The Sunday Diigo Links Post (weekly)

• YouTube – Seth Godin: Sliced bread and other marketing delights

  Still one of the best talks on …well, sliced bread and all it has spawned.

  Also by Seth Godin, What makes an idea viral?, a short, thought-provoking post.

  tags: seth_godin, marketing, ted_conference

• High population density triggers cultural explosions

  Report on a new study by University College London that high population densities enable cultural & technical innovation. This directly results in modern human behavior, by which the authors mean “a radical jump in technological and cultural complexity,” including “symbolic behavior” (abstract & realistic art, body decoration, etc.; music, and other technical innovations). The study aims to explain why advanced behavior and technology only begin to “explode” around 45,000 years ago – even though humans had been around for 160,000 to 200,000 years.

  “Ironically, our finding that successful innovation depends less on how smart you are than how connected you are seems as relevant today as it was 90,000 years ago.”

  tags: urbanization, urban_development, urban_energy, cities, population, density

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.