – I just knew I had to share. They may not make you cry. But they will make you smile.
And they will make you realize – wonders of wonders – that through all the guts and gore that we see each day – there are still amazing people out there in the world. Caring, thoughtful people. People who aren’t afraid to give back. And pay it forward. These pics definitely moved me. And I hope they bring a little bit of joy to your Sunday morning.
Now it’s your turn. Is there a book, podcast, article, TV show, blog post, or story we should read?
Thanks for these three, you three! Laura and Ell Bee, I could use the inspiration-thank you! About to delve in to the post Joe shared, but thought I’d leave this here. One of the many wonderful bits about my job is getting to meet so many smart and passionate people. A side conversation with Bruce Hiebert, arguably not at all about cases, lead me to the work of Alan Fiske. Quickly moving up the ranks to become “one of my favourite cultural anthropologists” *cough*, this introduction to the for types of relational models he identifies has been on my kindle and really made me think lately. I think you’d all enjoy it, and then we’d have more communal language! This is just the first place Bruce has sent me-I’ll be sure to share more of the amazing finds he send me way as I reach them.
http://bit.ly/I9obab
#batkid was great. Truly he did more for the world than the reverse.
I think a lot about how to break down divisions. What people often forget is that giving of yourself is a two way street. I practice both the tangible (like buying food for someone who is hungry) and the intangible (secret public art projects, teaching someone something) and they are what give me perspective on the rest of the work in my life, something I couldn’t live without.
#batkid was great. Truly he did more for the world than the reverse.
I think a lot about how to break down divisions. What people often forget is that giving of yourself is a two way street. I practice both the tangible (like buying food for someone who is hungry) and the intangible (secret public art projects, teaching someone something) and they are what give me perspective on the rest of the work in my life, something I couldn’t live without.
RebeccaTodd I bet that’s a long list…
RebeccaTodd ohh this looks great RAT! Will read soon!
JoeCardillo ahhh….perspective….yes….extending yourself beyond your own world to make that of another better. Because in order to really do so in a meaningful way, you must expand your perspective (now many try to do so without that crucial step, but that’s another story)
You know, I used to think that I needed to perform grand feats and amazing gestures of philanthropy to make a difference, but somewhere along the way I realized that in most cases divisions are broken down by the little ways we are able to connect with people every single day. And that’s such an exciting realization, but also a huge responsibility. When you realize that there are so many ways every day to make a positive difference it’s…well pretty amazing. And I’ll say the things I’m proudest of in life are those small moments I noticed and acted upon. It is so easy to be consumed by our own world that I think the harder part of the process is simply being aware of when those tiny moments are. That’s something I try to work on, because you are right, doing so gives a necessary perspective. That’s what I love about the batkid story too, it gave people an opportunity to see a moment and act upon it.
(and that’s my “Petrolino Philosophical Pondering (otherwise known as Pcubed)” of the day)
I love Lindsay’s article! And man we are a inspirational dynamic duo today! As I said to her earlier we are totally giving Tony Robbins a freaking run.for.his.money. WATCH OUT!
Ok, moving on. Joe, this is a totally great article. Belief and interest drives everything, it drives the influencers we not only seek out, but actually even allow ourselves to be aware of. We often tune out those who aren’t in line with that world because we don’t like to be threatened, we don’t like to feel doubt about what we believe to be true, or the validity of our interests. So the tips he provides are fantastic!
LauraPetrolino I really needed to see the positive of this mortal coil. Those pictures did it for me. 🙂 Oh. And BatKid.
JoeCardillo RebeccaTodd I *adore* Bruce. And his big smart brain.
JoeCardillo Joe, you’ve touched on something important here. How abso-frikken-GREAT one feels by just doing a small “pay it forward”. I love buying the guy next in line for me his coffee. Or doing something surprising for someone needy. It just makes one feel goos inside. No public kudos required. 🙂
belllindsay LauraPetrolino Yeah y’all just blew up the inspiration on this one = )
LauraPetrolino JoeCardillo Amen. The little things build up… goes for being good and getting better, and the opposite, too
belllindsay JoeCardillo You know what’s amazing? It just makes the world suck less for everyone. How cool is that. Certainly good enough to be on my headstone some day..
JoeCardillo “Here lies Joseph P Cardillo: He made the world suck less. For everyone.”
JoeCardillo “Here lies Joseph P Cardillo: He made the world suck less. For everyone.”
belllindsay JoeCardillo RebeccaTodd LauraPetrolino I love that these comments are you three + RAT! Booking my trip to VanCity to meet Bruce in person! Be totally jealous. Or totes jelly- your choice.
Hi guys Sorry I missed my usual Sunday tradition of reading The Three Things (and ALWAYS contributing something because it’s my solemn commitment to @ginidietrich to do so …). My mother in law passed away at 4 a.m. Saturday morning from an unexpected health crisis so I have been completely (mostly at least) involved in everything that resulted from that. She became blind in 1985 after a hard charging life/career as a mother of six and a supervisory nurse. I never know her when she was sighted, and I believe I had the benefit of the mellowness she achieved after some hard life lessons — and I got the very best part of the deal. Being with a blind person so often teaches a lot of lessons …. but as her priest said, “I never saw her as disabled.” It was true. For that reason, I’ll share Amanda Sullivan’s story. She is pretty darn incredible and shares her lessons beautifully, such as: ” if I start learning lessons every day, even if it’s a bad day, then I am blessed” here’s a post of hers…. http://blog.spartanrace.com/overcoming-obstacles-amanda-sullivan/
biggreenpen ginidietrich That’s an amazing story. I was just telling someone yesterday that I am constantly surprised (and truthfully, confused) by the resiliency of the human spirit. It just makes no sense that people can surmount some of the things they do. When I think about all of the work I do it comes from that same place. That is the intensity of the human condition & spirit that drives a company, endeavor, and life of consequence.
biggreenpen ginidietrich And in a business setting, I like to think of this as scaling the high-five feeling (I’m not sure he uses the same phrase, but I would be remiss if I didn’t credit DJ Waldow with helping me think of that idea).