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“The Last Pot” Exhibit Reimagines Funeral Urns for Milan Design Week

Funeral urn

At Milan Design Week (Salone del Mobile,) you might expect to see new designs for chairs or reimagined interior living spaces. A category that rarely receives any design attention from the most elite European design teams is the funeral urn. This year, The Last Post exhibit, a project curated by Alberto Alessi, “explores the funeral urn as a … Read more

The Sad Retreat of April Fool’s Day and What It Reveals About Our Culture

April Fools

The week of April Fool’s Day, I regularly look forward to reading about all the brands taking risks, exploring their fun sides and doing something with personality. This used to be one of my favorite weeks to read all the advertising trade publications. This year wasn’t as much fun. Much of the coverage seemed to … Read more

Rimowa Sells Old, Beat-Up Suitcases and Demand Is Off the Charts

Rimova

Buyback programs are getting popular among retailers in many categories but usually they are for products that are still in “sellable” condition that can be refurbished. When legendary luggage brand Rimowa launched their own in-store buyback program, they began receiving used suitcases from customers that had clearly taken a beating and traveled the world. As … Read more

This Genetic Engineering Startup Wants to Make Fluorescent Bunnies and Actual Unicorns

pet_gene_editing

In case you needed more life imitating fiction, a startup known as The Los Angeles Project is using gene editing to experiment with doing some “crazy” things to animals—including making glow-in-the-dark rabbits, cats that are hypo-allergenic and maybe, one day, actual unicorns. As founder and biohacker Josie Zayner says, “I think, as a human species, it’s kind of … Read more

What The AI-Enhanced Beatles Grammy Award Win Tells Us About the Future of Memories

BEATLES GRAMMY

In case you missed it, at this past weekend’s Grammy Awards, the Beatles took home the win for Best Rock Performance for the AI-assisted track “Now and Then.” Before you go down the rabbit hole of seeing this as the first step in the music apocalypse, it’s important to note exactly what was done here. … Read more

The Age of the AI Chatbot Salesperson Might Have an Unintended Side Effect

AI chatbot sales

Training an employee to do upselling (and be good at it) is notoriously difficult. When it’s done right, it can drive significant revenue for many types of businesses though so it’s not surprising that some are experimenting with letting AI do the job. An article from WIRED this week showcases a few examples of vendors working on … Read more

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: Humanize: A Maker’s Guide to Designing Our Cities, by Thomas Heatherwick

Humanize

Imagine a graphic novel that offers a compelling argument for why our cities can be more than just boring backdrops for daily routines. That’s the vision in Thomas Heatherwick’s Humanize and it comes to life through lots of examples, stories and visuals of exactly how cities could be more interesting and exciting. You may not … Read more

The Library of Lost & Imaginary Books

Library of imaginary books

There are books mentioned within the pages of other books that never existed on their own, but what if they did? That’s the fascinating story visitors can explore at the Center for Book Arts in Manhattan where you can either show up with your own idea for a book or help recreate an imagined title from another … Read more

Why The “World’s First” AI-Powered Hotel May Be More Than Fancy Marketing

Otonomus hotel

From the outside the Otonomus Hotel (pun probably intended) doesn’t really look much different from any other spot. The property just had their soft-launch before officially opening in April 2025, declaring themselves the “first true AI-powered hotel in the world.” I can already picture you rolling your eyes. Despite the cringe-worthy marketing hyperbole, there are … Read more

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#1 WSJ & USA Today Bestselling Author

In addition to Non-Obvious Thinking, Rohit is the author of 10 books on trends, the future of business, building a more human brand with storytelling and how to create a more diverse and inclusive world.

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