002 A calm space that encourages reflection

AND: Neue Nationalgalerie, Code First Girls & music by Yo-Yo Ma

Credit: Water pump for 800 people. Osukputu, Nigeria, 2015 by Mustafah Abdulaziz

Hi friends,

on the long run this newsletter shall become one of the best things you will read all week. Ambitious - I know.

So, in order to make this miracle happen: where does innovation happen these days? A few days ago a student at the Institute of Arts and Media Management in Hamburg asked me this question while I was invited to speak at their “digital excursion”. The answer could perhaps be found in a statement by Hamish McKenzie, who co-founded this publishing platform:

Substack is designed to be a calm space that encourages reflection. You read Substack posts in your inbox or on a web page that is free of advertising or any other distraction. There are no addiction-maximizing feeds, autoplaying videos, or retweetable quote-retweets to suck you into a psychological space you never asked to be in. You make decisions about which information to put into your brain based on how well certain writers reward your trust, not based on a dopamine hit gained by refreshing a feed packed with performative posturing. 

I strongly believe that every user has a choice and shall therefore be treated with the most possible respect. This format shall meet your needs, it shall provide content and recommendations that you haven’t already seen everywhere yet, that lifts you up, makes you smarter, makes you think in general or think differently. It shall make you feel seen, understood and taken care of.

And as an addition, there will also be a pin board, where you can post your job listings, hunts for offices spaces or reach out to the community for whatever you are looking for. HMU anytime via jk@hey-woman.com. I am happy to hear from you and more importantly, thankful that you are here! 🙏🏻

Yours truly, Julia

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📝 LINKS

• Article Getting rid of our expectations, so we have nothing left to lose: Kyle Chayka elaborates in the NY Times on the negation culture or “How Nothingness Became Everything We Wanted” (LINK)

• Podcast Alice Bentinck, Co-Founder of Code First Girls and Entrepreneur First has enabled 20.000 (!) girls to learn how to code until today. Needless to say that she is a hero to me and has been for a long time. Now she sat down with Georgia Ritter, who runs the “Out of Hours” initiative, that encourages people to start a side project (highly recommend), to chat about how to build things fast, how to turn an NGO into a business driven entity and how to let go (LINK)

• News Dating App Bumble is going public soon. Founder Whitney Wolfe Heard, 31, will be the youngest woman to lead a company through an IPO. 73% of the board is female 💯 (LINK)

• Article Are you an integrator or a segmenter when it comes to your home office routines? Johannes Maximilian Schröder, Head of Talent Acquisition at Blinkist, shares 9 simple hacks for healthy remote work (LINK)

• App Anything goes? If you fancy a little twist in your evening walk routine, Berlinische Galerie got you covered. For their recent, namesake exhibition about Berlin Architecture in the 1980s they launched three audio walks that take you to Kreuzberg/Mitte (LINK)

• Press Release Speaking about museums: After almost six years of renovation, Neue Nationalgalerie will be open to the public again (theoretically) as of April this year. I remember reading this interview with Nicolas Godin, studied architect and then co-founder of pop duo Air by Dirk Peitz for ZEIT with great excitement only because they were allowed to enter the construction site (LINK)

  

• Website The Berlinale bear is back and has a new look. Mood boosting work by visual artist Claudia Schramke (LINK)

• Music Yo-Yo Ma started to play the cello when he was a toddler and is quite a character in the spheres of classical music (LINK). His claim #cultureconnectsus says it all:

• Cover story Exception to the "has already been everywhere” rule: 185 actresses and actors #actout on the cover of SZ magazine and raise awareness for the LGBTQ community ❤️ (LINK, Paywall, German)

• Newsletter Anvar Čukoski, Editor-in-Chief at Blumenbar Verlag, has such a good eye for spotting remarkable publications and has been responsible for a number of valuable additions to the German book market. His fearless approach to embrace the niche is now transformed into a regular digital letter, titled “Cheers!”. Make sure to sign up (LINK)

📚 BOOKS

A friend of mine, who lives around the corner, borrows my car once in a while. He has an extensive library of archival publications, so we switch the car key & papers for one item from his holy shelves. I couldn’t believe my luck when he had this one to offer:

The “Whole Earth Catalog,” which in the late 1960s was a central document of Californian counterculture, played a key role in mediating and popularizing images and concepts of the “earth system.” The vision of the global Internet and central concepts of the ecology movement can trace their roots back to this moment.

Since an exhibition in 2013 at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, i am OBSESSED with the concept of the Anthropocene and never got the chance to look through one of the original catalogues, which were written by Stewart Brand between 1968 and 1972 - until last week.

📌 PIN BOARD

Jobs

• Senior Communications Manager (B2B, Tech), Berlin (LINK): Openers is an agency that helps technology companies enter new markets. Clients include Atomico, Spotify, IBM & McKinsey

• Newsroom PR Expert, Hamburg (not officially listed): Gruner & Jahr is looking for a storyteller & communications expert to create strategy, develop campaign concepts and support with the corporate communications road map. Email me for more infos if interested

📆 CALENDAR

• February 10th (Wednesday): #leavenoonebehind & author Kübra Gümüşay celebrate one year of her book “Sprache und Sein” and will collect 💶 for refugees in Moria. Guests will include Alice Hasters, Dunja Hayali, Luisa Neubauer and Olga Grjasnowa (LINK)

• February 13th to 16th (Saturday to Tuesday): One last pop-up shop before bttr closes for good. They will offer juices, nut mylks and 1/2 price adaptogens, books and posters at their old store, Dresdner Str. 18 in 10999 Berlin (LINK)

👯‍♀️ FRIENDS

Two things that helped me keep my calm lately:

• Yoga Jenny Hirtz aka Yoflaminga used to teach in our hey woman! office for after work classes. Her frequently updated online library is my magic fix after a long day at my desk (LINK)

• CBD We shared that office space mentioned above with Jens Pieper, who now launched his online shop Hempinger. I am hooked on the essent Happy Day drops since 4 weeks straight and have never seen a better cure for anxiety and irregular sleep rhythms until this day (LINK)

💌 THE END 💌