Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 6

The Emerging Future of Radio

Radio, and its future, are front and center right now in a lot of conversations. There’s the recent news that NPR is ​suing the Trump administration​ over its choice to withhold funding. Then there is the debate about FCC rules and ​double standards​ around how various radio stations must compensate artists. Alongside the compensation questions are the inroads that AI is making into how shows are being automated.

Radio Krakow in Poland faced an ​extreme backlash​ when they replaced on-air tal...

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: The Long Game by Dorie Clark

The title of this book pretty much tells you exactly what it’s about but what makes this a truly great read is exactly how practical it is. The one thing I have always liked about Dorie Clark’s work is how good she is at offering useful tips and lessons that anyone can implement. It’s why her online courses are so popular and it’s also why you’ll find this book to be a worthwhile read. From her highly effective master of “strategically overindexing” to how she manages to consistently say no (eve...

LEGO Dives into the Book Nook Trend with Latest Set for Adults

A “book nook” is the term typically reserved for a cozy corner of a home or office where you can enjoy reading a book in comfort. There’s an alternate version of this, though, that has been growing in popularity as a tiny diorama version of a book nook designed to be placed on a bookshelf between your books. There are plenty of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter themed book nooks on the market. This week, ​LEGO jumped into the trend​ with an interactive Sherlock Holmes themed book nook.

“...

The Campaign to Stop the Spread of Fake Media – PSAi

The best strategy to fight back against the rise of fake media is prioritizing media literacy training for adults and kids. This past week to support this effort, the team at Columbia Journalism Review launched their PSAi website and program aimed at “training your eye to spot AI.” The platform features a catchy video and song to promote the key tactics and tips they share for how to get better at spotting AI-manipulated images:

Check for hands and fingers – AI often struggles with realistic...

The Future of Animation Will Be 90% Faster Than Before

A few years ago, lip-syncing one minute of animation used to take about four hours. Now it can be done in 15 minutes. That’s just one of the dramatic time-saving features of AI when it comes to animation, but what’s most interesting about these tools in the world of Hollywood is just how quickly they are being implemented specifically for animation. Unlike much of the rest of the film industry that can occasionally be tech-averse–animation has been computer assisted for decades.

This fact...

The Coffee Shop That Accepts Gossip and Rumors as Payment

Good News Coffee might be my new favorite coffee shop. Unfortunately for me, they only have locations in Barcelona, Paris, Madrid and Amsterdam so far. They are quickly building a reputation for unusual promotions designed to get their customers off their phones, away from social media and actually interacting with real humans. Their latest effort to give people free drinks in exchange for oversharing is just one in a long string of inventive promotions:

“Gossip-for-beverages joins other init...

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: Always Eat Left-Handed … And Other Secrets for Killing It at Work and in Real Life by Rohit Bhargava

Back in 2013, I wrote a career and life advice book. It was my third book and before I really understood what it took to get a book into the market. Five years later, I released a redesigned and updated version, and it quickly eclipsed the first release. Over the past few years, right around graduation season it has been my most popular book filled with plenty of irreverent advice for young people and a unique perspective on what it really takes to build a career (and life).

Several unive...

What Is Millennial Hobby Energy?

Doing things for fun is making a comeback. That may seem like an odd statement, but there is a time in many people’s lives when everything feels too busy to indulge in hobbies. When we get that inevitable question of what we do for fun, often the answer starts with the saddest statement ever: what I used to do is _______.

According to writer Anne Helen Peterson, many millennials have “trudged through burnout and are trying to figure out who they are outside of work.” This leads many towar...

Useless Rebranding and the Underappreciated Marketing Strategy of Doing Nothing

HBO rebranded to HBO Max, and then to Max … and now back to HBO Max. Meanwhile Google is losing their longstanding “I’m Feeling Lucky” button and once again rainbow-izing their entire logo suite to make them even more indistinguishable from one another. Watching these ill-advised branding moves is enough to make anyone wonder why marketing teams need to spend so much time, money and creative energy unnecessarily reinventing things. There are, of course, examples of brilliant rebranding like what...

When the Government Refuses to Protect Consumers, Tools Like This Can Fill the Gap

For over thirty years, the EPA’s Energy Star testing and certification program has helped consumers see how energy-efficient an appliance or electronic device is before buying. Recently the new EPA leadership has announced they will likely eliminate the program. It’s one of many such eliminations of government entities created to help protect consumers that are happening now in the US. As these agencies are defunded, the natural question to ask is what (if anything) will replace them?

The...