Remote Workers Secretly Work Two Jobs, Deepfake Movie Trailers and Big Trade Shows Require Vaccines | Non-Obvious Insights #283

Dear Newsletterest,

Are you more productive working remotely? Probably not as productive as a handful of people who have figured out they can secretly do a second full time job without anyone noticing. That's just one of the stories you'll read about in this week's non-obvious newsletter. Other stories include Facebook's selectively transparent new report about what people see on the platform, deepfake movie trailers, bioluminescent electric blue firefly squid, and why the world's biggest tradeshows are all requiring participants to be vaccinated. Enjoy the stories!

Some People Work From Home and Secretly Hold Two Full-Time Jobs

People who love working from home enjoy a beautiful flexibility over how they spend their day. This autonomy also offers the irresistible opportunity for some to secretly take on a second full time job. A website called Overemployed encourages this practice as an act of rebellion mainly for white collar workers who are simultaneously underappreciated and underworked. After all, when your job mainly consists of attending useless meetings and pretending to look busy, what's the difference if you take on a second one?

The adaptations that these two-gig workers talk about, from learning to listen in on two Zoom meetings at once to having two different laptops with color coded browsers are a bit insane. But the idea that isolated remote workers could get away with this for months or even years doesn't really seem that far fetched. When you read what workers who do it say, it hardly even seems wrong. If they are treated like a number and given busywork, getting a second job to double their salary almost seems like a reasonable response.

Facebook Really Really Wants You To Know It's Not That Bad. Really.

This week Facebook published their first ever "Widely Viewed Content Report: What People See On Facebook." The report is published in the brand's "Transparency Center" and mentions "transparency" five times in the report. It also manages to underscore one main data point multiple times: "Only about 12.9% of News Feed content views in the US during Q2 2021 were on posts that contain links." In other words, they REALLY want you to know that the platform isn't the hotbed for misinformation link sharing that people think it is.

The report is a classic piece of beat-you-over-the-head corporate PR aimed at shifting perception. unfortunately, the data has some pretty obvious flaws. Consider another stat from the report: "the vast majority of content viewed in News Feed during Q2 2021 (87.1%) did not include a link to a source outside of Facebook."

Firstly, this conveniently ignores the fact that even posts without links can also spread misinformation. And secondly, this remaining 12.1% of posts the DO include links represent a HUGE amount of shared content that can influence perceptions, particularly if these percentages shift regionally.

New Film Reminiscence Lets You Star In A Deepfake Movie Trailer

Deepfakes are usually seen as a bad thing. Maybe they always should be. A movie marketing campaign from the new Hugh Jackman film Reminiscence is offering a different take by letting users deepfake themselves into a version of the movie trailer. It is a fun idea and makes sense for the sci-fi thriller, but it also offers a scary example of just how easily accessible deepfake technology is going to be in the future. Inserting yourself into a movie trailer is relatively harmless, but there will definitely be others with not-so-innocent motives in mind ready to use the tech for other purposes. This is going to be something to watch.

This 12 Minute Experience Lets You Relive One Moment Over and Over

There is a new interactive game called 12 Minutes that has captured the attention of a lot of tech journalists this week -- I saw at least six articles about it in my own feed of multiple news sources and that rarely happens. Of course, I had to check it out and the game is essentially the story of a man stuck in a time loop with a mystery that you slowly need to unravel by making different choices in each loop. It gets repetitive very quickly, but this is exactly the sort of game that anyone stuck at home on a hot summer day might find fun. So at least their release timing is good.

Bioluminescent Firefly Squid, Konbini and Experiencing The Real Japan

We are in the between time after the Olympics have ended and the Paralympics have yet to start and one thing I've been thinking about is how little we actually got to see of Japan during the time-shifted covid-reduced Olympic games. This week, a few stories reminded me of this - including a fascinating look at the famous firefly bioluminescent squid of Toyama Bay and reports of athletes and journalists experiencing the quirky Konbini convenience stores of Japan. It is an amazing country, but maybe the feeling I've been having most as we near the end of our summer is a nostalgia for the types of foreign experiences you can only have by traveling internationally. Yes, I miss that.

CES 2022 Is Only For The Vaccinated. Other Experiences Should Be Too.

The Consumer Electronics Show in 2022, one of the biggest tradeshows in the world, will be open ONLY to the vaccinated. The NAB Show is doing the same thing. These are great choices that hopefully will inspire other such declarations. Here in the United States, the debate about vaccination has involved plenty of extreme voices. While I am vaccinated and believe that others should get it too, this is not the point.

There are some situations, such as a trade show or a music concert or an airline flight that offer a high potential to become super spreader events. People who are attending deserve to feel safe and organizers have a duty to ensure they are not helping a contagious virus spread more widely. Requiring people to be vaccinated or to stay home from such experiences is reasonable. It may be your right to remain unvaccinated. But attending CES or any other event or taking a flight are all privileges, not rights. And if you choose not to get vaccinated, you should also choose to stay home for your own protection and to protect others as well.

Even More Non-Obvious Stories ...

Every week I always curate more stories than I'm able to explore in detail. In case you're looking for some more reading this week, here are a few other stories that captured my attention ...

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 to watch my new 2021 sizzle reel >>

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Remote Workers Secretly Work Two Jobs, Deepfake Movie Trailers and Big Trade Shows Require Vaccines | Non-Obvious Insights #283

Some People Work From Home and Secretly Hold Two Full-Time Jobs

Facebook Really Really Wants You To Know It's Not That Bad. Really.

New Film Reminiscence Lets You Star In A Deepfake Movie Trailer

This 12 Minute Experience Lets You Relive One Moment Over and Over

Bioluminescent Firefly Squid, Konbini and Experiencing The Real Japan

CES 2022 Is Only For The Vaccinated. Other Experiences Should Be Too.

Even More Non-Obvious Stories ...

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Why Entrepreneurs Lie, Luxury Co-Working, Psychic Candy Bars and a Hopeful New Climate Report | Non-Obvious Insights #282

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