#1: What is Office Hours?
Office Hours is a newsletter about culture and connections.
When traveling for work or fun, have you ever dealt with the frustration of trying to connect with friends or business connections? Especially when you’re there for a short time? In an attempt to increase the value of my trips, I started finding a bar or coffee shop adjacent to where I estimated the easiest to get to spot and posting up to work when I didn’t have a meeting or prior engagement. In advance, I’d invite all the people I knew (and actually wanted to talk to) in that city to come to say hey. Lacking a suitable name, I called it Office Hours.
I ended up introducing people to each other. Bubbles shrank. Ideas were challenged. There may or not have been gambling? People were definitely kissing one time! Sometimes a few people would show, sometimes no one would. One time, 150 people showed and the bar owner let us take the place over until 2 AM. An argument about Pop-Tarts started at an Office Hours in 2016 and still rages to this day. (If you're wondering, the question was "Is a Pop-Tart a form of empanada?"...I sayYES!)
After a few years of these events, I've come to learn that there are three universal truths about people, regardless of what they do for work, where they're from or how much money they have:
#1: People love to learn interesting things.
#2: People love to talk shit! (Use whatever slang feels comfortable here, but you know what I mean).
#3: People love to listen to music.
You can expect original commentary and interviews about all things culture, marketing, Chicago and whatever else comes up here, but we're going to do these three things in every issue.The main goal here is to provide some value to all of you lovely subscribers and if we manage to have some fun, all the better.
Welcome to Office Hours!
Ernest