Hey ,I'm back! I'd skipped a couple of weeks before the last newsletter, and now skipped nearly three months since my last Sundae email. I hope you've been well.Fortunately I'm well health-wise, and have had ups and downs during the lockdown on the mood and motivation side of things. I kept busy elsewhere and the lockdown days went by in a flash, though I didn't feel so motivated by writing this newsletter. It felt like it was stagnating.I needed to breathe some new life into several things and it seems like being in a crisis may have helped. I mean that I was worried about my lack of paid activity and income during the lockdown on the back of two months of strike in Paris that has seriously slowed things down.Thankfully I've had support from friends to talk with, and have been refocusing on good stuff for the past few weeks, doubling down on developing what playful strategy is all about, realising I actually have things to say (and that I often don't say because I assume I'm being redundant or that everyone knows what I know, which isn't the case), so now I actually have a lot of things to share!I'll go from most recent to least:First, if you're in Europe, Africa, Middle-East, or Asia (or very early riser in America perhaps), I am preparing an exciting online interactive workshop for The Network One's Indie Forum Digital. It's Tuesday 23rd June 2020 at 11am UK / 12pm CET / 3:30pm India / 6pm Singapore and Hong Kong - and it's free to attend (sign up in link). I'm calling it Ice Cream for Everyone's Strategy Playground, I will talk about the benefits of a play state of mind for strategy, and we will do an exercise via a collaborative whiteboard tool.I had a sudden and fantastic opportunity to prepare an inspiring presentation for the last year students of ISCOM: Higher Institute for Communications and Advertising this week, on the topic of Redefining Food & Beverage Marketing in the Age of COVID-19. Of course with the Black Lives Matter protests going on as well, I wouldn't ignore this as significant context. Take a look a the presentation, I'd love to hear what you think.I've had a couple of slightly frustrating comment threads on Facebook with people who didn't understand the protests. Not understanding is one thing and I'm happy to spend time explaining. Being obtuse is another. With that in mind, the idea stuck in my head to create this sort of interesting, inane, maybe amusing or triggering, big flowchart. I called it Equality Explained, A visual flowchart for the thick of mind, and/or the curious of heart.With the lockdown, social distancing, and working from home, I tried a lot of online collaboration tools over the past couple of months. I thought people might be interested in checking out some thoughts about these 10 tools. I am also planning to make short videos for each but haven't gotten around to it yet: Playing (and working) alone, together: 10 online collaboration tools.My good friend James D'Souza has been really supportive and we started this fun new series we are calling Teaching Tangents (audio only version available, also on Spotify). James is a business and psychology teacher in London, and the idea is he picks a question asked by one of his high school students every week, and we discuss it together at length. Episode 4: In which I share the Food & Drinks Marketing in the Age of COVID-19Episode 3: How do I find a job I really like, and get paid? (and Black Lives Matter)Episode 2: How much do middle & high school exam results affect your future?Episode 1: What are the best next steps from A-levels to going in business?Pilot Episode: What's the biggest threat to jobs?I also began a sort of similar French version, in this first "Café Formation" I talk about training & development with coach and therapist Florence Pérès.I had been talking about this for a while, and it's finally here, I am evolving the format of the podcast recordings to be a mix of play and strategy. The pitch is my guest picks a topic or genre they are personally interested in, and I in turn choose a game to match the topic. This serves as a springboard for our conversation. The first one in this style with Eric Woning, a free strategy director in London, and we begin by talking about the award-winning roleplaying game Apocalypse World, and then we quickly veer on to music, and more. It's in audio and video too!

I also talk about growth marketing and gambling on the podcast with Rohan Kale while he is in Pune, India.

I have a new series on the podcast in which I play a solo tabletop roleplaying game called Ironsworn and along with the play, I comment about brand and marketing strategy. The first episode is about character creation and brand personalities, the second is about the rules system and beginning my solos storytelling adventure. I am working on the third and fourth instalments, albeit slowly.I wrote this post about The Notion of Play in a time of Crisis in English, and in French, inspired by the International Play Associations Play in crisis report, and my experiences of tabletop gaming communities during the lockdown.I think that's about it, and it's a long list! We're up to date now. I'm doing my best to keep my head down this month, practice, and produce good and interesting stuff. I also went to Black Lives Matter protests in Paris, it's just the right thing to do. France also has many instances of police brutality and the country suffers from systemic racism, of a slightly different style than the US, but definitely there.How are you these days otherwise? Hit that reply button, and give me some news!Take care,WillemPS: If you hear of any work going for a (freelance) strategy consultant, please bear me in mind and give me a shout. If you'd like to participate in one of my prototype workshops, please keep in touch too.

#BlackLivesMatter #JusticePourAdama #Paris #EiffelTower

 Weekly Combo Typically a mix of playful and strategy flavours. 

Game Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality

This is a no brainer; I can't not mention it. It's the largest ever bundle of independent games of all kinds, at the moment 1,323 game creators are participating in the bundle that so far raised $6,5M. The minimum amount for the bundle itself is $5 and you can donate on top of it, which I recommend. All funds donated are going to be split 50/50 between the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and Community Bail Fund. If I ever get around to the mind-boggling amount of games in the bundle in anyone's guess. I know for sure there is Blades in the Dark on the tabletop RPG side that I have recently played and wanted to read. I know there is Celeste on the platform video game side, that I already own on Nintendo Switch and is as tough as it is beautiful. This spreadsheet lists all the games if you want to check it out. There must be at least a couple you would like in there.