Strands of Genius: The Most Complete Brain Map Ever is Here, 6 Ways to Become More Resilient, Be a Lady They Said
Guest Curated by Ged Hawes
This year we’re aiming to highlight 50 creative thinkers that have inspired us, by giving them the opportunity to guest curate this newsletter, Strands of Genius. Ged reached out about possibly having Rosie and Faris as a part of an event for the Amsterdam Marketing Community. They said “yes,” and Amsterdam adventures were had!
:: A BIT MORE ABOUT GUEST CURATOR, GED HAWES ::
LOCATION: Amsterdam, Netherlands
PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT: Made by People Lab
I’m Ged, a Brit in Amsterdam. Ex-Marketing Director that moved agency side years ago and then (inspired by Genius Steals!) went on a nomadic adventure while consulting to brands of all sizes. Once back in Amsterdam, I co-founded Made By People Lab to explore how creativity impacts liveability in our cities. MBPL integrated into A City Made By People last year and now, alongside consulting, I’m building We Live And Learn to offer courses in unusual environments such as ski resorts and cycle tours. I also set up Amsterdam Marketing Community to get locals and expats together and break down silos of specialism within the industry to share learnings and bring new perspectives. Inspired by Faris and Rosie, it made sense to give them a shout and see if they’d come to Amsterdam. They did and they were awesome!
Editor’s Note (Rosie): It’s rare to meet other nomads with such strong areas of overlapping interests. And even more rare to meet another couple trying out the whole nomadic thing. We loved our time in Amsterdam (it’s currently in the very short list of a ‘somewhere to live, someday’ city, alongside Mexico City), and we especially loved our dinner conversation. We’re all big believers in travel being the ultimate teacher, or at least one of them, and we share a belief that resilience is one of the best skills to have in your arsenal. Thanks for curating, Ged!
:: THE LINKS ::
THE MOST COMPLETE BRAIN MAP EVER IS HERE
The fruit fly’s brain shares some neural circuitry with humans so aside from creating awesome images, we’re on course to gaining a greater understanding of learning, navigation and behaviour. It’s a long process (12 years to map a section of the fly’s brain) but with machine learning speeding up the process and a group of human “proofreaders” to check the work it’s happening quicker. Plans are in place to analyse songbirds learning songs (I need this) and a human study with Harvard (I’m in for this). (Wired)
6 WAYS TO BECOME MORE RESILIENT
The nomadic life definitely helped build up my resilience but it’s a continual work in progress. Getting your work knocked is one thing, setting up your own thing and getting knockbacks is another. Taking hits when you’re working by and for yourself can be tough. Here are a few tips to become more resilient. There’s enough self-isolation happening around the world right now so for any freelancers out there who need support you can always get me on Twitter. I’ve probably been through it! (Fast Company)
BE A LADY, THEY SAID
Wonderfully narrated by Cynthia Nixon, this short provocative video produced for GirlsGirlsGirls portrays the pressures of being a lady in our society. We’d all do well to consider how we add to different pressures in society or how we help break them down. (Vimeo)
:: AND NOW… SOME FAST FAVORITES ::
:: Game :: Is Karaoke a game? (Editor’s Note: Maybe? Sure.)
:: City :: Amsterdam, because Snowdonia isn't a city
:: Book :: Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World (thanks Faris, for suggesting this!)
:: Podcast :: Freakonomics
:: Album :: Not an album but our King’s Day Playlist is a fave.

Dawn Brown Photography: Taken in Sapam on our nomadic adventure
Go nomadic if you can, you won't regret it! Always happy to connect on Twitter and if you've got some genius to share with our Amsterdam Community or We Live And Learn please get in touch.
Ged
email: thisisged@gmail.com
linkedin | meetup | twitter
Know someone who could use some inspiration in their inbox? Send ‘em our way!

It's called Genius Steals because we believe ideas are new combinations and that nothing can come from nothing. But copying is lazy. We believe the best way to innovate is to look at the best of that which came before and combine those elements into new solutions.
Co-Founders Faris & Rosie are award-winning strategists and creative directors, writers, consultants and public speakers who have been living on the road/runway since March 2013, working with companies all over the world. Our Director of Operations is nomadic like us, our accounting team is based out of Washington, our company is registered in Tennessee, and our collaborators are all over the world. Being nomadic allows us to go wherever clients need us to be, and to be inspired by the world in between.
Hit reply and let’s talk about how we might be able to work together :)
SPEAKING
We're currently booking speaking gigs for the year.
Check out full descriptions and key learnings from our talks on here:
http://bit.ly/TalkDescriptions2020
If you're pitching us to others, here's a handy press kit:
http://geniussteals.co/press-kit