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This week AirFrance became one of the first airlines to experiment with subscription pricing by announcing a new pre-paid travel product called Le Pass which allows frequent travelers to purchase pre-paid coupons to lock in pricing. A few days later, Mercedes-Benz followed BMW, Porsche and Cadillac by launching their own monthly all-inclusive subscription model, at … Read more
Should technology be a source for hope or fear? That was the question that seemed to emerge this week as I read several stories offering a recap from the TED Global conference as well as new initiatives in natural language search from Google and a legal debate about how and if people should be able … Read more
Social media is under attack and all of us are trying to figure out what to do about it. Should we use Facebook less like a newspaper and more like a telephone? Is the best solution for the manipulated outrage on Twitter to just to turn it all off? An Op-Ed in the NYTimes this week tackled … Read more
This week my story picks range from exploring the future of luxury marketing and healthcare to addictive game design to the world of people who are paid to watch Netflix content. I have to admit, the one about the Netflix content taggers did intrigue me – as I never really thought about how all of … Read more
If you are a fan of the Netflix sci-fi series Black Mirror, this was a surreal week. Walmart patented autonomous robot bees (which get hacked to kill people in one episode) and China introduced a social rating system that gives citizens scores based on “good behaviors” (a plot line that leads to chaos in another episode). … Read more
I spent the early part of this week at SXSW and one of the themes of my talk (see slides here) was our shifting relationship to the truth. I believe we must choose to venture beyond our own media bubbles and seek out information from unfamiliar sources. This week the largest ever study of fake news found … Read more
In this recap, there are many stories of companies behaving badly, stupidly or with evil intent. United airlines replaced their employee bonuses. BrewDog launched a painfully bad pink beer for women and MIT found that more than half of all ridesharing drivers make less than minimum wage. There is hope, though, like the success story of Arby’s … Read more
This week you’ll find stories of DNA-based dating to automated agriculture, but there was one that captured my attention most. It relates to the latest report and findings from Google around their four year journey to pore through 2.4 million “right to be forgotten” requests. How can you get something that has been shared online … Read more
This was a busy week with continuing stories from the Olympics, teens showing leadership, and the launch of a questionably moral new reality show from Netflix. Other stories this week take a deeper look at the potential of predictive banking, the rapid rise of StockX as a competitor to eBay and Emirates wonderful new ad that … Read more
The value of branding was questioned in a few stories this week, including one of a perfume store selling scents without the “noise” of marketing or labels and retailer Diesel launching its own store selling knockoffs. Other stories this week feature a fascinating data analysis of what might happen if women and men could compete … Read more
Non-Obvious Thinking is my upcoming book about the 4 secrets of becoming a non-obvious thinker - coming 10/01!
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.
