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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 environment. Over the past decade, my team and I have identified and written about well over 100 trends covering everything from the rise of the #metoo movement (a trend we … Read more
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 trends. Beyond using those books to inspire how we see the world, we also select our favorites each year to feature as part of the Non-Obvious Book Awards program. For … Read more
This week the father of Amy Winehouse announced a world tour in 2019 featuring a “hologram” of his daughter on stage. A digital avatar of Winehouse, who died in 2011 from alcohol poisoning at the age of 27, will “perform” some of her most popular songs in a concert accompanied by a live band, real backup … Read more
About a year and a half ago, a Japanese company called Gatebox released a depressing preview video of a new AI powered “Holographic Wife” that would offer lonely young Japanese salarymen companionship at home. The character is based on anime and stand about 8 inches tall inside a glass box. This week the company finally released their actual … Read more
A little over two years ago, Pokemon Go was everywhere. People walked down the street glued to their phones. And then one day it all seemed to stop. Yet as this article from WIRED explores, the game is still dominating. Who is still playing? As writer Brian Barrett notes: “The game attracts proportionally more older … Read more
Though most people still think of Nokia as a cell phone maker, that unit of their business was sold off to Microsoft years ago and the brand has slowly been focusing its attention elsewhere. Now the brand wants to build its reputation around digital wellness and VR. Yet changing this type of long held perception … Read more
We already have Artificial Intelligence using features like facial recognition to personalize experiences for us, but this story about “AI Gastronomy” looks forward to a future where we might be able to reverse engineer many things about food simply from relying on AI to recognize and measure ingredients. This could allow us to “scan” the … Read more
As you know, this weekly post is a collection of interesting stories, but today I was inspired to try something different. Rather than sharing individual stories, I’m going to make connections and instead share three themes with multiple stories, along with a collection of links to stories that caught my attention this week. In the … Read more
This week’s stories span from a new design for the many buttons on Japanese toilets to a deeper look at the flaws inside one of the most frequently used metrics in business to measure loyalty: the Net Promoter Score. Other stories that stood out this week were a Swedish coughing billboard that may or may … Read more
Given it is the end of the year, this week’s stories include several holiday themes, including an inside look at the PR strategy behind Hatchimals, a great strategic idea from Hasbro UK and an app designed to reduce food wastage. Other stories I selected this week include Amazon revealing its bold ambitions to transform the … Read more
Non-Obvious is my #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling book about how to see what others miss and anticipate the future.
Rohit Bhargava is a trend curator, founder of the Non-Obvious Company and the 3-time Wall Street Journal bestselling author of eight books.
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Rohit is the author of 8 books on trends, the future of business, building a more human brand with storytelling and how to create a more diverse and inclusive world.
