As Featured In:
Webby
AdAge
HBR
WSJ
Back in 1947, Chinese writer, translator, and linguist Lin Yutang accomplished what many described as impossible. He developed the first compact typewriter design with a keyboard that could produce the Chinese language’s 80,000-plus characters. He did this by using “a sort-and-search method … breaking down Chinese ideographs into more fundamental components of strokes and shapes … Read more
How polite are you when you ask ChatGPT a query? According to Sam Altman, the human propensity to be nice when asking technology for solutions is “wasting millions of dollars of computing power.” Some experts aren’t so sure. One suggested that being kind “helps generate respectful, collaborative outputs,” while another noted that “when it clocks … Read more
What if you could get the restful benefits of taking a nap without actually taking a nap? Researchers studying the health effects of “power naps” recently performed a test on monkeys where they simulated the brain activity of sleeping with electrical pulses. The monkeys showed the same cognitive benefits that come from sleeping without the nap. The … Read more
No one wants one. People will walk past a penny lying on the street, a real-life demonstration of just how worthless it is for most of us. For many, it’s also a perfect example of governmental inefficiency since it’s widely known that the cost to produce each one is higher than the actual value of … Read more
Amazon, Spotify, Netflix, Uber … all dominant players in their industry. What if the secret to their success is just that they were all willing to lose money for longer than any of their competitors? An article I read this week suggested that perhaps the ten year journeys of both Netflix and Hulu to now … Read more
There was a time when patriotic branding was hot. That time seems to be over. According to an eye-opening new study from a sociologist at Northern Arizona University, brands that include the outline of the U.S. map or the American flag are on the decline. And this is not just happening in America—it’s becoming more common … Read more
You know that moment when you misplace something, and it takes forever to find? It could be your keys or a handwritten to-do list or anything else that seemingly just disappeared into thin air. Maybe you never found it. A piece from NPR this week collects six techniques that would be worth remembering to help you solve … Read more
Four years ago, with much fanfare (and budget), a platform called Quibi emerged with the promise that people would watch short vertical episodic shows and that would be the future of entertainment. Then, despite their $1.75 billion funding, they crashed and burned. Around the same time, TikTok was just starting to take off. Since then, the growth … Read more
Do you hate to listen back to a recording of your own voice? Most people do and this has been true for so long that the first studies into why so many of us dread hearing ourselves date back to the 1960s. At that time, a team of researchers coined the term “voice confrontation” to describe their … Read more
Is your expertise holding you back from being more open minded? Recently I sat down with Ben Weiss for his excellent Leaders + Legends Podcast and shared the vision behind Non-Obvious Thinking and why I believe expertise sometimes creates a mental trap where we are unable to explore other perspectives because we become so good at thinking … Read more
Non-Obvious Thinking is my latest book about the 4 secrets of becoming a non-obvious thinker - released 10/01/2024.
Rohit Bhargava is a trend curator, founder of the Non-Obvious Company and the 3-time Wall Street Journal bestselling author of ten books.
Skip the obvious and anticipate the future with our weekly newsletter. Join over 25,000 subscribers and start receiving the stories (and insights) you’ve been missing.
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.
