Cherry 

Best of the past week

Hi ! I've had a pretty exciting week trying out a few things I'd never done before. In particular, my friends Conor (of The Fella Photography fame - check out his pics, they're gorgeous) and James had invited me to join and try out the class of Urban Krav Maga self defence they go to a while back and I took them on their offer. Here's a video if you'd like to get a sense of it.It was an excellent experience as well as a great workout. I remembered that when I was about 8 years old or so, I went to a few judo classes to try as an after school activity and I hated it. I really made a some decision like I didn't want to hurt anyone, or be hurt and since then never tried any martial arts.I avoided any kind of physical confrontation (not that it's necessarily a bad thing - just interesting to notice). I also shied away from many other physical activities as time went on, as well as generally expressing anger  and avoided confrontation altogether. A consequence is a lot of anger gets bottled up while I'm acting relaxed on the outside. Overall it's also kind of silly that I do my best to ignore my body even though I'm a fairly tall guy, I don't have any reason not to use it as well as my mind. Confronting all kinds of fears during the class was great.It was fun to notice how surprised I was when the instructor told me I was doing the moves right. I'm so used to thinking I'm awkward (and most times I'm not really). My friend James choked me pretty strong in the first exercise and I felt pain for a few days afterwards. I actually kind of enjoyed the experience. I think I'll go again.On a completely different topic, my favourite thing this week I recommend checking out is this short film created by 2 Pixar animators who did it mostly on their own time. It looks beautiful, it's about 6 minutes long, It's pretty powerful and emotional: Borrowed Time.

 Sprinkles What's the GIF? 

Whipped Cream

In the news

I'm ridiculously bored of the U.S. elections. Sure I'm still reading articles - they're unavoidable. Except here and now. No links to U.S. elections news and scandals today.That said it still feels appropriate to write a little bit more about anger, instead of actual news.As mentioned in the previous section I got angry this week. and I'm still furious - not overall: I'm angry with someone and with myself about specific incident in which I felt played and taken for a ride. I know intellectually that while important the whole thing is not a huge deal and I'll get over it - I mostly already am actually. But another hand I realise how much I hate feeling like a fool and how much I hate not knowing or understanding what's going on - not that you or anyone else loves those things, I'm sure you can relate. I'm so used to being friendly and understanding; It's interesting to notice unfamiliar territory for me and be angry for a change - while also wondering about balance, like between the value of expressing these strong feelings and acceptance. Is anger valuable when it's justified and when do you know it's time to give it up and calm down, accept the situation as is? I'm certainly a far way off from anger overtaking though I know ultimately the one who'll suffer from too much anger is me.That last point might be worth pondering if you're angry about any current news by the way. I'm sure there are opportunities to convert that angry energy into some other valuable something. I've been doing some exercising and meditation, we'll see about more interesting projects and larger fish to fry soon enough.

Caramel Fudge

What's sticky in the communications industry?

Let's start with the good news! My ex-colleague from years ago at iris, Rob, was recently appointed Innovation Director at BWP Group in London - while I haven't seen Rob in a while he's an awesome talented dude and I'm sure he'll kick some butt in the role, congratulations!Next we have some great albeit somewhat depressing questions asked by Martin Weigel on his blog. Martin heads the planning and strategy function at W+K in Amsterdam, a famous advertising agency. I've never met him though judging by his posts he's super smart and a big reference in the industry - or for me he is anyway. I agree with him when he asks: "When will the flight to quality begin? When will we embrace intensity again?"Luckily there might be an embryo of an answer to Martin's questions in the latest production of rising creative shop Harmon Brothers (of Squatty Potty fame) based in Utah with their latest video for Chatbooks - also a cool idea of a startup by the way. I thought the ad was lots of fun, entertaining and based on a great piece of insight for many parents - how busy they cam be with family / children / life yet would love some physical photo albums. Some people said it was long. Sure, though I believe it's created for an audience scrolling their Facebook timeline: viewers can get the idea of the video or product in a short amount of time and don't actually need to watch the whole thing. Of course if they enjoy, they can. I don't know if that's what they actually had in mind though it wouldn't surprise me.As I looked into it I found out Utah is a bit of a rising creative and tech hub too, nicknamed Silicon Slopes for the renown ski resorts of the Wasatch Mountains near Salt Lake City. Check out this article about it, worth a read. 

Chocolate

What's going on in gaming?

I'm selfishly and shamelessly promote my podcast!Given I'm catching up with my publishing schedule I've published two episodes this week:First, an excellent conversation with Jeremy aka Kalum, host of The Rolistes tabletop gaming podcast based in London. He's also an urban planner and architect, we had a great conversation about that, gaming and podcasting.And secondly another excellent conversation I had with Brian Feister, game / web designer and programmer. He's the author of the Open Legend, an open source tabletop roleplaying game system (currently on Kickstarter for a lovely looking hardback version of the book and smashing his funding goals). The episode blends marketing, design and gaming, it's worth checking out whatever your interests are!

Vanilla

What else is interesting this week?

I'll finish this week with a couple of reads I caught up on.This essay about the stupidity present in corporate culture: "Stupified" is as excellent as it is possibly depressing.Some choice quotes:"Smart young things joining the workforce soon discover that, although they have been selected for their intelligence, they are not expected to use it. [...] After a few years of experience, they will find that the people who get ahead are the stellar practitioners of corporate mindlessness.""At least $14 billion gets spent every year on leadership development in the US alone yet, according to researchers such as Jeffrey Pfeffer at Stanford, it has virtually no impact on improving the quality of leaders. "So yeah...To balance or react to that, check out "The Complete Guide to No Giving a Fuck". Rather than some kind of nihilist handbook it's actually pretty inspiring. With all the new and never done before things I'm up to these days, I could relate to quite a few points."FACT NUMBER 4. Those who don’t give a fuck change the world. The rest do not." And to finish with some perspective, the always excellent Rob Campbell shared the trailer to this documentary on his blog, it looks amazing and I can't wait to watch it: Finders Keepers. The story of a guy who buys a second hand BBQ smoker, finds a human leg in it - and apparently the story of the man whom the leg originally belonged to. If you're familiar with the amazing King of Kong documentary, it's the same producers.That's it for this week folks! Share with friends if you enjoyed it to recommend the newsletter to others!Cheers,Willem