Will Smith and Beyond Diversity, TikTok Time Travel and Mr Wonderful's Terrible Job Advice | Non-Obvious Insights #295

Dear Newsletterest,

It's a big week for me, and for Will Smith too. It turns out, the mega Hollywood star launched his book the same day as Beyond Diversity. I wrote an article on LinkedIn about how that might be a good thing. As a loyal reader of this newsletter, I would be grateful if you would buy a copy of the book for yourself. And if you are one of the 4,000+ members of our launch team that has already read an advance copy, please let me know what you think and post your review on Amazon!

Aside from it being launch week, I'm also on the road in NY and San Diego this week for interviews and speaking at the National Association of Realtors Conference as the second (and much less famous) keynote opening before Simone Biles takes the stage. So, lots going on this week ... but no matter what else is happening, we always have stories! There are some good ones this week featuring time travel, public libraries, terrible job advice from Kevin O'Leary and a few wonderful examples of inclusive product design. Enjoy the stories and the book—and thank you for being part of our Non-Obvious Nation!

40 Percent of American Children Think Hot Dogs Are Vegetables

A few years ago I remember watching a particularly disturbing episode of British Chef Jamie Oliver's reality show Food Revolution where he went into West Virginia schools to try and impact the food that children were eating to make it healthier. In the episode, he asked kids to name various vegetables and they had no idea. At the time, I remember thinking how sad it was that we don't teach our kids about food. According to a new survey, 40 percent of children interviewed believed that hot dogs come from plants and "41 percent were unable to correctly pinpoint that bacon comes from an animal."

Apparently the confusion comes down to something the researchers termed the "meat paradox" - where kids know that animals are harmed to make food and therefore prefer to assume some foods are not made from animals. The big picture implication for these findings is summed up nicely by the researchers: "Childhood may represent a unique opportunity during which to establish lifelong habits that help to mitigate climate change.”

How Behavioral Science Is Getting People Back To Public Libraries

Why don't people use public libraries? If you're like most people, your first answer might be to point to the Internet. And you would be wrong. It turns out, the biggest barriers for people using a public library have to do with something much more ordinary: late fines. The Brooklyn library system conducted a test with a behavioral research firm and learned that an average fine of just $15 was keeping away the low income people who most needed to use the library system. To try and welcome them back, they waived all the fines. It worked. They also made useful tweaks like simplifying the form to apply for a library card and making the cards easier to activate. To entice people to actually return their books on time (or at all), they also found the most effective method was sending a text message with the images of the actual book covers. Never underestimate the power of behavioural science.

Shark Tank's Kevin O’Leary Will "Throw A Resume In The Garbage" For the Stupidest Reason

An article on CNBC this week spotlighted "Mr. Wonderful" Kevin O'Leary from the Shark Tank reality TV show sharing his perspective on getting a resume from a candidate who seems to be “bouncing all over the place.” He calls these multiple job changes a "red flag" and talks about how companies that spend significant time and resources to train their team members should treat anyone who has had multiple jobs as a flight risk. This is just plain stupid.

Of course no company wants someone who will leave after just a few months. But why would you want someone to stay in a job that they hate for two years just to punch an imaginary clock? And if you're the one with the job you hate, why would you want to waste that much of your life suffering? Zappos famously paid people to leave. They wanted to make sure someone who wasn't a fit didn't suffer for the long term. It worked out pretty well for them.

Hiring is tough, and sometimes you hire the wrong person. But people have who jumped from job to job might have a perfectly good reason that has nothing to do with professional promiscuity. Maybe they are a caregiver for someone at home and needed more flexibility. Perhaps they worked with multiple startups that went under, through no fault of their own. The point is, dismissing a great prospective employee simply for having "too many" jobs within a span of time is like not reading a great article because it has too many words. Lazy and stupid.

Inclusive Product Design Is Taking Off

Featuring people with disabilities in ads or on TV shows is a wonderful symbol of inclusion. Designing products that everyone can use, however, is next level - and it seems this is becoming more of a design priority for many entrepreneurs and large brands alike. This week Olay announced a new design for their skin cream jars that are easier to open for people of all abilities. There was also a story of Mastercard redesigning their credit, debit and prepaid cards with notches to help people with visual impairments to tell them apart. And a new cutlery set with expanded utensils. Together, they are a positive sign that design itself is getting more inclusive. Not only is this big for those with disabilities, it's also a great step for the rest of us who might struggle to open that jar or need that alternate utensil too.

The Time Traveler Stuck in 2027 "Proves" He's The Last Man On Earth

Since June, a man named Javier – a.k.a. @unicosobreviviente or the Lone Survivor – has been posting TikTok videos claiming he is a time traveler that woke up in the year 2027. The videos he shares are great fakes and he has more than a few true believers. It's probably fake, but the story did get me wondering ... if someone actually had traveled to the future and had a way to communicate back, how might he or she do it? Any way they chose, we probably wouldn't believe them. So Javier has a long uphill battle to credibility. And the convenient fact that humanity seems to have been wiped out (except him), but the servers for TikTok and the Internet are still all good seems a bit suspect. Not to be a naysayer, but I think the only way I'd believe Javier is if he posts a video of him holding a 2022 Sports Almanac.

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 ...

YouTube is removing the dislike count on all videos across its platform
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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 >>

Beyond Diversity Now Available!

My latest book is now available and explores what it takes to create a more diverse and inclusive world. The book features the voices of more than 200 amazing people and is co-authored by inclusion expert Jennifer Brown. Get your copy of the book today!

Get a FREE Excerpt >>
Buy on Amazon >>

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Will Smith and Beyond Diversity, TikTok Time Travel and Mr Wonderful's Terrible Job Advice | Non-Obvious Insights #295

40 Percent of American Children Think Hot Dogs Are Vegetables

How Behavioral Science Is Getting People Back To Public Libraries

Shark Tank's Kevin O’Leary Will "Throw A Resume In The Garbage" For the Stupidest Reason

Inclusive Product Design Is Taking Off

The Time Traveler Stuck in 2027 "Proves" He's The Last Man On Earth

Even More Non-Obvious Stories ...

Older messages

Diwali Goes Mainstream, What Happened In Virginia and the Best New 2021 Dictionary Words | Non-Obvious Insights #294

Heinz Tomato Blood, Women Returning To Work and How To Get Into College | Non-Obvious Insights #293

Showing Censored Art, Learning Innovation From Package Design and a SXSW 2022 Announcement | Non-Obvious Insights #292

Why Visualizations Fail, Making Baseball Less Boring and Secrets of Squid Game | Non-Obvious Insights #291

The Decline of Clubhouse, Dubai World Expo Highlights and Why Marketers Are To Blame For Facebook's Choices | Non-Obvious Insights #290

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