Dear Fellow Trend Curator,

This week while I was in Las Vegas for an event, the country music outside every casino was rocking. The rodeo had descended upon Vegas for their annual National Finals Rodeo which takes place across the city for ten days. So the cowboy hats were plentiful, the evening bar conversations were about competitive rodeo.

One of the most beautiful things I observed was just how often everyone from rodeo TV sports announcers to rodeo attendees at the bar would take time to explain the rules and joy of the sport to first-time watchers like me. There was kindness and patience in the explanations … in a way that is rarely offered back the other direction from city folk to their rural counterparts. Altogether it was a perfect reminder of just how important it is to welcome strangers into your culture instead of treating them like outsiders.

In other news this week - at 11am today I’m doing our big LIVE announcement of the winners of the Non-Obvious Book Awards to be sure to tune into that - and I've got another fun batch of non-obvious stories for you this week too. This will be the last newsletter of the year as I’ll be taking a break and also getting ready for CES which is rapidly approaching in January.

Enjoy the stories this week, have a wonderful new year and stay curious. I’ll see you in 2025!

Rohit

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The Brilliant Entrepreneurial Lessons of a Plant Hacker Inventing New Flowers

To raise money to put himself through school and earn a biotechnology degree, Sebastian Cocioba would gather orchids that his local Home Depot had thrown out and apply a plant growth serum to bring them back to life so he could sell them back to the store. Later, he would buy used lab equipment in fire sales and resell it back to other labs for a profit. All this bio-hustling wasn't just to earn some side cash ... it’s a symbol of how Cocioba thinks.

His current work is inventing new smells from flowers that don't exist. Imagine flowers that could smell like old books that you could put into a library. Or flowers branded with a certain look and smell. These are the projects his lab is working on and part of the reason he's able to do it is because "in the US, genetically modified flower work is covered by the lowest biosafety rating."

Of course, one would hope his lab is also looking at the potential dangers of his genetically modified flowers getting out in the wild and what effect they could have on the current ecosystem ... but his unique story of innovation is a perfect example of the sort of unexpected creators that may end up moving entire industries forward because they are able to think unlike anyone else.

4 Non-Obvious Upsides of the Big Omnicom + IPG Acquisition

This was a big panic-inducing week across the advertising industry. Two of the "big four" agency holding companies intend to join forces to create the biggest ad agency in the world with over 100,000 employees and an estimated $25B in revenue. The part of the news causing the most fear across the industry probably boils down to one thing summed up in this sentence from multiple stories:

"Omnicom executives said they had “clearly identified opportunities” for $750 million in annual cost savings."

Cost savings usually equals job losses. And this time of year no one wants to worry they may lose their job. If the deal passes what is likely to be minimal anti-trust scrutiny once the new administration takes over, there are some positive outcomes that will likely come through as well:

1. Conflicts create work. The many agency groups within both holding companies will surely have large brand conflicts. They will be forced to make some tough choices and resign accounts, which will create opportunities for other agencies.

2. Mergers create nudges for already unhappy people to bail. Anyone working in an agency role but suffering unhappily will take a package or find some other way to make their exit ... which is ultimately a good thing for everyone involved.

3. Small agencies will be more appealing. For clients wary of putting all their eggs into an even smaller basket of holding companies, the smaller agencies that offer a more nimble way of working and unencumbered thinking will suddenly look more appealing.

4. Consolidated media buying power lets us demand change. As fears of tech monopolies continue, one upside of large agency media buying is that the more money is concentrated, the more brands and media buyers can be in a position to demand certain policy changes from big tech players such as more focus on data protection and teen safety.

What do you think? Are these too optimistic - or are there other upsides you're thinking about too? Hit reply and let me know.

The Biggest Question From the Influencer Suing Another Influencer For "Copying Her Vibe"

Two influencers meet at a fancy hotel in Austin to collaborate on some social media posts. That's how the story started but it quickly goes bad as this "influencer vs influencer" article outlines from the NY Times. After experiencing frustration and a dip in her affiliate Amazon sales due (allegedly) to similar content from another influencer who "copied her vibe" the first one decided to sue.

The entire story may seem like a fight between two people you probably don't care about over something that doesn't really matter, but many observers are declaring this a "landmark" case that may determine what can (and can't) be copyrighted. It’s a thorny question as the article notes, since "the very nature of successful trendsetting requires some degree of replication."

So can you copyright a vibe? And if you can, what does this mean about remixing culture and the idea that we're all, to some degree, stealing ideas from one another regularly?

Jamie Foxx and His Family Offer a Masterclass On How To Maintain Privacy

About eighteen months ago, actor and musician Jamie Foxx got sick. Like really sick. He was rushed to the hospital with "life threatening" injuries and fans plus the media alike all were left to pray and speculate about the mysterious cause of his illness.

Meanwhile, his family and friends kept quiet about it - refusing to share details and declining all interviews. Of course, the media and Internet filled the void with lots of baseless conspiracy theories (it was a hit job from Diddy!) Still, the family stayed quiet.

Now Foxx has released a new documentary/comedy special on Netflix aptly titled "Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was" where he talks in detail about the life threatening illness, how poor decisions from one doctor nearly cost him his life and how he recovered from the "worst year of his life" with the help of his family.

It's a great story - but an even better lesson for all of us about what we do or don't owe to anyone else online. This isn't about celebrities, it's about setting your own boundaries around what you choose to share and how public you choose to be. You don't owe anyone an explanation for what you are going through and you don’t have to live every private moment in public. Reading how Foxx and his family dealt with his illness and how they are now sharing this story publicly on their own terms is a masterclass in personal brand management and self care.

This is what focusing on what's most important really looks like.

6 Techniques To Find Anything That's Lost or See What Others Miss

You know that moment when you misplace something and it takes forever to find? It could be your keys or a handwritten to-do list or anything else that seemingly just disappeared into thin air. Maybe you never found it. A piece from NPR this week collects six techniques that would be worth remembering to help you solve this very common human problem:

1. Identify what makes your missing object stand out in its environment.

2. Think about likely scenarios of how and why your object might have gotten lost in the first place -- and where it might be.

3. Recreate the movement of the object around the area you first remembered losing it.

4. Break out of your search routine by changing your perspective.

5. Look in weird and unexpected areas.

6. Divide your space up into sections, then search each section thoroughly.

And if none of these tips work, the experts have one last suggestion that isn't very non-obvious but I'll share it anyway: be tenacious and keep looking.

The Non-Obvious Book Awards

2024 Shortlist and Winners Announcement!

Today at 11am EST, we will be premiering our live announcement for the Non-Obvious Book Awards Shortlist and Winners. Be sure to watch live to see who will win the award and to take a deep dive into the best books of the year too!

About the Non-Obvious Book Selection of the Week:

Every week I will be featuring a new “non-obvious” book selection worth sharing. Titles featured here may be new or from the backlist, but the date of publication doesn’t really matter. My goal is to elevate great books that perhaps deserve a second look which you might have otherwise missed.

Even More Non-Obvious Stories …

Every week I always curate more stories than I'm able to explore in detail. Instead of skipping those stories, I started to share them in this section so you can skim the headlines and click on any that spark your interest:

• SXSW Announces Latest Round of Sessions (Including My NEW Featured Session!) 

• The 'Apple Library' With a Lost World on its Limbs

• Former Bond Girl Gemma Arterton Says Female 007 Would Be ‘Too Outrageous’: ‘Sometimes You Just Have to Respect the Tradition’

• Hotels Will Start Selling So Much More Than Rooms

• Tomorrow Wants To Reinvent The Refrigerator to Make Fresh Food Last Longer

• Robotaxis Are a Money Loser. Why Not Just Sell Autonomous Vehicles to Everybody Instead?

How are these stories curated?