HTB Leadership Conference

Are we living in a bubble?

Living in an online "filter bubble".... Over personalised filtering algorithms are the new gatekeepers of the Internet, they are creating a tailored online experience that isolates rather than shows the different viewpoints from a greater worldview.

 
Eli Pariser: Beware online "filter bubbles" | Video on TED.com

The Business of Media: A Survival Guide (Kindle Single)

The Business of Media: A Survival Guide by Larry Dignan

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This was my first Kindle Single ebook. It was a quick and informative read on the business of media and the future of publishing in the context of social media, mobile technology and devices.

"The reality to date: Distribution is king. In other words, Google is king. Apple is king. Amazon is king. Facebook will soon be king. Those companies are the gatekeepers and can control your fate."

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What Would Google Do?

What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I got some interesting insights from the way Google thinks, which are present not only in new kinds of business models, but in the way it is affecting our social interactions and other important aspects of our lives. Everyone should read this book to grasp the concepts that are shaping our information-oriented society. I couldn't recommend it highly enough.

My Highlights

Owning pipelines, people, products, or even intellectual property is no longer the key to success. Openness is.

Where some see a new world disorder, others see the opportunity to bring organization.

We no longer need companies, institutions, or government to organize us. We now have the tools to organize ourselves. We can find each other and coalesce around political causes or bad companies or talent or business or ideas.

This practically unlimited supply of advertisers in a fluid marketplace appears to be a new economic model that may insulate Google from some of the dynamics of an economy built on mass and scarcity. Google has its own economy.

When people can openly talk with, about, and around you, screwing them is no longer a valid business strategy. 

The problem with books is that we love them too much. We put books on a pedestal, treating them as the highest form of culture: objects of worship, sacrosanct and untouchable. A book is like a British accent—anything said in it sounds smarter, even if it’s not.

Ambient intimacy is good for friendship. “It helps us get to know people who would otherwise be just acquaintances. It makes us feel closer to people we care for but in whose lives we’re not able to participate as closely as we’d like.” And on a practical level, Reichelt said, “It also saves a lot of time when you finally do get to catch up with these people in real life!

OXFORD

It is well that there are palaces of peace
And discipline and dreaming and desire,
Lest we forget our heritage and cease
The Spirit's work-to hunger and aspire:

Lest we forget that we were born divine,
Now tangled in red battle's animal net,
Murder the work and lust the anodyne,
Pains of the beast 'gainst bestial solace set

But this shall never be: to us remains
One city that has nothing of the beast,
That was not built for gross, material gains,
Sharp, wolfish power or empire's glutted feast.

We are not wholly brute. To us remains
A clean, sweet city lulled by ancient streams,
A place of visions and of loosening chains,
A refuge of the elect, a tower of dreams.

She was not builded out of common stone
But out of all men's yearning and all prayer
That she might live, eternally our own,
The Spirit's stronghold-barred against despair.

----
Spirits in Bondage: A Cycle of Lyrics
C.S. Lewis