The Demise of April Fool's Day, Italy Bans English and a Journey Inside a Brazilian Favela | Non-Obvious Insights #364

Dear Newsletterest,

One of the messages I have been sharing over the past few weeks in interviews about The Future Normal is just how much it's meant to be a book that celebrates the people who are shaping the future. This week's opening feature for the newsletter is a story like that, from my recent experience in a Brazilian favela - followed by a visit to the world renowned Museum of Tomorrow in Rio.

Beyond my travel journey recap, this week you'll also read about Italy's efforts to ban English, why the branded April Fool's Day prank may be a thing of the past, a brilliant new tattoo idea from Germany to promote organ donation, and the world's first wearable music album. Read on for this week's non-obvious stories!

Share on LinkedIn

Send Email

Share on FB

Discovering the Future Normal in a Favela and Museum in Rio

I spent last weekend on a memorable tour through Rio having two experiences that I didn't expect would have much in common. One was a visit to the first and most successful program teaching kids about gaming and development inside a favela. The other was to the world renowned Museu do Amanha (Museum of Tomorrow) in Rio. Read my recap of the experience in this LinkedIn article >>

The Death of the Branded April Fool's Day Joke Tradition

This past week included April Fools Day, which is usually my second favorite marketing day of the year after the Super Bowl. In past years, there have been so many delightful pranks from brands and I can recall spending hours just browsing through them all. This year was different. At least one publication suggests that the press is now avoiding covering pranks, and people in general are getting more skeptical of every slightly fantastical story thanks to the current explosion of AI generated content.

The truth is, branded pranks have been suffering from consumer skepticism for years. There is a thin line between a viral joke and fake news. Every hoax, even when intended as humor, has the potential to erode even more faith in the truth. So we may indeed see an erosion of this particular tradition ... at least in the short term.

This German Tattoo Can Save Lives, By Indicating You're An Organ Donor

How do you ensure the right people know you're willing to donate organs if the unthinkable happens? Organ donation awareness organization Junge Helden worked with ad agency McCann in Germany to imagine a novel way to let people know your intentions with a tattoo that officially recognizes someone as an organ and tissue donor. The design was created to be easy for tattoo parlors to ink, and participating shops have agreed to do it for free.

The idea is perfectly suited for Germany, a country where an estimated quarter of the population already has tattoos. It also has the potentially powerful side effect of creating more conversation around this difficult and sometimes morbid topic. Not to mention a source of pride among those who make this choice to help someone else even after their death.

After Banning Chat GPT, Italy Goes On To Ban the English Language

According to the Italian political party led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the spread of English "demeans and mortifies the Italian language and has negative repercussions for society as a whole." So just a day after they became the first Western nation to ban the usage of Chat GPT, the government is also considering a ban on English in all formal communications as a way to protect the Italian cultural identity and language. The proposal has attracted a wide share of criticism, but here's a non-obvious question: what if it works?

The spread of English has undeniably had a negative impact on the survival of languages across the globe. While Italian isn't considered a an endangered language, the desire to protect it by any means necessary isn't hard to understand. Requiring formal communications from the government and corporations to be in Italian could help to do that. Or perhaps it's just another short-sighted and fear-based policy from small-minded politicians. What do you think? Just hit reply and let me know.

Wikipedia May Soon Be Written By AI ... and No One Is Sure If It's A Good Idea

Five years ago Google launched an experimental project to have artificial intelligence write new articles for Wikipedia. As one reviewer noted, the results were "not even comparable to those written by people." It was perhaps inevitable that this idea would come back around and according to new reports, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is now thinking about how AI could help the online encyclopedia to continue to grow and evolve.

If AI does help build humanity's knowledge base, we will have to find a way to solve the current "AI hallucination" problem where generative AI tools tend to just make up plausible sounding sources or fabricate "facts" that are completely wrong. Logically, it makes sense. If you ask a tool built for making up sentences on the spot to cite it's sources, of course those sources would be made up as well. I would, however, love to read the edit history of a debate between a grouchy self-important "Wikipedian" editor and an AI tool trying to get its page updates approved.

Even More Non-Obvious Stories ...

Every week I always curate more stories than I'm able to explore in detail. Instead of skipping those stories, I started to share them in this section so you can skim the headlines and click on any that spark your interest:

How are these stories curated?

Every week I spend hours going through hundreds of stories in order to curate this email. Looking for a speaker inspire your team to become non-obvious thinkers through a keynote or workshop? Watch my new 2023 speaking reel on YouTube >>

Want to share? Here's the newsletter link:
https://mailchi.mp/nonobvious/364?e=f7921ac548

This Non-Obvious Insights Newsletter is curated by Rohit Bhargava. | View in browser

Copyright © 2023 Non-Obvious, All rights reserved.
You were subscribed to the newsletter from Non-Obvious

Our mailing address is:

Non-Obvious

Rochester, NY 14602

Add us to your address book

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list

Mammoth Meatballs, Doggie Dim Sum, Powdered Beer and Ed Sheeran's Marketing Techniques | Non-Obvious Insights #363

Thursday, March 30, 2023

The most interesting and non-obvious stories of the week. Dear Newsletterest, There is a tour in Patagonia where you can sail on a boat alongside glaciers, and then there's one where you can spend

The Fish of the Future, Rise of the DINKS and the Non-Obvious Party Photo Gallery | Non-Obvious Insights #362

Thursday, March 16, 2023

The most interesting and non-obvious stories of the week. Dear Newsletterest, What a week! After more than a dozen appearances to promote The Future Normal at SXSW, including getting Beyond Diversity

The Future Normal Launches, Mullet-Only Salons, Body Doubling and Why Kids Hate Music Classes | Non-Obvious Insights #361

Thursday, March 9, 2023

The most interesting and non-obvious stories of the week. Dear Newsletterest, It's launch week for The Future Normal! Today I'm headed to SXSW for a full four days of events and earlier this

The Most Important Job You Don't Know, Why "Deinfluencers" Matter and the End of the English Major | Non-Obvious Insights #360

Thursday, March 2, 2023

The most interesting and non-obvious stories of the week. Dear Newsletterest, There seemed to be a lot of predictions about things ending this week. The end of the English major. The death of

The Demise of April Fool's Day, Italy Bans English and a Journey Inside a Brazilian Favela | Non-Obvious Insights #364

Discovering the Future Normal in a Favela and Museum in Rio

The Death of the Branded April Fool's Day Joke Tradition

This German Tattoo Can Save Lives, By Indicating You're An Organ Donor

After Banning Chat GPT, Italy Goes On To Ban the English Language

Wikipedia May Soon Be Written By AI ... and No One Is Sure If It's A Good Idea

Even More Non-Obvious Stories ...

Older messages

Mammoth Meatballs, Doggie Dim Sum, Powdered Beer and Ed Sheeran's Marketing Techniques | Non-Obvious Insights #363

The Fish of the Future, Rise of the DINKS and the Non-Obvious Party Photo Gallery | Non-Obvious Insights #362

The Future Normal Launches, Mullet-Only Salons, Body Doubling and Why Kids Hate Music Classes | Non-Obvious Insights #361

The Most Important Job You Don't Know, Why "Deinfluencers" Matter and the End of the English Major | Non-Obvious Insights #360

How to Rebrand a Country, Fractional Executives and Why Humans Are Losing Our Sense of Smell | Non-Obvious Insights #359

You Might Also Like

Fixing conversions and killing the business

How to Write a Job Description

🎄 Recap: 21 Episodes of AI 101 Guide

Little Stream Software digest for the week of 2024-12-25

Use AI and protect your data

A reason to celebrate

Don’t Write Another Newsletter Until You Read This

How they flipped a domain for $90k (in just 22 days!) 😱

The Gift of Leadership

Hack to define your key activation event