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The Three Things, Edition 56
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?
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