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Porto and the Importance of City Branding

Porto 900x600

As I write this, I’m just off the stage here in Portugal at one of the largest business conferences of the year in Europe at the QSP Summit in the city of Porto. Aside from its picturesque location on the Northern coast, the country’s second largest city also enjoys a reputation as an award-winning destination due to a combination … Read more

How Global Sports Are Showcasing a Surprising Upside of Immigration

How Global Sports Are Showcasing a Surprising Upside of Immigration

This summer is a back-to-back sports frenzy in my household. It started with the T20 Cricket World Cup, followed closely by two major soccer tournaments: the UEFA European Championship and Copa America, which will both conclude this coming weekend. Then later this month, the Paris 2024 Olympics will start (which we will be attending in … Read more

IKEA Organizes Flea Markets Across Europe to Help People Sell Used Items

IKEA Organizes Flea Markets Across Europe To Help People Sell Used Items

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

Can Seaweed Mining Become the Next Billion Dollar Industry?

Can Seaweed Mining Become the Next Billion Dollar Industry

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

How Water Flipping, Excess Solar Energy and Shifting Hydropower Stations Show Us the Future Is All About Water

Orange Skies over Athens

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

Why Industrial Tourism Is One of the Fastest Growing Trends in Travel

Industrial Tourism

Portugal is one of several countries investing big into industrial tourism – a term that describes experiences where travelers can visit factories to see how products get made. Of course, vineyards and liquor distilleries along with many food manufacturers have long offered this sort of experience. But Portugal is taking it one step further. In São João da Madeira, … Read more

What Would You Put In the “Forever Library” to Archive Human Existence for a Billion Years?

What Would You Put In the Forever Library To Archive Human Existence For a Billion Years

Several million years from now when future civilizations or aliens or whatever is around then look back on human existence, at least they will know how David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear back in 1983. That’s just one of the archives of humanity that is part of the Galactic Legacy Archive–a library of … Read more

Aruba Becomes First Nation to Use the Internet Archive to Back up Their Entire History

Aruba becomes first nation to back up history

The Indigenous population of Aruba was first colonized by the Spanish, and then the Dutch – which has given the Caribbean island a diverse history. As archivist Stacy Argondizzo also explains, “they were one disaster away, basically, from losing everything.” Back in 2018, the Internet Archive first began discussions with the country about helping them preserve … Read more

AXA’s New Foresight Report Offers 100 Reasons to Love the Future

100-reasons-to-love-the-future-

There are plenty of futurists who will offer you a list of all the ways the world can go wrong, and things could be worse. Against that backdrop, this timely report from AXA Insurance’s foresight team offers 100 Reasons to Love the Future (PDF Download Link). The beautifully designed report covers everything from growing youth involvement in … Read more

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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.

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