Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 63

Why You Shouldn’t Panic About Plastic-Eating Bacteria (Or Anything Else)

Scientists areexperimenting with plastic-eating bacteriaand people are worried. We know ocean plastic is a problem, but is unleashing a bacteria that could eat it really a good idea? What if it eats what it isn’t supposed to? It turns out the real promise of this tech isn’t dropping it into the ocean to let it eat plastic bottles. Instead, it could make recycling easier and more profitable – creating a desperately needed better financial incentive for companies and people to recycle now that...

What the Rise and Fall of Juul Can Teach Us About Influence

As the health risks of vaping increasingly come to light, some people are literallythrowing their juuls out of windowsjust to quit. Vaping had been soaring in popularity as recently as earlier this year, but several media reports about the adverse health implications of vaping have burst that bubble. This was a product that got popularized by viral memes and social media, and just as quickly was outed as addictive and potentially deadly. Now the memes show people drenching their juuls in...

Modern Workplaces Need To Get More Dad-Friendly, Survey Finds

I remember being a new dad and working full time at a marketing agency. Like any working parent, I struggled to find a balance. This week a parenting site called DaddiLife conducted a survey of 2000 working millennial dads in the UK and found that companies are falling far short in giving dads the flexibility they want to be with their kids.

I have written before about the not-so-well-appreciated equivalent of the stay-at-home mom — the stuck-at-work dad. As our gender roles continue to shift...

Why Trend Predictions Suck (And How To Fix Them)

The first time I wrote about trends, I was inspired by bullshit.

I remember reading an article with a headline that promised “5 Trends That Will Change The Future.” The first trend on the list was “Mobile Usage Will Continue To Rise.” That was the moment when I understood deeply why so many people mistrust trend predictions.

As I dug deeper, I started to discover that there are actually three reasons why most trend predictions are so bad:

They are self serving. The only people declaring 202...

Scientists Regrow Teeth, Americans Need Chaos and Why Your Next Flight Might Be Delayed On Purpose | Non-Obvious Insights #181

This week the dual themes of selfishness and unselfishness emerged in the stories I’m sharing below. On the selfish side – Instagrammers sharing tone deaf posts about the Bahamas, a study finding a disturbing portion of America simply wants to destroy things and the dire side effects of Amazon’s quest for faster delivery. On the unselfish side, a new airline software change that asks us to feel more empathy for each other and Kit Kat tests environmentally friendly (and fun) packaging. Enjoy t...

5 Awesome (And Slightly Scary) Technology Stories You Should Know

Most weeks I tend to focus on stories about our culture, but this week my curation led more consistently toward technology with a wide range of articles about innovations, discoveries and new research. In the stories below you’ll find everything from human-animal embryo research to the cure for baldness. They may awaken your imagination or perhaps disturb you with their ambition, but they are all stories you should know about. If there is a theme among them, it is probably the reminder that...

6 Marketing Lessons From Ed Sheeran

There is a moment during a show at the Austin City Limits where Ed Sheeran finally starts to perform his biggest hit at the time: Shape of You. About 10 seconds into the performance, he breaks a guitar string. Watching what he does next is a master class in stage presence, preparation and perhaps the perfect example of why he is such an engaging stage performer:

For anyone who has watched one of my keynote presentations, you already know I’m a big fan of Ed Sheeran. Usually when I share a...

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 young people, this may already be impossible.

“Can one ever transcend one’s youth if it remains perpetually present?” asks author Kate Eichhorn. As they grow up online, an underappreciated side effect is that their entire childhoods are recorded. It may indeed be the End of Forgetting, as the title of the book this article is excerpted from predic...

The Best Creative Ideas From Cannes

All week I have been reading stories of award winning creative advertising from Cannes (see all the winners here), and so I wanted to share several insights this week from a few of my favorite award winning campaigns this year.

Encouraging Black Travelers To #GoBackToAfrica
For years chants “go back to Africa” have been used by racists to marginalize people, but this campaign aims to turn the phrase around to make it an aspirational appeal for more African-Americans to come to visit Africa....

How Travel Inspires Better Thinking

It was a delight this week to see my friend Philippe Brown interviewed about the work he does to create luxury travel experiences for his clients. His insights on the importance of crafting the anticipation of travel, AI-enhanced experiences, using video game design to create a dramatic arc for travel and the role of behavioral psychology in crafting travel are all worth a read in the article linked above.

The role and impact of travel on how we think is a topic I have been considering quite...