In being transparent about his process for curating his Non-Obvious Trend Reports, Rohit Bhargava gives us insight on how to make the most in applying these trends in our own work. In pulling back the curtain on his Haystack process and the 5 Habits of Trend Curation, Rohit suggests much richer, deeper ways to engage such material. We gain advantage to the extent that we quit being passive consumers, and become relentlessly Curious, Observant, Fickle, Thoughtful, and Elegant in our Thinking.
Curiosity, Rohit tells us, comes as we're conscious about the media we consume, including media richer, "brainful" sources and those we'd normally never engage, and to make a point of asking questions that go beyond those that satisfy the most obvious tasks in front of us.
Being better Observers comes from taking advantage of explaining the world to children (I kept thinking of Denzel Washington's character in "Philadelphia" saying "Explain it to me like I'm a six-year-old."), watching processes in action, which we often take for granted, and resisting the path of least resistance to be observationally lazy, which we all do because, hey, absent a strong motive, we will focus our energies only on the most mission-critical tasks (or honestly, what's most fun!).
Being more Fickle - I was intrigued by this, as this isn't an attribute often cast as a positive. Rohit talks about being deliberately fickle - in that early in the process of thinking about trends, or per Roger Martin, the Knowledge Funnel's moving around in Mystery before going into Heuristics, your intuition or deep-pattern recognition pings you that something may be starting to come together. Go ahead and collect it, tag it, put it in your folder or Evernote collection, whatever. You can decide later how to process it further. You don't need to have the full answer yet. You can be fickle about it.. So Rohit encourages us to save ideas offline, give yourself limited time to think about things early on and not perseverate on them, and boil down some thought on them with a few Sharpie notes.
Being more Thoughtful - it's time to get past limbic responses to everything and let the prefrontal cortex back into the game! Doesn't your amygdala need a break? Rohit encourages us to take a break (how about even 15 minutes to think about a salient point?), write and rewrite (as an author, I had to learn that writing really is rewriting), and to embrace the pauses - what's the rush, anyway? The best future-oriented thought just may be based on slightly slower, reflective work at the right time. But again, we're likely talking about several minutes, not necessarily hours.
A more Elegant approach - it's clear that Elegance emerges from the thoughtful taking on of different perspectives. The more we understand that we're the hardware, and that different perspectives can be different software programs we can choose to run, such as Word or Excel (not even like an OS), the better off we'll be. Rohit draws upon a broad array of disciplines throughout all his Non-Obvious Trend reports, and thus reaps the Elegance rewards. He challenges us to see the obvious with fresh eyes, to boil down your communication to fewer words, and to use poetic principles in your communication.
Using the same principles behind the curation of the Non-Obvious Trend reports, the engaged reader will be able to get more from the great insight contained in the 15 trends in this year's report, including such memorably named trends as Side Quirks, Passive Loyalty, Lovable Unperfection, Robot Renaissance, and Mainstream Mindfulness.
Rohit is approaching trend work as thoughtfully, lovingly and creatively as it can be done. It's a joy reading every issue of his reports. I never fail to benefit, and am sure if you approach it with some of the principles he lays out above, you'll gain insight and inspiration for your work as well.
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Trends are not what everyone is writing about. This is obviously Non-Obvious
Rohit Bhargava's since 2008, with his first book Personality Not Included has created a curation culture where he urges his readers to think differently and curation of trends done right is not challenging or a dark art. In this book Rohit not only lists the Non0Obvious trends of 2017 but also scores himself on his previous trends. He got only 1 C grade for a trend 'Crowdsourcing" he curated in 2013. This year without being a spoilsport, I love the Moonshot Entrepreneuship. You should read this. I got my Kindle copy for .99c today, well worth it but I prefer the hardcopy. Since 2005 I have been following his non-obvious trends and as a marketer I am keen to see that Rohit creates his own path for trend curation. I was pleasantly surprised to see that "Precious Print" is a trend and I agree. I think given a choice and if the price was the same many consumers would prefer print. The Invisible technology referring to connecting information about human beings through devices not connected to the internet all the time is another well curated trend but obviously non-obvious to many of us listening to the news and mainstream media. For all Marketers and others who want to influence behavior whether it is to get more customers or get funding this is a good book to buy every year in December.
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2016
- Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2016
Rohit Bhargava's since 2008, with his first book Personality Not Included has created a curation culture where he urges his readers to think differently and curation of trends done right is not challenging or a dark art. In this book Rohit not only lists the Non0Obvious trends of 2017 but also scores himself on his previous trends. He got only 1 C grade for a trend 'Crowdsourcing" he curated in 2013. This year without being a spoilsport, I love the Moonshot Entrepreneuship. You should read this. I got my Kindle copy for .99c today, well worth it but I prefer the hardcopy.
Trends are not what everyone is writing about. This is obviously Non-Obvious
Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2016
Since 2005 I have been following his non-obvious trends and as a marketer I am keen to see that Rohit creates his own path for trend curation.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that "Precious Print" is a trend and I agree. I think given a choice and if the price was the same many consumers would prefer print. The Invisible technology referring to connecting information about human beings through devices not connected to the internet all the time is another well curated trend but obviously non-obvious to many of us listening to the news and mainstream media.
For all Marketers and others who want to influence behavior whether it is to get more customers or get funding this is a good book to buy every year in December.
Images in this review
- Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2016
- Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2016
- Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2016
- Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2017
Top reviews from other countries
- Deepthi RajanReviewed in India on November 7, 2017
Inspirational writing - here's to the power of observation!
