To me, Twist always seemed like a less stress-inducing alternative to chat tools like Slack. Their newest release gives it a fresh look and even more calming features. If you’re tired of keeping up with endless streams of chat messages, Twist offers a slower, more forum-like communication option for teams.

“A global hub for designers and creative professionals from all industries, committed to using [their] creative skills for climate action”. It’s a growing community of creatives helping each other skill up in the climate science, find impactful work opportunities and exchange best practice ideas. Great idea!

Send a text or link or a Mission Impossible-style, self-destructing message to anyone with these one-time links that stop working after they’ve been opened.

Flip through video footage (like commercials, news, sports, talk shows and much more) from the ’90s in this wonderfully retro TV experience. (Or change the decade through the TV sets on the right and dip into the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s or 2000s.)

Things We Could Design →

Designing for more than human-centered worlds

Another promising title that calls for a new planet-centric design approach: “Over the past forty years, designers have privileged human values such that human-centered design is seen as progressive. Yet because all that is not human has been depleted, made extinct, or put to human use, today's design contributes to the existential threat of climate change and the ongoing extinctions of other species. In Things We Could Design, Ron Wakkary argues that human-centered design is not the answer to our problems but is itself part of the problem.”

What They Forgot to Teach You at School →

The 101 of emotional intelligence

Imagine if school taught us not just algebra and grammar, but also how to understand and process our everyday emotions. The School of Life tries to fill that gap. Their latest book offers a concise summary of essential lessons on emotional intelligence. “This book is a collection of our most essential lessons, delivered with directness and humanity, covering topics from love to career, childhood trauma to loneliness.”

A piece that could have been shorter, but still a great, insightful read on the complexity of global supply chains. What a colossal, energy-hungry journey even the simplest of products undergo before they land at our doorstep! You may never again look at cheap soft toys the same way. “It’s a little depressing to think of all the energy that was expended to get those toys across the sea, through the ports, on the railways, and in a truck, to my doorstep. If prices for all those cheap Chinese toys go up, I can’t really be upset. A journey that is that much of a headache should cost something, after all.”

I really enjoy Haley Nahman’s writing. In this post, she talks about her experience of being offered real money to promote products as an ‘influencer’ and how she decided to let her values guide her, not the big bills waved at her. “Greed has received a dazzling PR treatment in recent years. The Kardashians aren’t greedy, they’re enterprising. Silicon Valley isn’t selling our data, it’s improving our lives. Serial entrepreneurs aren’t trying to strike it rich, they’re dreamers. They’re rising and grinding, they’re 30-under-30. This kind of vocabulary enjoys a sheen of social progress while blatantly side-stepping the economic implications of such a value system, like say, 1% of the US population holding almost a third of its wealth.”

More on emotional intelligence: this is a great list to help you practice ‘emotional generosity’ – “the ability to see past behaviours that we don’t understand and proactively look for compassionate ways to explain them. It’s easy to do this for young children. If they start crying or throwing a tantrum, we wonder whether they are hungry, or tired, or hurt. Sadly, it’s harder to do this for adults – and especially our co-workers. And yet a more generous interpretation of their difficult behaviour often ends up being right.”