Cherry 

Best of the past week

Hey , I left Arizona a week ago coming back to a fairly dreary weathered London in comparison, although to be fair (as they say) it was sunny yesterday.Instead of writing about this week, I'll reminisce about the previous week at the White Stallion Ranch. As I'm sure I'd mentioned before, the trip represented quite a few different activities I'd never done before, starting with a group organised holiday on an inclusive resort of any kind. I don't think I'd ever been on such a structured holiday either, I had things scheduled almost all day long, including meals that we ate together.Ironically, the course I was participating is called Structural Connections; it was about body language. I loved the whole experience, and received a lot of value from it as well. It was fascinating to experience via different exercises how many decisions I've made in life that amounted to increasingly ignoring my body and behaving like the important stuff happens above my neck only. Which obviously is kind of silly, by that I mean I can aspire to be as brainy as I want, my head is still supported by my body and it's worth being aware of it - and taking care of it for sure. I'll gladly share about the experience some more, though it probably makes more sense if I talk to you directly some time.I think I experienced all the different horse riding kinds of activities I could and I'm really glad I did. I got on the horse (I actually said "I'm on a horse"), learned to steer him, walk, trot and canter / lope with a couple of lessons. I went on a fast mountain ride, loping to a canyon and then going up and down it - I was a little nervous on the first section going down). Finally, I participated in a team penning session, where along with three other riders, we had to lope to cattle, isolate three and lead them into a pen as fast as possible. It was all great fun!I'm very happy to have tried and I didn't discover a sudden passion for horse riding. I'm glad to leave that to other fans. My favourite activities were the hike up the mountain we could see from the ranch, the meals and the nighttime hot tub sessions.

 Sprinkles What's the GIF? 

Whipped Cream

In the news

I've already written about Trump winning the U.S. elections and many more people talked and wrote about it in the past few days.It was really interesting for me to find out about the number of voters, and that the base number of Republican voters was similar to the past two elections with Obama, however the number of Democrat voters overall was much less.I don't particularly have data for this, though my suspicion is that many of the people who had voted for Barack Obama in the last election didn't either candidate represented them or the change they wished for, so they abstained. I've read some more data about the elections here, and those numbers unsurprisingly show that young people didn't gather to vote for Clinton like they had for Obama in the previous presidential elections, and people in the countryside voted for Trump in majority, while city dwellers tended to vote for Clinton.

Caramel Fudge

What's sticky in the communications industry?

It's already Christmas time in the UK! I know because Starbucks released their holiday red cups, and the high production value Christmas adverts are coming out!Typically one of the most expected around here is the John Lewis ad, and as a colleague correctly asked me: "what kind of cute animals are they using this year?"Well it turns out, it's two foxes and a badger! That said the real hero is Buster the Boxer at the end.It's cute, sure, though it doesn't do that much for me.Now I also mention this because some comedy geniuses have parodied the ad quite masterfully to this week's news. John Lewis had probably been planning this high value for the better part of this year and now the parody is probably what they'll be known for.I also published a new episode of the Ice Cream for Everyone podcast! I had a fun conversation with Kim Mackenzie, a New York based brand strategist who founded a collaborative messaging Slack group called "Ladies who Strategize." Check it out!

Chocolate

What's going on in gaming?

I realise I hadn't written anything about Spiel Essen that took place last month! No big deal, it's only the largest tabletop board game exhibition and professional trade fair - I think worldwide actually.Here is a pretty comprehensive review of the whole four day long event with some of the favourite games from the author, or if you'd like to skip to the Christmas gift suggestions, how about this top 10 list of the best new games released at the time?

Vanilla

What else is interesting this week?

In the various conversations I've had with friends about the U.S. elections in the past few days, I've talked and listened about what seems to be a lack of dialogue between people who disagree, possibly too much confirmation bias and filters in my / our social media feeds, large rifts between countryside and city dwellers, etc. The list goes on and much has been written by smarter and more informed people.I was starting to think about maybe moving back to the U.S. earlier this year. My first thought after finding out Trump had won was "well maybe not the best time..." And then on second thought, maybe it is the right time to somehow get involved and participate in making a positive difference in the United States? I'm really not sure what that might look like for me, though I'd already been thinking about travelling across the country and talking with people. It could simply be taking my podcast on the road for a couple of months, or something else entirely, who knows.In the regard, I have a few things worth checking out. I enjoy listening to the TED Radio Hour. In case you're not familiar with it, this NPR podcast picks a theme and gathers a few different TED talks to illustrate it and discuss it further with speakers. Here are a couple of relevant previously published episodes, the themes of which may well be missing in these strange new Trump as president days:How we LoveThe Act of ListeningI am particularly moved by this initiative in the listening episode, StoryCorps, a project that lets anyone interview anyone, to record the vast richness of human emotions and experiences. They believe everyone has a story worth hearing and are recording all of them in the Library of Congress in the U.S.A. They also have a mobile application to easily record and upload new interviews yourself.While some of the racist, homophobic, misogynistic reactions following Trump winning have been atrocious, I still wholeheartedly believe that dialogue, understanding and communication can be used to help, educate and hopefully make some kind of positive difference - however that is applied.That's about it for today, I'll get off my horse now.As usual please forward this to a friend if you enjoyed it!Till next week.CheersWillem