Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 65
February 7, 2019
Hotel Encourages Digital Detox, Cypto Founder Dies With Only Password To $190 million and Why SF Might Ban Facial Recognition | Non-Obvious Insights 02.07.19
In Sweden, one hotel has created a stunt designed to encourage you to stay off of Wifi during your stay … by only charging you when you use devices in the room. If you can exhibit self control for the evening in the “Check Out Suite” – you can stay for free. Smart idea and great timing launching just in time for Valentine’s Day. How Amazon Might Really Use All The Data They Have On You
Amazon can’t use all the data they have on you because to...
February 4, 2019
4 Big Trends From The 2019 Super Bowl Ads That Explain Our Culture
The best part of the Super Bowl experience is always the advertising. That was particularly true this year thanks to another joyless victory by the Patriots in quantifiably the most boring Super Bowl ever. As a lover of marketing strategy, the big game always offers a chance to dissect the best and worst of how brands spend their millions ($5.25 million per 30 seconds to be specific) and for the past ten years I’ve done that by picking the best and worst ads from past games.
This year, I woul...
January 31, 2019
How Millennials Became Workaholics, Japan’s Big Hacking Experiment and Why People Believe Tabloids | Non-Obvious Insights 01.31.19
As we live through the rise of “#hustle culture,” this article provides a much needed reminder that we need to stop celebrating workaholism among Millennials and instead describe the workplaces which foster this culture for what they are: toxic and inhumane. Japan Hacks 200 Million Devices In Pre-Olympic CyberSecurity Test
To prepare for the Olympics, the Japanese government will hack citizen’s devices to test cybersecurity...
January 27, 2019
Why We Should Stop Trusting Viral Videos
Last week one of the inescapable stories in the United States was a controversial video showing a group of Catholic students appearing to clash with Native Americans. They were widely condemned and the video was endlessly dissected in opinion stories shared online and one of the students even went on television to defend himself. Over the course of the week, the entire story ended up becoming yet another example of how people choose to believe whatever they want.
Perhaps most interestingly, t...
January 24, 2019
Selfie Dysmorphia, Celebrities Abandoning Social Media and the World’s Biggest Universal Income Experiment | Non-Obvious Insights 01.24.19
This past weekend was a big one for skiing and so this article was interesting and timely – all about the life and work of a man who has drawn hundreds of ski maps for resorts. It is a fascinating reminder that there is beauty in the details of every experience, if we can just remember to take time to pay attention to it.
When the former Disney Channel star took a “mental health break” from social media...
January 21, 2019
The Dangerous Side Effects Of Marie Kondo’s Tidying Movement
Japanese organizational guru Marie Kondo recently launched a show on Netflix and has inspired millions of people to get rid of the clutter in their lives. Perhaps predictably, now some people are extending that advice to their digital lives too, as the WIRED UK article linked here points out.
In this quest to rid ourselves of anything that doesn’t “spark joy,” we may perhaps be giving up something that is crucial to the creative process … a certain amount of disorder. Tim Harford wrote a grea...
January 17, 2019
Robot Layoffs, Disappearing Street Food & Asymmetrical Jeans | Non-Obvious Insights 01.17.19
I first wrote about the Henna hotel, staffed entirely by robots, more than two years ago. It seems that the experimental property in Japan has discovered a hopeful truth: people sometimes prefer people. And so it may also be the first example in history of robots being laid off. Why Data Overload May Be Killing The U.S. Educational System
There is such a thing as too much data and this well argued piece from HBR points out the folly of our ov...
January 13, 2019
What Mastercard’s New Logo Tells Us About The Future Of Branding
If you think about it, there are a lot of brands that define what they do or how they sell based on their names. This week at CES, Mastercard announced they would be dropping the words of the name from their logo. It’s a smart move considering how the financial world is moving away from physical cards and more towards digital payment solutions.
This is not just an example of a brand trying to get ahead of the disruption in their industry. It is also an admission that the future of what the Ma...
January 10, 2019
Emotion Sensing App, P&G Challenges Agency Model, and Remembering Herb Kelleher | Non-Obvious Insights 01.10.19
Imagine an app that uses AI to read facial expressions and then translates the seven universal human emotions – anger, fear, disgust, happiness, sadness, surprise and contempt – into seven distinct sounds. Once it detects an emotion, it will play the sounds to allow visually impaired people to actually hear emotions. Facial Recognition App Remembers Names Of People You Forgot
This app has a lot of privacy experts concerned because...
January 7, 2019
Why The Myth Of The “Sold Out Show” Is Finally Dying
There was a time when people used to think the waiting list for season tickets to Redskins games took decades to clear. Then the team finally admitted those numbers were inflated and made season tickets available again last year. The idea of a show/venue being “sold out” is one of the most basic marketing techniques in entertainment … and it may be dying. Thanks to the easy availability of last minute tickets online on aftermarket sites like Stub Hub, the idea that any show is actually sold o...
