Cherry 

Best of the past week

Hi , 

Last week I moved into my new apartment in Chicago's Lakeview East neighbourhood. I enjoyed a couple of walks around and I'm loving the new area. Lake Michigan is just 10 minutes walk away and I've spotted plenty of restaurants and bars I'm looking forward to checking out.Of cours I'll just have to beware of sinkholes apparently, that's kind of unexpected and happened just a block away from where I live now a few days ago.Famous Chicago areas and landmarks are located here, like the Cubs' baseball stadium Wrigley Field, and Boystown, Chicago's LGBTQ neighbourhood.I came across this excellent article (and upcoming episode of the Curious City podcast - not available just yet) about Boystown past, present and future; from political activism and inclusion to gentrification and people left out. Making Chicago's Boystown.

I also published a short update over on my podcast to share some thoughts defining what the Ice Cream for Everyone Podcast is about in a nutshell, and I keep working on my service design, meeting professional contacts and discussing professional opportunities. If you have business queries and/or think you could perhaps use support for your branding or marketing, please give me a shout.

 Sprinkles What's the GIF? 

So sinkholes might actually be a thing in Chicago...

Whipped Cream

I'd missed this when it came out a few weeks ago, this Saturday Night Live skit of a Cheetos advertising pitch is excellent. They made it in the aftermath of the whole Pepsi Kendall Jenner advert, so if you haven't seen that you might want to check it out first (Pepsi pulled it offline but you can still find it).Pitch Meeting - Saturday Night Live (featuring Alec Baldwin)

Caramel Fudge

What's sticky in the communications industry?

Sort of in keeping with the theme of diversity, I enjoyed this article in Adage making a case for advertising agencies needing more weirdness, that in turn could lead to creative brilliance, and that those are increasingly lacking in the large corporate communications holding groups most advertising agencies belong to these days.Why Advertising Urgently Needs More Weird. (Or, The Dark Side of Agency Culture)

Chocolate

What's going on in gaming?

Before leaving London a few months ago, I played and participated in the recording of an actual live tabletop roleplaying game, followed by a conversation over on my friend Kalum's gaming podcast The Rolistes. We played one of my favourite French tabletop roleplaying games I used to play as a teen: Nephilim, in which players interpret magical elemental beings incarnated in human bodies. We had good fun and if you're curious to get a sense of how a tabletop game is played, or if you'd like to find out more about Nephilim, please check it out.The Rolistes Episode 20: Nephilim with Mira, Willem & Rob (Part 1)The Rolistes Episode 20: Nephilim with Mira, Willem & Rob (Part 2)

Vanilla

What else is interesting this week?

I just have to mention the fiasco of the Fyre Festival in the Bahamas this week.Perhaps because I'm over the age and/or don't follow the right kind of celebrities - or in fact any celebrities - on Instagram this week was the first I heard of anything called the Fyre Festival. Logically I had no idea it was meant to be the largest, most exciting "transformative" luxury festival ever to be happening on a paradise island in the Bahamas.Instead, it seems the organisers blew most of their money on a variety of things not including delivering what festival goers were promised and many were left stranded either in Miami, or for the unlucky ones on a piece of beach in the Bahamas with nowhere near the kind of infrastructure, food or luxury accommodation expected.Fascinating read on how not to organise a successful event and also on social media hype. The pitch deck they used for investors is amazing in many ways.The Fyre Festival, Built by Instagram, Dies by InstagramExclusive: The Leaked Fyre Festival Pitch Deck is Beyond ParodyThat's about it for this week, thank you for reading and please forward the newsletter to a friend if you enjoyed reading!CheersWillem