Nadia's Digest - Issue #19 (August)

Good morning to you!

How’s things? Summer is coming to a close and the momentum of new chapters is in the air. What’s next for you? New career goals? Prioritizing self-care? Initiating a passion project?

This month I found myself celebrating my 25th rotation around the sun in Milan. Grateful for everything I am and have at the moment, in my quarter century spent on this planet, I’ve never been better. I had a great week and of course built my unofficial hipster & design guide to the city so if you’re heading down to Milano and like some recommendations, hit me.

For more life of Nadi type shit, join me on Instagram or Facebook, and let’s move on to what you came here for shall we?

I know this is nerdy as hell, and I know it’s pretty useless (although: educational purposes for youngins?), but OOHHHMYGGAAAWWDD you can now run and play with Windows 95 on your laptop. The original Paint! Customizing your folder icons! The ugly start dock! The memories! If you’re a late millennial like me seeing this interface will take you right back to your first interactions with technology, and be with all them feels thinking about how we got from there to here. Shout to Felix Rieseberg for creating this and PH for promoting the shit out of it.

I’ve always struggled with the notion of work/life balance versus work-life integration. My friend Ben was one of the 1st people I met that could articulate and paraphrase on this conflict in a way that resonated with me. He now compiled some of his thoughts and existing framework on the topic into this Medium post, so if you’ve ever found yourself disillusioned with this concept, go check it out. For example are you a segmentor or an integrators? What is your energy input and output? How do you approach work-life balance vs integration?

Although general strong AI is not in sight just yet, AI is already embedded and showing up in our everyday lives. Bringing it from some distant future scenario to a present day reality: here’s Google with 13 ways they are using machine learning & artificial intelligence in the apps we all interact with.

To be used as a set of prompts, Artefact Group (one of those companies I’d LOVE to work for - but more about that later) designed these digital tarot cards to help creators think about the unintended future consequences of what they’re putting out into the world. Although it’s focused on tech, you can apply the questions to any product or service to dissect its potential impact - wanted & unwanted; finding both areas of caution and untapped opportunities. A helpful and beautifully designed exercise!

2 weeks ago I was invited to speak at Aaffix Club’s Urban Creatives meet-up on personal branding for creatives. Preceding a hands-on workshop mirroring the Brand the Change method, I spoke a little bit about how, when and why the ego shows up in the process of branding oneself (categorized into the ‘Basquiat’, 'Kendrick’ and 'Kylie’ archetypes), and how to navigate its role. You can peep the deck & supporting speaker notes here & I’d love to hear about your own experiences.

If you work in any innovation, design and strategy-related field, this one is for you. I started compiling this database of companies I fucks with a year or so ago for my own reference, but figured my personal treasure might very well serve other practitioners in search of new job opportunities, partners or inspiration. So here you go!

Tash Sultana is a Melbourne-based multi-instrumentalist and vocalist. She came up as a streetartist, moved on to jamming on YouTube, and has now released her debut album ‘Flow State’. Heavy on the guitars - which is usually not my thing - there’s something about her hypnotic flow that pulls me in.

That’s it for number nineteen!

I’m contemplating where to take this newsletter and where to place its focus so I’d love to hear your thoughts on that. I made a tiny survey to get some insights into how & why you’re reading along with me and these issues. It’ll take ±2 minutes to fill in and would really help me decide how to move forward and make these better for you too. Massive thanks in advance to anybody that provides me their input and advice!

With love from a very rainy Amsterdam,

Nadia

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