Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 118

SPOS #734 – Marcus Whitney On Creative Entrepreneurship

Welcome to episode #734 of Six Pixels of Separation.

Here it is: Six Pixels of Separation – Episode #734 – Host: Mitch Joel. Years back, we had unconferences. Gatherings of interesting people who would make up the contents of the conference on the spot. You could speak, contribute, whatever… as you wish. BarCamp Nashville invited me to come and take part back in 2007 (thanks, Dave Delaney). That’s where I first met Marcus Whitney, who was one of the organizers. Watching his ascent over the years has not been surprising to me. I could sense his work ethic and desire for success when we first met. Marcus is now CEO of Health:Further (a strategic advisory firm in the healthcare space). He’s also a Founding Partner of Jumpstart Health Investors (one of the most active venture capital firms in America focused on innovative, healthcare companies with a portfolio of over 100 companies). Want more? He’s also co-founder and minority owner of Major League Soccer team, Nashville Soccer Club. His brand new book, Create and Orchestrate, is about claiming your creative power through entrepreneurship. Marcus is also the producer and host of Marcus Whitney Live, a livestream interview show, and Marcus Whitney’s Audio Universe (his podcast). Marcus is a member of the board of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corporation, Instruction Partners and an Arts Commissioner for the city of Nashville. Not inspired at work these days? Try this episode. Enjoy the conversation…

Running time: 1:05:45.
Hello from beautiful Montreal.
Subscribe over at iTunes.
Please visit and leave comments on the blog – Six Pixels of Separation.
Feel free to connect to me directly on Facebook here: Mitch Joel on Facebook.
or you can connect on LinkedIn.
…or on Twitter.
Here is my conversation with Marcus Whitney.
Create and Orchestrate.
Marcus Whitney Live.
Marcus Whitney’s Audio Universe.
Health:Further.
Jumpstart Health Investors.
Follow Marcus on Instagram.
Follow Marcus on Twitter.
This week’s music: David Usher ‘St. Lawrence River’.

Download the Podcast here: Six Pixels of Separation – Episode #734 – Host: Mitch Joel.

Before you go… if you enjoyed this, please subscribe (all new content arrives in your inbox). It’s easy, it’s free and it’s right here.

Six Links Worthy of Your Attention #527

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, Interesting Bits, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, FWD50, and Scaletechconf; author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (Rebus Foundation, PressBooks, LibriVox) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person “must see.”

Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another: 

Technology Panic – BBC . “Everyone freak out! 2020 is the worst year ever! Well, maybe. But this amazing infographic from the BBC puts our current times in perspective.” (Alistair for Hugh).
Amazing Military Infographics – Paul Ford – Medium . “There are many reasons to mistrust the military-industrial complex. But it looks like their mad PowerPoint skills isn’t one of those reasons. Mitch, I know you’re always looking for clipart.” (Alistair for Mitch).
Work begins in France to recreate process that powers the Sun – France 24 . “What’s hot? Nuclear fusion, powers the sun, tiny amounts of fuel, safe, clean, carbon free. What’s not: Nuclear fission, creates lots of radioactive waste we don’t know what to do with, occasionally results in reactor meltdowns. Problem: so far, humans have built systems that takes more electrical energy in than energy you get out. Which defeats the purpose. Maybe this big project will overcome those obstacles?” (Hugh for Alistair).
Climate crisis: Offshore wind power ‘so cheap it could return money to consumers’ – Independent . “UK companies are now building offshore wind turbines with 220 meter rotor diametres, driving electricity prices down, 30% lower than 2 years ago, and 66% lower than 5 years ago.” (Hugh for Mitch). 
How Harvard’s Star Computer Science Professor Built A Distance Learning Empire – The New Yorker . “This was brought to my attention by Dorie Clark and is a worthwhile share. We often discuss what the future of education will look like. Now, as we sit in this pandemic, the question and the outcomes have been accelerated as many post-secondary student will not be spending much time on campus (maybe? We shall see?). This is an exemplary example of what can make school (at a distance) exciting, refreshing and different. I mean, if your teacher is giving out t-shirts and stressballs, and turning his program into a massive business, it bears paying attention to. Is the future of education the rock star-ification of professors and courses to keep the momentum and energy high? It just might be…” (Mitch for Alistair).
The pandemic is giving people vivid, unusual dreams. Here’s why. – National Geographic . “My dreams. Oh, my dreams. Here’s my current situation (and it happens nightly): My dreams are my life before the pandemic. I am running around major, bustling, cities, traveling, shopping, in meetings, speaking on stages, and whatever else used to be my life and work. When I wake up, I am now working from home, no speaking gigs, some Zoom meetings, everyone is wearing masks, keeping their distance, apprehensive about going for a socially-distanced coffee and walk. We wait in lines for provisions. In short, my reality is a dystopian dream and my dreams are what my life was. How’s that for strange? Here’s why…” (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.

Tom Peters Gives A Masterclass In Business Thinking – This Week’s Six Pixels of Separation Podcast

Episode #733 of Six Pixels of Separation is now live and ready for you to listen to.

When I think of Tom Peters, there is only one word that comes to mind: Legend. He is that. He is the “man on the mountaintop” for me, personally (and for many others) when it comes to business, business book writing, public speaking, personal branding, and how to show up. If you want to know how much his work and thinking has impacted my life, you can click back about eight years to when I wrote a very public love letter to him (here it is: Dear Tom Peters). From the moment I first read The Project 50 – close to twenty years ago – to every book, program and article that he’s put out, I have been a fan. To say that I studied his public speaking style and adopted it for my own would not be a lie. We last connected for a podcast recording about two years ago, as he was publishing his last book, The Excellence Dividend. When I think about the current state of business, my default question is always: WWTPT? (What Would Tom Peters Think?). Now, we get the chance to ask those questions and listen to his reflections on business today… and tomorrow. A bio for Tom Peters? Where to begin? In 1982 he co-authored the seminal business book, In Search Of Excellence, which has been named one of the top three business books of the century by NPR. For my dollar, he’s changed almost everything I thought I knew about business through a series of books called The Reinventing Work Series 50 List Books. In 2003, I devoured Re-Imagine! Business Excellence In A Disruptive Age, and it still sits within arm’s reach on my desk (one of the only books to do so). In 1987 he wrote the article, The Brand Called You, in Fast Company and it – literally – ushered in the era of individuals as brands (so, don’t believe those who think that they created the notion of a personal brand… it was Tom). His list of accolades and awards could fill a book. Enjoy the conversation…

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation #733.

Before you go… if you enjoyed this, please subscribe (all new content arrives in your inbox). It’s easy, it’s free and it’s right here.

SPOS #733 – Tom Peters Gives A Masterclass In Business Thinking

Welcome to episode #733 of Six Pixels of Separation.

Here it is: Six Pixels of Separation – Episode #733 – Host: Mitch Joel. When I think of Tom Peters, there is only one word that comes to mind: Legend. He is that. He is the “man on the mountaintop” for me, personally (and for many others) when it comes to business, business book writing, public speaking, personal branding, and how to show up. If you want to know how much his work and thinking has impacted my life, you can click back about eight years to when I wrote a very public love letter to him (here it is: Dear Tom Peters). From the moment I first read The Project 50 – close to twenty years ago – to every book, program and article that he’s put out, I have been a fan. To say that I studied his public speaking style and adopted it for my own would not be a lie. We last connected for a podcast recording about two years ago, as he was publishing his last book, The Excellence Dividend. When I think about the current state of business, my default question is always: WWTPT? (What Would Tom Peters Think?). Now, we get the chance to ask those questions and listen to his reflections on business today… and tomorrow. A bio for Tom Peters? Where to begin? In 1982 he co-authored the seminal business book, In Search Of Excellence, which has been named one of the top three business books of the century by NPR. For my dollar, he’s changed almost everything I thought I knew about business through a series of books called The Reinventing Work Series 50 List Books. In 2003, I devoured Re-Imagine! Business Excellence In A Disruptive Age, and it still sits within arm’s reach on my desk (one of the only books to do so). In 1987 he wrote the article, The Brand Called You, in Fast Company and it – literally – ushered in the era of individuals as brands (so, don’t believe those who think that they created the notion of a personal brand… it was Tom). His list of accolades and awards could fill a book. Enjoy the conversation…

Running time: 1:07:35.
Hello from beautiful Montreal.
Subscribe over at iTunes.
Please visit and leave comments on the blog – Six Pixels of Separation.
Feel free to connect to me directly on Facebook here: Mitch Joel on Facebook.
or you can connect on LinkedIn.
…or on Twitter.
Here is my conversation with Tom Peters.
The Excellence Dividend.
In Search Of Excellence.
Re-Imagine! Business Excellence In A Disruptive Age.
The Reinventing Work Series 50 List Books.
The Brand Called You.
Follow Tom on Twitter.
This week’s music: David Usher ‘St. Lawrence River’.

Download the Podcast here: Six Pixels of Separation – Episode #733 – Host: Mitch Joel.

Before you go… if you enjoyed this, please subscribe (all new content arrives in your inbox). It’s easy, it’s free and it’s right here.

Six Links Worthy of Your Attention #526

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, Interesting Bits, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, FWD50, and Scaletechconf; author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (Rebus Foundation, PressBooks, LibriVox) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person “must see.”

Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another: 

iNNk: A Multi-Player Game to Deceive a Neural Network – PXL Lab – Vimeo . “Here’s one in which two human players try to pass secret messages to one another by drawing cryptic clues, while an algorithm in the middle tries to intercept them. The ethical and societal consequences of GPT-3 and its successors—good and dreadful—are astonishing.” (Alistair for Hugh).
Conversations with GPT-3 – Kirk Ouimet – Medium . “We will look back at July, 2020, as the moment something fundamentally changed in our relationship with machines. The release of an AI tool called GPT-3, trained on the contents of the Internet and able to produce seemingly rational responses, is a huge milestone. In the early days of computing, the human had to learn to ‘speak computer,’ writing software in binary, then assembly, and then low-level programming languages. While traditional coding tools have gotten much easier—languages like Python, and so-called ‘codeless’ creation services—they’re still coding. But training an AI is different. Rather than write code that produces data, you feed an AI data and it produces code (called models). By choosing the right prompts, and adjusting the parameters of the model, you can get surprising results. The best coders of tomorrow are those who write the best prompts. The company behind GPT-3 (which was announced in May) gave access to a few developers, who spent sleepless nights dreaming up astonishing ways to use it. Every two hours, some new, mind-blowing application—from translation, to joke-telling, to quiz-making, to search engines, to narrative role-playing games—hit Twitter. I had a hard time picking one, but I settled on this: A series of conversations with an app built on GPT-3 called, Wise Being. Remember, this is an algorithm trained on us. It’s like talking to our collective brain.” (Alistair for Mitch).
How one couple has lived for 29 years on an island they built themselves – CNN . “Wouldn’t you like to get away from it all? How about building your own million pound, self-sufficient island, and floating in a cove off of the coast of British Columbia.” (Hugh for Alistair).
Dad Photoshops Kids’ Drawings As If They Were Real, And It’s Terrifyingly Funny – Bored Panda . “We often think of children as living in a universe of wonder and joy, but it turns out the world they inhabit is a nightmarish version of our own. Be afraid.” (Hugh for Mitch).
Global quieting of high-frequency seismic noise due to COVID-19 pandemic lockdown measures – Science . “It’s been pretty quiet out there lately, hasn’t it? That’s not just a statement about our stay-at-home tendencies in this pandemic-riddled environment that we’re all trying to deal with. The actual earth has gone silent… like never before. Check this out: ‘Human activity causes vibrations that propagate into the ground as high-frequency seismic waves. Measures to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread changes in human activity, leading to a months-long reduction in seismic noise of up to 50%. The 2020 seismic noise quiet period is the longest and most prominent global anthropogenic seismic noise reduction on record.’ How weird, cool and strange is that? The quiet of the earth…” (Mitch for Alistair).
Primary Sources – The Public Domain Review . “What are we attracted to? When it comes to art? When it comes to clothes? When it comes to our physical environment? When it comes to just about anything? It turns out that the color of things drives appeal in a way that we humans will often ignore (or forget). Come with me on this journey through a natural history of the artist’s palette, and the space where color helps us appreciate and connect to almost everything. This is one big and fascinating read…” (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.

iNNk: A Multi-Player Game to Deceive a Neural Network from PXL Lab on Vimeo.

Viral Cake Memes And More On CHOM 97.7 FM

Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am on air at CHOM 97.7 FM radio out of Montreal (home base). It’s not a long segment – about 10 minutes every week – to decode the future. We discuss everything that is happening in the world of technology, digital media and culture. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly on i Heart Radio, if you’re interested in hearing more about what’s happening in the transformation of our digital world. I’m really excited about these weekly hits, because this is the radio station that I grew up listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry DiMonte morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed:

Does the idea of a personal pod seems a little kooky? No more. Face masks, face shields and now… personal pods. Maybe you’ve seen the Facebook ads? While this seems absurd at first blush, the more it sits with you, the more you realize that inventions like this find a massive audience and business online. No need to wait for Shark Tank to decide if this is a good idea or not, or wait and hope that Walmart might carry it. Currently they are sold out.
Why is a video of someone slicing up a pickle so viral online? That’s not a pickle… that’s a cake! Hyper-realistic cakes are all the rage online right now. BuzzFeed‘s food site, Tasty, shared a compilation video of these wild looking cakes (that don’t look like cakes at all), and now… well… as everyone moves on from baking bread, they are trying to figure out not just how to bake something that looks like an iPhone, but then generate millions of views to watch it get sliced. Cake memes! Yummy! 
How do we shop in a pandemic-ridden world? Amazon may change that with Dash Cart. The cart uses cameras, computer vision, weight sensors, and a touchscreen interface. Using the cart, shoppers can check-out without any cashier or credit card. Totally contactless for the Covid 19 era. The carts will only be for their Amazon grocery stores for now, but I can imagine that the technology will soon be shared with Whole Foods (which Amazon owns), and then sold to other stores.
App of the Week: Anonymous Camera – the easiest way to anonymize people in photos and videos.

You can also listen in via I Heart Radio.

Mitch Joel · CTRL ALT Delete – CHOM FM – July 20th, 2020

Avinash Kaushik On Better Tech And Marketing – This Week’s Six Pixels of Separation Podcast

Episode #732 of Six Pixels of Separation is now live and ready for you to listen to.

The one person I think of when the state of marketing and technology shifts is Avinash Kaushik. Google‘s Digital Marketing Evangelist, bestselling author (Web Analytics – An Hour A Day and Web Analytics 2.0), powerful writer (Occam’s Razor), dear friend and business big brain is back with more passion, empathy and criticism than you might be ready for. Each article he writes for his amazing newsletter, The Marketing-Analytics Intersect (you better sign up for it), may as well be a business book unto itself. His insights into what should really count today for business leaders is refreshing. He’s got attitude, is full of passion, and he does not hold back. What is the role of technology in society? What does the data say about our politics and who we are? How do we fix the tech backlash? And that’s just the beginning. Enjoy the conversation…

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation #732.

Before you go… if you enjoyed this, please subscribe (all new content arrives in your inbox). It’s easy, it’s free and it’s right here.

SPOS #732 – Avinash Kaushik On Better Tech And Marketing

Welcome to episode #732 of Six Pixels of Separation.

Here it is: Six Pixels of Separation – Episode #732 – Host: Mitch Joel. The one person I think of when the state of marketing and technology shifts is Avinash Kaushik. Google‘s Digital Marketing Evangelist, bestselling author (Web Analytics – An Hour A Day and Web Analytics 2.0), powerful writer (Occam’s Razor), dear friend and business big brain is back with more passion, empathy and criticism than you might be ready for. Each article he writes for his amazing newsletter, The Marketing-Analytics Intersect (you better sign up for it), may as well be a business book unto itself. His insights into what should really count today for business leaders is refreshing. He’s got attitude, is full of passion, and he does not hold back. What is the role of technology in society? What does the data say about our politics and who we are? How do we fix the tech backlash? And that’s just the beginning. Enjoy the conversation…

Running time: 57:00.
Hello from beautiful Montreal.
Subscribe over at iTunes.
Please visit and leave comments on the blog – Six Pixels of Separation.
Feel free to connect to me directly on Facebook here: Mitch Joel on Facebook.
or you can connect on LinkedIn.
…or on Twitter.
Here is my conversation with Avinash Kaushik.
The Marketing-Analytics Intersect.
Web Analytics – An Hour A Day.
Web Analytics 2.0.
Occam’s Razor.
Follow Avinash on Instagram.
Follow Avinash on Twitter.
This week’s music: David Usher ‘St. Lawrence River’.

Download the Podcast here: Six Pixels of Separation – Episode #732 – Host: Mitch Joel.

Before you go… if you enjoyed this, please subscribe (all new content arrives in your inbox). It’s easy, it’s free and it’s right here.

Six Links Worthy of Your Attention #525

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, Interesting Bits, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, FWD50, and Scaletechconf; author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (Rebus Foundation, PressBooks, LibriVox) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person “must see.”

Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another: 

Atlas of Surveillance – Electronic Frontier Foundation . “Of all the things the EFF has done, this may be the largest in scope. A detailed, interactive website detailing surveillance tech deployed by UE police (for example, Florida has an astonishing number of facial recognition systems compared to elsewhere). If you wonder who’s watching the watchers, wonder no more.” (Alistair for Hugh).
Are Business Models Changing Our Relationships? – Jen van der Meer – Substack . “Jen Van Der Meer has spent much of her business life studying design and business models. This is a fascinating reflection on the topic: If as McLuhan said, the medium is the message, then in capitalist democracies the business model is the behavior. Worth a thought as we try to heal some of our ills and make a fractured society whole.” (Alistair for Mitch). 
Building the Perfect Squirrel Proof Bird Feeder – Mark Rober – YouTube . “Former NASA engineer builds an obstacle course to find out how skilled/smart squirrels are. Turns out pretty darned smart.” (Hugh for Alistair). 
YouTube’s Psychic Wounds – Columbia Journalism Review . “Nicholson Baker articles about technology are always great to find. This one on YouTube is a darker article for these darker times.” (Hugh for Mitch).
How Remote Work Could Destroy Silicon Valley – Steve LeVine – Marker – Medium . “It’s been fascinating to follow the discourse on how we’re all adapting to work from home, working without our peers, and what work might look like if we can ever dig ourselves out from under this pandemic. The quick truth is that we don’t know much about anything just yet. Locally, they want to open up offices at 25% capacity, but what does that mean? No access to common areas (so, no kitchen-area, etc…), hallways will be for one direction of walking only, and other ways to – essentially – ensure that humans have a little contact with one another as possible. I’ve been in situations like this over the past few months, and they are not social, they are weird, and they create a challenge for real interactions. I don’t think that this article is just about Silicon Valley. We are facing a stark world for business, if we’re forced to not interact with our peers and our customers in a very human and experiential way.” (Mitch for Alistair).
How objectivity in journalism became a matter of opinion – The Economist . “As blogging took hold – well over a decade ago – I was writing (furiously) about my general concerns that opinions can look exactly like facts and vice-versa. That the only path forward was a major step-up in how we educate the masses about the media. It didn’t happen at scale, but there has been more and more media literacy making its way into both formal curriculums and in the general public. It’s not enough. If you don’t believe me, here are two words for you: fake news. Pushing beyond that, any journalism that I see tends to have more opinion sprinkled into the facts that make me question the journalist’s and the publication’s real objectivity. So, how do we deal with a news cycle that is more opinion than fact?” (Mitch for Hugh). 

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.

Walmart’s Battle For Amazon’s Success And More On CHOM 97.7 FM

Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am on air at CHOM 97.7 FM radio out of Montreal (home base). It’s not a long segment – about 10 minutes every week – to decode the future. We discuss everything that is happening in the world of technology, digital media and culture. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly on i Heart Radio, if you’re interested in hearing more about what’s happening in the transformation of our digital world. I’m really excited about these weekly hits, because this is the radio station that I grew up listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry DiMonte morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed:

Tired of the view from your home? We can’t (really) travel, so who doesn’t want a change of scenery? Try Window Swap. All you do is click a button, and you’ll get the view from someone’s window… somewhere in the world. It’s quite soothing (and addictive). And, yes, you’re invited to submit your own window view as well. 
The battle for your ecommerce dollars is happening right now. From the massive growth of Canada’s own, Shopify, to Amazon‘s amazing sales during the pandemic (Jeff Bezos made over $35 billion this year alone). Walmart wants more of this. Their Amazon Prime competitor, Walmart+, will launch in July. It will cost $98 a year and include same-day delivery for groceries, fuel discounts, and there are rumors of a Prime-like content streaming service too (but that is still not confirmed). Would you pay for Walmart+?
Want to make your Zoom calls more entertaining? Your business presentations more engaging? Mmhmm is coming to make your video conferences  look more like a newscast or SNL weekend update. It’s a virtual camera that allows you to present in a more interesting way. It’s the product of Phil Libin (who created and ran Evernote). The demo video looks compelling.
App of the Week: CleanMyMac X. An all-in-one package to clean out junk, delete old files and make your computer run faster (almost like new).

You can also listen in via I Heart Radio.

Mitch Joel · CTRL Alt Delete – CHOM FM – July13th, 2020