Back to work, this week has been one full of excitement and news. Amid all the buzz, it is fairly easy to miss out on some of the best (and contrarian) writing that was published over the past few days. Here are  a few stories and a video for you guys to read.

• Coming back to work after vacation without chaos and stress. Well, what if you worked all summer? 🙂
• Do you need a work detox? Heather Mills on why we are in control of our own destiny, especially how we work and live. Powerful essay by this former lawyer.
• The emerging global mind: Tiffany Shlain, a well known for her involvement with the Webby Awards writes about how internet-dependence is changing us and how we interact with our world. It is a delightful essay.
• Social Media, pretend friends and the lie of false intimacy. The title says it all.
• Eight false promises of the Internet.
• Dan Ramsden just might be my favorite writer right now. Even if his words are heavy, he has me nodding. Like in this piece: Growth is not actually change and speed is not actually  innovation.
• Sharing behavior is pretty much the same on most social networks–be it the new (Twitter), recent (instant messaging) or old (e-mail.)
• The plane truth. Why boarding by rows is just stupid.
• The art of the note. In the light of the U.S. Postal Service’s well chronicled troubles, my former boss David Churbuck pens an ode to the hand-written note and why it holds a lot more meaning in these digital times.
• Duncan Davidson has had enough of the Burning Man festival. Why? It has something to do with cameras and photos.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff in conversation with Google Chairman Eric Schmidt.

P.S. I wonder if you have any suggestions/hacks that would allow readers to essentially click a button and get all these articles automatically saved to their Evernote, Instapaper or Readability accounts. If you have thoughts, please leave them in the comments or e-mail me.