Touch Deprivation, Martian Passport Stamps and the Rise of the Right To Repair Movement | Non-Obvious Insights #256

The most interesting and non-obvious stories of the week.

Dear edward, People are fond of declaring something the "new normal" - but doing that seems to assume change is something that starts and finishes. The stories that captured my attention this week suggest otherwise. Remote work, which seemed here to stay, is causing workplace trust issues. The digital divide, made more apparent by the pandemic, may be creating a religious crisis in rural America. The global travel industry continues to re-prioritize domestic travel. Will these shifts remain? This is just one of the questions we'll tackle in this week's newsletter along with plenty of other stories!  Is Now Finally the Tipping Point for the Right To Repair Movement? I remember an old Sony DVD player I had once that suddenly stopped working. The display flashed something called a "C:13" error. Google searches revealed message boards highlighting the coincidence that this error code often seemed to appear in the 13th month of ownership of a product ... right after the 1 year warranty expires. I hope that part was a joke - but an increasingly number of the digital products we use do seem to have a planned obsolescence built in. The "Right to Repair" movement has long sought to change this and the pandemic combined with a new administration in the US may finally be giving this long overdue cause the push it needs.  Nivea Releases Research on a New Epidemic: Touch Depravation  It might seem like hard times for a brand whose tagline is all about the power of touch ... but Nivea is leaning into this challenge by releasing two global reports that explore the state human touch pre- and post-pandemic. The conclusion, unsurprisingly, is that humans need touch, and Nivea is cleverly taking this obvious finding and using it as fuel for their new "Care for Human Touch" project that will fund non-profits that help people use touch to combat loneliness and help younger and older people in particular to feel more connected to the other people around them. How To Get a Limited Edition "Martian" Passport Stamp If you are like me and desperately missing international travel, this story won't help. To commemorate the UAE Mars Mission reaching orbit this week, the United Arab Emirates released a new passport stamp that uses special "Martian ink" made from volcanic basalt rocks that lend Mars its recognizable rusty color and are also easily found in the UAE. Countries have used postage stamps for years in this way to celebrate national victories, but this idea to use the immigration stamp people get when arriving in the country as a collectible experience was a new and non-obvious idea worth sharing.  Machines Are Inventing New Math Humans Haven't Seen Before Usually, humans pose questions for machines to answer. This week, a team of Israeli researchers released their work in building an "automated conjecturing machine" named after famous Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. While the technical explanation for how it works is pretty complicated, the bottom line from the linked article concludes that this "appears to mark a new progress point for computing, somewhat like the first time that computers beat out the chessmasters; but this time, in the game of making conjectures." Join the Non-Obvious Insights Show this week ... This week my Non-Obvious Insights Show came early as we had a special panel of five experts discussing the best and worst of Super Bowl Advertising. In case you missed the show, you can always watch it on demand here >> 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 >> Be Part Of Our Community ... Join our LinkedIn Group for the Non-Obvious Nation to read stories and see the world a little differently. Join Now >> Want to share? Here's the newsletter link: https://mailchi.mp/nonobvious/256?e=ee82cf54c9 The Non-Obvious Insights Newsletter features this week's most underappreciated stories, curated for you. | View in browser Copyright © 2021 Influential Marketing Group, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you signed up to receive weekly Non-Obvious Insights. Our mailing address is: Influential Marketing Group 1111 19th St. NW Washington, DC 20036 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list