The State of Taboo, 2008

By Richard Laermer, Guest Author I just spent two years studying trends in the near future for “2011: Trendspotting,” my new book from McGraw-Hill (www.Laermer.com). Taboos are changing. There are not as many of them—and the ones existing will surprise you, make you think twice before going down certain roads.

Hello, Narrative: How America Builds and Tears

It isn’t the downfall we crave – it’s the Grand Story. We are a culture of Fabulists and Fictionalists and Dreamers and Absolutists. Our mediasphere behaves accordingly

Life Personality Balance: Future @ Work

By Richard Laermer, Guest Author In her book Am*Bitch*ous, Dr. Debra Condren says that career-oriented women have to fight in order to get any work-life balance. Women, she exclaimed, are constantly fighting between maintaining their personal lives and maintaining their professional ones. Women feel that there has to be a sweet spot. You can give

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What’s WRONG With Publishing (Really)?

Why am I down on the publishing world? It’s starting to make little sense why I would write something that while widely read could be given out in a “cleverer” format. Doing a book with a major corporation just starts to seem…odd, given the proclivities in which I do everything else now. With that far-reaching statement, and by means of explaining my thought process, here is why publishing, as the kids say, needs to man up and change itself.