Robotic Eyelash Extensions, the Future of Food and the Best + Worst Super Bowl Ads | Non-Obvious Insights #255

Dear Newsletterest,

This week was a welcome break for me from the pressure of creating lots of content in a short time - and I used it to refocus on listening. I read more, accepted meetings to hear pitches for new books, starting playing around with Clubhouse and just took a moment to breathe. We all need that.

For the stories I curated for you this week, you'll enjoy reading a wonderful collection of trivia (robotic eyelash extensions and blacksmith repurposing bombs into kitchen utensils) along side some big ideas (reimagining political reporting and transforming what we eat). I have to admit, I was very tempted to start including lists of early released Super Bowl ads too, but you can easily find those online.

Instead, I'll just share that if you love marketing strategy and advertising, you won't want to miss a special edition of my weekly Non-Obvious Insights Show this coming Monday, the morning after the Super Bowl, where I will have a panel of visionary advertising experts talking about the best and worst ads from the big game. Set a reminder so you won't miss it >>

Blacksmith Turns Decades of Chinese Bombs Into Kitchen Utensils

On Kinmen Island, a Taiwanese territory four miles off the coast of mainland China, nearly half a million bombs were dropped over the span of decades since the 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis. This intriguing story from Atlas Obscura shares the story of one blacksmith who grew up during that time and learned how to reuse the metal and shrapnel from the bombs to make tools and kitchen utensils. The higher quality the bomb - the better quality the steel used. And as an island with a hostile neighbor and little access to imports, having useful steel literally falling from the sky created an entire industry for Wu and others like him. How's that for focusing on the bright side?

We Don't Need Political Reporters. We Need Government Reporters Instead.

"Defining our job as 'not taking sides between the two parties' has also empowered bad-faith critics to accuse us of bias when we are simply calling out the truth. While we shouldn’t pretend we know the answers, we should just stop pretending we don’t know what the problems are."

In a well-argued open letter to the political news media from "accountability journalist" Dan Froomkin, the idea of political reporting is called out as being unnecessary. Instead, Froomkin argues, members of the media who currently call themselves political reporters should be rebranded as government reporters. This would in turn free them to "cover what is happening in Washington in the context of whether it is serving the people well, rather than which party is winning." This is a powerful idea and one that senior media administrators should immediately try to act on.

Indigenous Cuisine, Undiscovered Seagrass and the Future of Food

What food trends will shape what we eat in the decade to come? There are some signs that the next evolution in the ongoing movement to eat local and organic might be to eat more indigenous foods - as this report from Wunderman Thompson Intelligence spotlights. Beyond the growing visibility of indigenous chefs, there are more pioneers who are discovering new plant life that could become a staple of consumption for us all in the future as well.

Spanish chef Ángel León is experimenting with dishes made from seagrasses and so-called "trash fish" (pandora, krill, sea bream, mackerel, and moray eel). His vision extends far past novelty dishes, into an entire ecosystem and new saltwater economy for his hometown of Cádiz. If it works, his underwater seagrasses could fight erosion and turn millions of hectares of underwater coastlines into a source of food.

Robotic Eyelash Extensions Might Be Coming To A Beauty Salon Near You

Eyelash extensions are popular in Asia, but require a time-intensive process of having a lash stylist attach extensions one-by-one while you sit in a chair for hours. Before you get too impressed with my lash knowledge, I learned all of that from a Techcrunch article this week about Luum, a new startup that has built a robot that can apply eyelash extensions in less than 20 minutes. After they finish testing (and find some adventurous volunteers), the founders believe every beauty salon will want one because of the potential for repeat business since the extensions need to be replaced every few weeks. As odd as it sounds, the business model and assumption does make sense. Hair and nails already have extensions. Why not eyelashes too?

Watch this week's episode of the Non-Obvious Insights Show ...

Coming off our big week of sessions all about diversity and inclusion, on this week's show I'll interview Michelle P. King - author of the bestselling book The Fix and former Director of Inclusion at Netflix. Join us for a conversation about how to fix the gendered workplace >>

Want to watch past episodes? Just visit my YouTube channel to see a full archive of all my previous guests. Watch the full playlist on YouTube >>

How are these stories curated?

Every week I spend hours going through hundreds of stories in order to curate this email. Want to discuss how I could bring this thinking to your next event as a virtual speaker? Visit my speaking page >>

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Robotic Eyelash Extensions, the Future of Food and the Best + Worst Super Bowl Ads | Non-Obvious Insights #255

Blacksmith Turns Decades of Chinese Bombs Into Kitchen Utensils

We Don't Need Political Reporters. We Need Government Reporters Instead.

Indigenous Cuisine, Undiscovered Seagrass and the Future of Food

Robotic Eyelash Extensions Might Be Coming To A Beauty Salon Near You

Watch this week's episode of the Non-Obvious Insights Show ...

Older messages

Banned Books, Endangered Cosplay and 50+ Hours of Conversations About Diversity | Non-Obvious Insights #254

Inauguration, Transitions and Why Experience Is So Undervalued In Politics | Non-Obvious Insights #253

Why Brands Redesign Logos and a Preview of the World's Most Ambitious Conversation About Diversity | Non-Obvious Insights #252

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