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Early in the pandemic I decided to make a home studio and looked into installing sound panels. Unfortunately, they were generally expensive, bulky and needed professional installation. Researchers from MIT may have developed a solution for this and many other problems with a new noise cancelling silk fabric about the width of a human hair that uses … Read more
This summer, in their ample parking lots across several European cities, IKEA will be hosting weekend flea markets for people to come and sell their used household goods and other items they don’t need anymore. Donations from the day will be used to support vulnerable single-parent families. The effort is designed to underscore the brand’s … Read more
A tiny branch of the US Department of Energy focused on high-risk projects just awarded $5 million dollars to three startup ventures that are each independently “investigating whether seaweed can serve as a practical source of critical materials, such as platinum and rhodium, as well as rare earth elements, including neodymium, lanthanum, yttrium, and dysprosium.” … Read more
The skies were orange above Athens and that was just one of several climate and energy related stories this week that offered a glimpse into stories we will see more frequently in the coming years. The first example is a concerning story of a tiny Arizona town where a private company purchased land and water rights only … Read more
A happy and healthy coral reef has a sound. The various “snaps, groans, grunts and scratches that form the symphony of a healthy ecosystem” are not just a symbol of a thriving reef. Underwater scientists have begun testing using these sounds in areas with degraded reefs and are finding the sounds attract coral larvae to settle. … Read more
Every few months there are new sustainability stories of the world’s largest brands trying to create less wasteful packaging. Coca-Cola announced a new lighter bottle design this week and a few months ago began a trial shipping label-free bottles of Sprite. These types of initiatives are common in the packaged food industry, but what if other industries could greenlight … Read more
Pasta boxes are the perfect packaging to reuse. Pasta leaves no residue, and the boxes are generally large enough to fit other items. That’s clearly the inspiration for a new campaign from Barilla that promotes box reusability in time for Global Recycling Day. The campaign casts tidying guru Marie Kondo as the spokesperson and their campaign video starts … Read more
You may have seen videos in your social media feed of animal lovers saving a baby chick who falls into a storm drain, or a dog trapped by a flood or a baby elephant struggling to get out of a mud pit. These human-saves-animal videos often go viral at least in part because of how … Read more
There are parts of the world where the first thing that residents check on their phones when they wake up isn’t their email or the weather. It’s the air quality report and based on the numbers, they decide if they will go out that day or not. This isn’t a reality that most Americans or … Read more
What if the one of the biggest reasons for poverty and homelessness in cities wasn’t a lack of money or ballooning health care costs, but rather the longstanding real estate mandate for ample parking spaces? One of the most eye-opening books I considered for our book awards program this year was Paved Paradise, which suggested that … Read more
Non-Obvious Thinking is my upcoming book about the 4 secrets of becoming a non-obvious thinker - coming 09/24!
Rohit Bhargava is a trend curator, founder of the Non-Obvious Company and the 3-time Wall Street Journal bestselling author of ten books.
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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.
