The Pen That Speeds Up Learning, a Magical German Word, and the Myth of Amazon Prime Day

Dear Fellow Non-Obvious Thinker,

Welcome to all the new connections and readers I met this week! It’s been a whirlwind of gatherings, starting Tuesday morning when I spoke at the​NVAR Annual Convention​ for local realtors in the Northern Virginia area, then joined ​RedThreadX​ in DC to imagine the future of military operations as part of the ​AUSA Annual Army Show​. Later that evening and yesterday, I was in Loudoun County with a community of tech founders, operators and investors participating in a $1 million dollar pitch competition for ​Distilled Intelligence 3.0​. Tonight I’ll be speaking to a group of business students at American University, followed by the ​Desai Foundation’s Diwali on the Hudson​ celebration in downtown New York.

October is busy, but I’m lucky to have so many moments for human connection. I’ll be sharing videos from all these events in the coming weeks, but for now – let’s get going with this week’s non-obvious stories. Enjoy and stay curious!

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This Week’s New Videos …

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This Homework Motivation Pen Could Transform How We Learn

Every time I work out, my health app gives me a “Strive Score” that tells me how hard I worked and how much I pushed myself. I don’t really understand how it’s calculated but when I get a higher score, I feel better about myself. That meaningless score creates motivation. What if the same principle could be used to motivate any of us to learn better or more consistently? A Japanese company called Kokuyo previously launched a “​homework motivation pen​” for kids and recently just launched ​a new version specifically for adults​.

Their initial research shows a stunning 80% success rate in helping to establish positive study routines. More interesting is the ecosystem inspired by gaming that they are building around the pen:

“For adults, Kokuyo added deeper gamification: a customizable avatar that grows a “motivation tree” as users accumulate study time and unlock accessories. The avatar advances through board-game-style stages, occasionally encountering other users and collecting their Nakama Cards — profiles revealing why they study and what keeps them going — fostering community without direct interaction.”

Experts suggest that the complexity of handwriting Japanese characters may be a factor in the success of this tool, but it would be interesting to see if a similar idea might perform well in other countries around the world too. If they did, maybe I could also get a new quantified strive score based on how hard I worked to put this email together for you each week!

Why Every School Should Teach Vergangenheitsbewältigung

The Flakturm IV bunker building was too sturdy to destroy. The WWII era air raid shelter used thick concrete walls that made it impenetrable during the war, and indestructible afterward. For the past ten years, local architects in Hamburg have been working to build a staircase around it and ​make the symbol of war into something different​. Last year, construction was completed and today it’s a public green space with a roof garden and its usage has been transformed.

The effort is perfectly explained by a mindset in Germany known by the term Vergangenheitsbewältigung, which describes the act of a group of people reflecting and coming to terms with their collective past:

“Today’s Germany has effectively and thoughtfully engaged in the education about and remembrance of the Holocaust. In terms of education, museums use geographic elements and an abundance of evidence to show beyond doubt the extent to which the events that took place are relevant. On the other hand, remembrance and memorialization seem to use more symbolic and subliminal tactics to convey the horror of Nazism through emotion rather than brute facts.”

Reading about this reimagined bunker and this beautiful idea that warrants an entire word in the German language, I found myself wishing there were more people encouraging (or perhaps inspiring) this sort of introspection in other cultures. Imagine if we had all spent some time in history classes reflecting on painful episodes from the past and discussing how we might ensure we never need to relive them.

Learning about the past shouldn’t be about memorizing dates. It should help us focus on lessons we should take away to create a better future. 

The Next Generation of Gig Work Will Be Microtasking

This week Uber announced that they will have a new offering where gig works can choose to take on “microtasks” such as training AI models and offering feedback on new iterations launched. It’s a logical extension for an app that has actively tried to extend beyond gig drivers to become the champion of “flexible work” in all its forms.

Along with several innovations designed to make the Uber driver/courier/task-doer experience better, such as a way to appeal a negative review and share their own side of the story, plus heat maps to show high congestion areas for them to better organize their routes – this is an evolved side of Uber that seems to be taking seriously some of the past complaints about unfairness towards their gig workers.

The interesting part here is how this new initiative might signal a new category of microtasking work that can become a profitable side hustle for anyone in any moment. Imagine being paid small amounts based on taking your time to offer some sort of feedback on emerging technology. It’s a well-known fact that the only way AI gets better, more human and less prone to turn on us is if actual humans take the time to train it. In that sense, the more diverse range of people who can get involved with this, the better. If those asking for the advice actually do heed it, of course.

The Non-Obvious Media Recommendation of the Week

AdWeek

I’ve been reading AdWeek probably as long as I’ve been in the marketing and advertising industry. It’s been a constant source of inspiration and perhaps just as consistent a catalog of campaigns that inspired a healthy amount of professional jealousy after reading about ideas I wish I had come up with myself. There’s a decent amount of industry insider stories about someone moving from one holding company to another, which is pretty easily ignored if you’re not from that world or don’t know the people involved. The explorations of campaign ideas and strategies brands are using today are the best things about this magazine, and why I’d recommend adding it to your weekly reading list even if you’re not working in advertising right now. 

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week

CAPS LOCK by Ruben Pater 

This isn’t like any other book on your bookshelf. That’s perhaps the greatest compliment I can offer this stealthy 552-page paperback exploration of the intersection between capitalism and graphic design. The organization of the stories and structure of the book is haphazard. The margins are uncomfortably tight. There’s an entire section on the branding of bananas, followed by a later exploration of who should dare to call themselves a designer (and who shouldn’t). The result is a book that’s a bit like a tasting menu alongside a buffet, seemingly designed to simultaneously frustrate you and open your mind. Ultimately, the book did get me thinking differently not just about graphic design, but about the way capitalism influences just about everything we see. For those reasons, CAPS LOCK is my pick for the Non-Obvious Book of the Week. 

About the Non-Obvious Book Selection of the Week:

Every week I share a new “non-obvious” book selection. Titles featured here may be new or classic books, but the date of publication doesn’t really matter. My goal is to elevate great reads 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:

How are these stories curated?

Every week I spend hours going through hundreds of storiesin order to curate this email. Looking for a speaker to inspire your team to become non-obvious thinkers through a keynote or workshop?
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