12 2023 July
How One-Star “Review Bombing” on GoodReads Is Tanking Books and Manipulating Public Opinion
Recently in a workshop I was leading, a gentleman mentioned he would often judge a book by its Amazon reviews. The problem with this strategy...
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30 2022 December
The Most Popular Non-Obvious Stories of 2022 (Based On Reader Feedback)
Based on this combination of quantitative and qualitative data, here is a partial list of some of the most popular stories of the year, based on what my readers shared.
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26 2019 December
5 Non-Obvious Megatrends Changing Our World In 2020
For the past ten years I have gone through an annual ritual of publishing a book about trends that describe our shifting culture and business...
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06 2019 July
Is Social Media Making It Impossible To Grow Up?
It should be a basic human right to remember the past with fondness as being better than it actually was. Unfortunately, for today’s generation of...
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13 2018 December
The 2018 Non-Obvious Book Awards – Top 50 Business Books Of The Year
Every year my team and I read and review hundreds of books in the process of curating ideas to incorporate in our annual list of...
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08 2018 November
Why Do Critics Hate Movies That Real People Love?
The Queen-inspired film Bohemian Rhapsody film was poorly rated by critics, yet became a big box office hit. Earlier this year, the same thing happened to Hugh...
Read Now09 2018 September
How To Tell If You’re An Asshole (And Why It’s So Hard)
Last week a small army of cruise ship passengers disrupted a funeral in the tiny Norwegian city of Honningsvåg and took pictures of the mourners. According to The...
Read Now23 2018 August
Why Facebook Rating Your Trustworthiness Is Good News
The Washington Post story this week revealing the “previously unreported ratings system” used by Facebook to rate the trustworthiness of users on a scale of zero...
Read Now12 2018 August
Why Netflix Uses Taste Communities Instead of Demographics
Last week Netflix announced that they would be stopping their long standing policy of asking customers to vote on early pilots for programs to see...
Read Now25 2017 September
Uber Lets Drivers Tell You Why You Deserve A 1 Star Ranking
If you are a jerk to your Uber driver, you’re probably a jerk. For some time the ride sharing platform has allowed drivers to rank...
Read Now23 2017 September
French Chef Asks To Be Stripped Of Three Michelin Stars
It is hard to imagine the pressure a chef who has been given 3 coveted stars in the Michelin dining guide for 20 straight years...
Read Now22 2017 August
How To Spot A Fake Viral Video
For a crash course in figuring out what is real and what isn’t online, who better to turn to than a YouTuber who has built...
Read Now09 2017 August
How To Break Up With Your Bank Over Ethical Differences
In a perfect example of Passive Loyalty (a 2017 trend from Non-Obvious), this article on discusses how to break up with your bank. While changing banks is notoriously...
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