Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 24

The New Kids Book That Can Only Be Read While Outside Thanks to Sun-Activated Ink

How can you encourage kids to get outside and off their devices? With a book that can only be read outside! Brazilian food brand Fruitella recently launched a campaign featuring a new book that parents can order which has “retro illustrations” and sun-activated ink so that you need to be outside in order to read it. The effort is a clever campaign to attract attention for the snack brand, but the concept is one that you could imagine being applied in many different situations too. I’m already th...

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week:

Per My Last Email: Witty, Wicked and Wonderfully Weird Workplace Words and Phrases by Stephanie K. Wright

If you’ve ever felt surrounded by wallydrags (feeble or worthless people) or been forced to work for a numpty (a flat-out fool), this book has the antidote. Writer Stephanie K. Wright promises to “reinvigorate your vocabulary” with this fun collection of forgotten but entirely real words from the English language that you’ve probably never heard. Some words, like ultracrepidarian (which d...

3 Insights About the Future of Alcohol

Kantor has a new research summary out about their latest insights into the future of alcohol and there are some surprising takeaways. The report starts with the growing trend of the “sober curious” and explores the popularity of zero-proof drinks as part of a “lifestyle choice” to avoid alcohol. This alcohol-free shift has been causing a lot of angst in the beer, wine and spirits industry but this report paints a more hopeful picture suggesting this is only happening on “certain occasions.” That...

Save the World. Eat More Lionfish and Green Crabs.

Lobster is considered a luxury food today, with high prices to prove it, but it wasn’t always this way. Lobster was once cheap and plentiful, and seen as a poor man’s food. Its evolution to our tables and its prestige are largely thanks to the combined efforts of chefs and marketers. Today there is a large movement underway to try and accomplish something similar with several invasive species of that are threatening local plants and animals. A recent Modern Farmer article points to efforts to pr...

Why I Paid Human Musicians + Artists to Create the Sonic Identity for My Podcast

Earlier this week I posted on LinkedIn about a project that my team and I have been working on for nearly a year. During the pandemic, I created a video show which many of you watched. After a smart suggestion (and fair criticism) from Chhavi about how two heads talking wasn’t really compelling on video … I decided to invest in turning the show into an audio podcast. The audio for episodes would need to be remastered, the quality improved and the format changed.

In addition, I knew I wanted a...

Why Branded Reselling Platforms That Allow Customers to Sell Old Products to Each Other May Be Better Than Ebay

Sustainability-first brands like Patagonia have taken their commitment to reuse to the furthest extreme by creating an entire ecommerce experience dedicated to allowing their customers to sell used products to one another. When the Worn Wear platform came out in 2020, the brand was criticized for their crazy idea of inviting their customers to keep their products for longer and resell them or buy used products instead of new ones. Now many other fashion retailers have similar platforms as this h...

The One Time When Everyone Lies on Social Media: After Getting Laid Off

Getting laid off is hard. Though I’ve now been an entrepreneur for nearly ten years, I do remember those moments (yes, plural!) in my life when it happened to me and those were always emotional times. If you were to go by what people share on social media, though, you might think differently. A recent article on the Slate asked: Why is it so common to pretend to be grateful when a job ends?

Some of the reasons are pretty clear cut. You don’t want to jeopardize future employment chances by see...

UPDATE: Behind the Scenes of Influencers at the DNC Convention

Last week, many of you wrote to me about a story I shared about the treatment of the media at the Democratic National Convention and how they seemed to be elevating influencers above journalists in priority. One follow up video that offered more context on the story was this behind the scenes video look at the convention spaces created by influencer @underthedesknews on site.

Watching it was a good reminder that there really is no substitute for seeing the real situation from the ground a...

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: Against Technoableism by Ashley Shew

“Rethinking who needs improvement” is the provocative subtitle of this book which offers a different perspective on disability that might just shift your perspective about what it means and the way that we often see and treat people with disabilities. As a disability advocate and college professor teaching undergraduates all about disability, she’s clearly used to opening people’s minds. This short book offers plenty of illuminating insights, starting with quantifying the five main disability st...

In a World of Digital Silence, What Should Anything Sound Like?

Electric cars are quiet. Maybe too quiet. The problem, as some public health groups warn, is that electric cars dramatically increase the risk of accidents with pedestrians. The absence of sound creates danger, because we expect to be able to hear a car coming. Now that legislation spearheaded by groups advocating for the blind and visually impaired is starting to require electric vehicles to emit “an artificial engine noise,” the new challenge is what this sound should be. Do car makers just co...