Non-Obvious: How to Think Different, Curate Ideas & Predict The Future

Written by Rohit Bhargava

Narrated by Tom Zingarelli

What do Disney, Bollywood, and "the Batkid" teach us about how to create celebrity experiences for our audiences? How can a vending machine inspire world peace? Can being "imperfect" make your business more marketable? Can a selfie improve one's confidence? When can addiction be a good thing?



The answers to these questions may not be all that obvious, and that's exactly the point. For the past four years, marketing expert and Georgetown University professor Rohit Bhargava has curated his bestselling list of "non-obvious" trends by asking the questions that most trend predictors miss. It's why his insights on future trends and the art of curating trends have been utilized by dozens of the biggest brands and organizations in the world.



In this newly updated fifth edition of Non-Obvious, discover what more than half a million others already have: how to use the power of non-obvious thinking to grow your business and make a bigger impact in the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Nov 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781494588571

Rohit Bhargava

ROHIT BHARGAVA is on a mission to help the world be more open-minded by teaching others how to be non-obvious thinkers. He is the founder of the Non-Obvious Company and previously spent 15 years leading brand strategy for large global brands while at Leo Burnett and Ogilvy. Rohit is the #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of ten books, a monthly contributor to Inc magazine and is a popular Adjunct Professor of storytelling, persuasion and marketing at Georgetown University.

[Mariia Adler · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I liked the general information at the beginning of the book about trend curating, however, I did not like that most of the trends presented in the book are relevant mostly from business perspective, and their practical application is discussed briefly from this perspective too. I was more curious about trends in grassroots movement, education, healthcare, rather than branding and selling. So this one-sided approach was a disappointment for me, as if only businessmen care about trends, and as if trends matter only for selling something.

[davidwineberg · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Ironically - Too Obvious

Non Obvious is simply an enlargement on various consultant-speak concepts, like “Think outside the box.” It is a handbook for sharpening a brand and customers’ “relationship” to it. It all began in 2004 when Barghava ran out of ideas for his blog – after the first one. It was a Guy Kawasaki moment that changed his life to constantly being on the lookout for content to repurpose. He took it farther, though. He synthesized multiple sources to determine a new “trend”.

The book has three parts. First: how to determine trends. Clip articles and look at them later for commonalities. Then think of a fabulous name for what you determined, never more than two words. Make one up if you have to (eg. Shoptimizing). Part two: 15 trends for 2015. Every one of them could have been 2014 and every one could also be 2016. And many aren’t trends at all. Third: how to run workshops to sharpen your brand. There is nothing innovative about workshops, and this is little more than a very long, repetitive shopping list.

From the title, the most interesting part should be part two, trends for 2015. This is what I came here to learn, since they are non obvious. But it is easy to argue with them, and they became tedious. Just two examples should suffice:

Chapter 9, Reluctant Marketer, proposes there is a trend where Chief Marketing Officers are abandoning their titles as marketing becomes content oriented. They are supposedly backing away from marketing duties in favor of content strategies. This is absurd to any real CMO, who knows that the more media you employ, the better the result. Content marketing is not replacing other marketing, it is an additional tool. You leverage them all in integrated marketing. It is not a “trend”.

Chapter 16 on owning and leveraging your own data is laughable, as our every move is tracked. Phones are personal tracking devices, abetted by debit cards, and road toll devices. The government records every piece of mail sent to you, knows who e-mails you and who you phone. And you are not allowed to see the data you created. To describe the “trend” as giving control to the generator of the data is priceless humor.

He calls trends “curated observations”, meaning thought and selection went into them. If you don’t want to do the brainwork, there are sites like trendwatching.com, where others have. Mostly, these aren’t so much trends as exceptions. Companies are forever trying things. Some stick, most don’t. Barghava opens chapter 23 with the astonishing statement “It’s never been a better time to be an employee.” Unless, like most, you are underemployed, with less than full hours, low pay, no benefits, no union and no security. His point is there are lots of companies trying things. But his statement is sorely misconstrued.

Barghava consults for major firms worldwide, teaching these methods. Evidently, there are thousands of workers responsible for brands who just don’t get it. I found it all extraordinarily obvious.

David Wineberg