Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 84

Ruth Gotian On Peak Business Performance – This Week’s Six Pixels of Separation Podcast

Episode #811 of Six Pixels of Separation is now live and ready for you to listen to.

Dr. Ruth Gotian is the Chief Learning Officer and Assistant Professor of Education in Anesthesiology and former Assistant Dean of Mentoring and Executive Director of the Mentoring Academy at Weill Cornell Medicine. She has been hailed by the journal Nature and Columbia University as an expert in mentoring and leadership development and is currently a contributor to Forbes and Psychology Today where she writes about optimizing success. She also has a weekly podcast by the same name, where she gathers high achievers to talk about their journey to success. In 2021, she was one of 30 people worldwide to be named to the Thinkers50 Radar List, dubbed the Oscars of management thinking and is a semi-finalist for the Forbes 50 Over 50 list. During her extensive career, she has personally coached and mentored thousands of people ranging from undergraduates to faculty members. As Assistant Dean for Mentoring she oversaw the success of nearly 1,800 faculty members at Weill Cornell Medicine. Currently, she researches the most successful people of our generation, including Nobel laureates, astronauts, CEOs and Olympic champions, in order to learn about their habits and practices so that we may optimize our own success. She is also the author of a brand new book titled, The Success Factor – Developing the Mindset and Skillset for Peak Performance. Enjoy the conversation…

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via Apple Podcast or whatever platform you may choose): Six Pixels of Separation #811.

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 #811 – Ruth Gotian On Peak Business Performance

Welcome to episode #811 of Six Pixels of Separation.

Here it is: Six Pixels of Separation – Episode #811 – Host: Mitch Joel. Dr. Ruth Gotian is the Chief Learning Officer and Assistant Professor of Education in Anesthesiology and former Assistant Dean of Mentoring and Executive Director of the Mentoring Academy at Weill Cornell Medicine. She has been hailed by the journal Nature and Columbia University as an expert in mentoring and leadership development and is currently a contributor to Forbes and Psychology Today where she writes about optimizing success. She also has a weekly podcast by the same name, where she gathers high achievers to talk about their journey to success. In 2021, she was one of 30 people worldwide to be named to the Thinkers50 Radar List, dubbed the Oscars of management thinking and is a semi-finalist for the Forbes 50 Over 50 list. During her extensive career, she has personally coached and mentored thousands of people ranging from undergraduates to faculty members. As Assistant Dean for Mentoring she oversaw the success of nearly 1,800 faculty members at Weill Cornell Medicine. Currently, she researches the most successful people of our generation, including Nobel laureates, astronauts, CEOs and Olympic champions, in order to learn about their habits and practices so that we may optimize our own success. She is also the author of a brand new book titled, The Success Factor – Developing the Mindset and Skillset for Peak Performance. Enjoy the conversation…

Running time: 52:22.Hello from beautiful Montreal.Subscribe over at Apple Podcasts.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 Dr. Ruth Gotian.The Success Factor – Developing the Mindset and Skillset for Peak Performance.Optimizing Success Podcast.Follow Ruth on Twitter.Follow Ruth on LinkedIn.This week’s music: David Usher ‘St. Lawrence River’.

Download the Podcast here: Six Pixels of Separation – Episode #811 – 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 #604

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: 

Rest of World. “Every morning I listen to NPR, the CBC, and the BBC for my news in an effort to diversify my information intake. Sometimes the stories are significantly different. But that’s still a filter bubble that excludes much of the planet. Turns out, there’s a site for that. As their About page says, ‘the term ‘rest of world’ is a symptom of a larger problem: a Western-centric worldview that leaves innumerable insights, opportunities and complexity out of the conversation.'” (Alistair for Hugh). Jodorowsky’s Dune . “Years ago, before Dune first hit the big screen with Sting and Kyle MacLachlan, there was an attempt to make it. There’s a fantastic documentary, Jodorowsky’s Dune, that chronicles the journey of this bizarre, impish, creative producer who wouldn’t take no for an answer. He got Mick Jagger and Salvador Dali on board. Some of the art informed Star Wars and Alien. There are only a few copies of the long, detailed storyboards he produced to convince backers to fund the project. Anyway, fast forward to 2022, and a bunch of crypto enthusiasts raised money to buy one of the copies at auction, having hilariously misunderstood the difference between copy and copyright. That’s not the point of my link, however. Rather, it’s thanks to this tempest in a Web3 teapot that I learned one of those rare books has been scanned, and is online. Mitch, I know you love comics. So here, in its entirety, is the art of legendary French comicbook artist Moebius, painstakingly detailing a Dune that never was.” (Alistair for Mitch). The first fairy stories were never intended for children – The Spectator . “Just about every culture has a Cinderella story of some kind; true of many other classic fairytales. Deep dive into the collective unconscious of the human mind and the stories we tell ourselves.” (Hugh for Alistair). Babies In Art – Emily Nussbaum – Twitter . “Art history grad student analyzes whether or not these renaissance painters have ever seen a baby, and rates their work in consequence.” (Hugh for Mitch). Why Are NFTs So Ugly? – Solar Sands – YouTube . “I had a friendly little back and forth this morning with my good friend (and Shopify boss), Harley Finkelstein, about NFTs, crypto, Web3 and whatever else we are lumping into this bucket of ‘next tech’. It’s hard to debate the value of art… or what art even means. Case in point: Comic books… seems silly to most, but extremely valuable to others (“expensive paper” is a way others have labelled comic books). Well what if NFTs are just ‘expensive pixels’.? In this video, you get a breakdown that will both answer many questions that you might have about NFTs, while opening the door to many more (it’s all quite subjective, isn’t it?). Is a pixelated photo in JPG format worth tens of thousands of dollars? That might be the wrong question. The right question just might be: What’s that NFT worth to the next buyer…” (Mitch for Alistair). The Oversimplified Superstring Hit Incubation Theory Of Podcasting – I Hear Things – Tom Webster . “Last week,I shared a link with you titled, Podcasting Hasn’t Produced A New Hit in Years – Bloomberg. I don’t think that the few sentences I wrote along with the link did it any justice. Thankfully, Tom Webster (of Edison Research who is widely regarded as the number one expert in digital audio and audience) wrote this extremely brilliant thought piece about it… and what it really means. Here’s just one of the many gems in this article: ‘… unlike the media I’ve listed above, podcasting is barely in its terrible teens. There are more people who don’t listen to podcasts regularly than do listen, so I am not willing to make any kind of blanket statement about what podcasting can or cannot do.’ In short, it’s still early days… a long road ahead and many of podcasting’s greatest hosts and shows have yet to be created.” (Mitch for Hugh).

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

Are you interested in what’s next? How to decode the future? I publish between 2-3 times per week and then the Six Pixels of Separation Podcast comes out every Sunday. Feel free to subscribe (and tell your friends): 

Martin Ford On The Rule Of The Robots – This Week’s Six Pixels of Separation Podcast

Episode #810 of Six Pixels of Separation is now live and ready for you to listen to.

Martin Ford is a futurist and the author of four books, including including his latest, Rule of the Robots – How Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Everything, the New York Times Bestselling Rise of the Robots, Architects of Intelligence, and The Lights in the Tunnel. He is also the founder of a Silicon Valley-based software development firm. His TED Talk on the impact of artificial intelligence and robotics on the economy and society, given on the main stage at the 2017 TED Conference (where I was in attendance), has been viewed over 3 million times. So, if you have been thinking about artificial intelligence, automation, and the future of (just about) everything, this is for you. Enjoy the conversation…

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via Apple Podcast or whatever platform you may choose): Six Pixels of Separation #810.

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 #810 – Martin Ford On The Rule Of The Robots

Welcome to episode #810 of Six Pixels of Separation.

Here it is: Six Pixels of Separation – Episode #810 – Host: Mitch Joel. Martin Ford is a futurist and the author of four books, including including his latest, Rule of the Robots – How Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Everything, the New York Times Bestselling Rise of the Robots, Architects of Intelligence, and The Lights in the Tunnel. He is also the founder of a Silicon Valley-based software development firm. His TED Talk on the impact of artificial intelligence and robotics on the economy and society, given on the main stage at the 2017 TED Conference (where I was in attendance), has been viewed over 3 million times. So, if you have been thinking about artificial intelligence, automation, and the future of (just about) everything, this is for you. Enjoy the conversation…

Running time: 53:54.Hello from beautiful Montreal.Subscribe over at Apple Podcasts.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 Martin Ford.Rule of the Robots – How Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Everything.Rise of the Robots.Architects of Intelligence.The Lights in the Tunnel.Follow Martin on Twitter.This week’s music: David Usher ‘St. Lawrence River’.

Download the Podcast here: Six Pixels of Separation – Episode #810 – 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 #603

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: 

The codes behind our warez – General Galactic Corporation. “Galactic makes web experiments. Founded by folks who’ve built and sold startups, including one of my absolute favorite humans, Harper Reed, they’ve dabbled with webcam tools, as well as NFTs. This isn’t an easy read, and it requires some facility with coding. It stretched parts of my brain I haven’t used in a decade. But it’s a clear, satisfying document that explains everything about creating digital things with physical attributes, and I now understand so much more about Blockchain, gas fees, and how to separate Web3 facts from Metaverse hype. Totally worth your time.” (Alistair for Hugh). The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant – Nick Bostrom . “This allegory by Nick Bostrom, who so eloquently warned us of the dangers of AI that blindly follows its programming at the cost of all else, poses a profound question: Do we have our priorities right as a society? I won’t spoil what the fable says we should be spending time on, but it’s worth considering, and could be used to frame many of the crises that we face, and the things we might do about them. Read it and think hard about whether we’ve organized humanity around the right problems.” (Alistair for Mitch). JR Digs – Longest Telemarketer Call – Patrick Coppolino – YouTube . “I’m not sure if this is painful or funny or what, but I couldn’t stop watching. Apparently this was a show on Canadian late night TV back in the early 2000s. The person on the other end of the phone has saintly tendencies… I don’t know how she did it.” (Hugh for Alistair). Gustave (crocodile) – Wikipedia . “Gustave the crocodile, who (maybe still) lives in the Ruzzi River in Burundi, is about 100 years old about 18 feet long, and weighs 2000 pounds. He has apparently killed and eaten 300 people.” (Hugh for Mitch). 70 newsletters curious minds are reading in 2022 – Estelle Metayer – LinkedIn . “I’ll need you to (please) put aside that I contributed to this article (I would never self-promote my own work in these links). During lockdown I got caught up in the Clubhouse hype. I enjoyed it for many (and previously documented) reasons. Beyond that, I met a handful of really great people. At the top of that list is Estelle Metayer. She also happens to run a room/conversation on Clubhouse called, Trends! And Weak Signals (which remains one of the only reasons I still have the app on my phone). In this article, she’s gathered some of her favorite newsletter sources for informations (and included lists from others as well). There’s much more great content out there… here’s a great place to get started…” (Mitch for Alistair). Podcasting Hasn’t Produced A New Hit in Years – Bloomberg . “File this under: I had not thought of that before! Has it been years since podcasting has produced a breakthrough media star or show? According to this article, it’s true. ‘There are more podcasts than ever before. Spotify hosts more than 3 million podcasts, up from a few hundred thousand just a few years ago. While the vast majority of those new shows are either defunct or have minuscule audiences, there are still way more podcasts than there were just a few years ago.The number of new podcasts has grown more quickly than the podcast audience, and so the number of listeners per show is going down. The list of shows competing to be that program you try on your weekend walk is longer than the backlog of TV shows you want to watch.’ What a weird new media problem: more creators than audience. Bizarre!” (Mitch for Hugh).

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

Are you interested in what’s next? How to decode the future? I publish between 2-3 times per week and then the Six Pixels of Separation Podcast comes out every Sunday. Feel free to subscribe (and tell your friends): 

The Power (And Silliness) Of Influencers

Your digital media catch-up is right here.

Every Tuesday – for just a few minutes – I join Heather Backman (my old buddy from her days on CHOM FM) on the air at Jack 103 (Rogers Sports & Media) to give a quick blast about the current state of technology, media and Internet culture. We’re calling the segment Tech Tuesday (and we do it in just a few minutes).

What is Tech Tuesday?

If you ever find yourself wondering… What, exactly, is the point of TikTok? How can I make myself look better on a Zoom? Reddit? What’s that about? How do I help my kids be safer online? Who’s the latest creator and streamer that I should be checking out?

You are not alone.

This is what Heather Backman and I discussed this morning over on Jack 103 FM for a couple of minutes:

Airlines Strand Passengers Who Partied on Flight Without Masks – The New York Times.

The news about the Quebec influencers who got caught partying on a plane to a sun destination has gone global (and viral). No masks, open bottles, vaping, and more. Everyone from Canada’s Prime Minister down to people like you and me have been shaking their fists and upset at this scene. Even the airlines, have been resistant to fly these influencers back. Another mess in messy times. Let’s discuss influencers. Are these people influencers? If they were influencers, how come we don’t know who any of these people are? I know the answer might be, because they are from Quebec (and mostly known in French Canada), but that doesn’t seem to be the case here (or is it)? So, do influencers matter? Do they have power? Should they be given special rights, like celebrities seem to have?

Are influencers celebrities… or people we should really care about?

App of the Week: Wordle – A daily word game that is taking the world by storm.

Once the segment goes live on Jack 103, I will post it here for you to listen in, learn, share and engage….

Mitch Joel · The Power (And Silliness) Of Influencers – Jack 103 FM – January 11th, 2022

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.

Dorie Clark On How To Play The Long Game – This Week’s Six Pixels of Separation Podcast

Episode #809 of Six Pixels of Separation is now live and ready for you to listen to.

One of the great pleasures of my professional career has been getting to know Dorie Clark and watching her ascent in the business world. Dorie has been named one of the Top 50 business thinkers in the world by Thinkers50, and was recognized as the #1 Communication Coach in the world by the Marshall Goldsmith Leading Global Coaches Awards. Dorie, a consultant and keynote speaker, teaches executive education at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and Columbia Business School, and she is the bestselling author of Entrepreneurial You, Reinventing You, Stand Out, and her new book, The Long Game – How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World. A former presidential campaign spokeswoman, Dorie has been described by the New York Times as an ‘expert at self-reinvention and helping others make changes in their lives.’ A frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, she consults and speaks for clients including Google, Microsoft, and the World Bank. Enjoy the conversation…

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via Apple Podcast or whatever platform you may choose): Six Pixels of Separation #809.

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 #809 – Dorie Clark On How To Play The Long Game

Welcome to episode #809 of Six Pixels of Separation.

Here it is: Six Pixels of Separation – Episode #809 – Host: Mitch Joel. One of the great pleasures of my professional career has been getting to know Dorie Clark and watching her ascent in the business world. Dorie has been named one of the Top 50 business thinkers in the world by Thinkers50, and was recognized as the #1 Communication Coach in the world by the Marshall Goldsmith Leading Global Coaches Awards. Dorie, a consultant and keynote speaker, teaches executive education at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and Columbia Business School, and she is the bestselling author of Entrepreneurial You, Reinventing You, Stand Out, and her new book, The Long Game – How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World. A former presidential campaign spokeswoman, Dorie has been described by the New York Times as an ‘expert at self-reinvention and helping others make changes in their lives.’ A frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, she consults and speaks for clients including Google, Microsoft, and the World Bank. Enjoy the conversation…

Running time: 54:03.Hello from beautiful Montreal.Subscribe over at Apple Podcasts.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 Dorie Clark.The Long Game – How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World.Entrepreneurial You.Reinventing You.Stand Out.Follow Dorie on Facebook.Follow Dorie on LinkedIn.Follow Dorie on Twitter.This week’s music: David Usher ‘St. Lawrence River’.

Download the Podcast here: Six Pixels of Separation – Episode #809 – 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 #602

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: 

Resilience and the Stockdale Paradox – SK Ventures. “Paul Kedrosky is one of the most observant investors I’ve met. He takes a long view of societal trends, and they inform his investment patterns. Here, he looks at some macroscopic trends: The retreat of globalism and the Balkanization of our society, and a desire for resilience now that the brittleness of our underlying systems has been laid bare. ‘… all of these ideas we’ve discussed here—energy, friction, relocations, financial mobility, and health, etc.—are linked. We think they are part of a much bigger meta-theme of resilience, of society finding new ways to adapt and even thrive in a more volatile world. The result will be a stronger society, one less easily buffeted by change, because those changes are an inevitability.’ It’s a good, if sobering, read.” (Alistair for Hugh). Decent Security . “Everyone’s going to get hacked. If that was true before, it’s even more so now, since we’re moving our money and assets into the digital realm and spending a third of our working lives online. But there are basic steps people can take to be less vulnerable, and this site (by an amazing security writer who keeps their identity online pseudonymous) is a clearly written resource free of jargon. Share it with everyone who doesn’t have a password manager (and read it yourself!).” (Alistair for Mitch). The Peking Battles Cape Horn by Irving Johnson – Archive.org . “Incredible footage filmed in 1929 of a voyage around Cape Horn of one of the last tall sailing ships, filmed by crew member, Irving Johnson, and narrated by him in 1980.” (Hugh for Alistair). Seven Day Forecast – Rick Mercer Report – YouTube . “It’s been relatively mild here in Montreal, but I’ve got a colleague in Edmonton where it’s been -30c for the past week. He passed along this video about the perfect cold winter 7-day weather report: -30s all week, but +1 on day 7.” (Hugh for Mitch).  It’s Time To Embrace Slow Productivity – The New Yorker . “Any talk of ‘productivity’ and ‘hacks’ for time or work optimization usually falls on deaf ears with me. I don’t want any part of it. I consider myself an adult, and I have certain strengths and weaknesses when it comes to my work. Work shaming myself won’t make it any better. Still, when Cal Newport talks, I listen (and read). Can you be productive and slow? I think you can… and here’s his argument about it. ‘The central goal of Slow Productivity is to keep an individual worker’s volume at a sustainable level. A natural fear is that by reducing the amount of work each employee tackles at any given time, it might reduce the total amount of work an organization is able to complete, making it less competitive. This fear is unfounded. As argued, when an individual’s work volume increases, so does the accompanying overhead and stress, reducing both the time remaining to actually execute the tasks and the quality of the results. If you instead enable the individual to work more sequentially, focussing on a small number of things at a time, waiting until she is done before bringing on new obligations, the rate at which she completes tasks might actually increase.’ Amen.” (Mitch for Alistair). The Great Offline – Real Life Magazine . “Is going offline the same as experiencing the wilderness, in today’s world? ‘As concepts, ‘wilderness’ and ‘the offline’ are deeply enmeshed. Both offer mythologies of ahistoricity and unaccountability, an escape clause from the dilemmas of a globalized world. They cloak themselves in the language of embodiment (the wind in your hair, the sand under your feet), while offering up the fantasy of moving through the world without a digital or ecological footprint, as a little wisp of pure soul. Together — in setting up a binaristic opposition between the corrupted, connected, digital self on the one hand, and the pure, wild, disconnected self on the other — they pose major obstacles to thinking through the complexity of human-technological-ecological relations.’ Here’s a long and beautiful piece all about what it truly means to take a break and get away from the screens and connectivity…” (Mitch for Hugh).

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

Are you interested in what’s next? How to decode the future? I publish between 2-3 times per week and then the Six Pixels of Separation Podcast comes out every Sunday. Feel free to subscribe