Marc Hershon

Just as many people think that the quote "Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast," comes from Shakespeare, lot of folks believe that new age meditation music has got to be bland and vapid or it just can't "transport you" to wherever it is your happy place happens to...

What's got three heads, a wicked sense of humor and leans to the left? That would be Stephanie Miller's Sexy Liberal Comedy Tour.

Mostly powered by a social media campaign, the SLCT is making its way around the United States, touching down first in places where its humorous slant on...

Last week I wrote a goodbye to comedian Richard Carter, who was warmly remembered by those who knew him. This morning I heard about the passing of a another beloved veteran standup comic who I was fortunate to cross paths with a number of times over the years:...

Richard Carter, 1920-2011

I just learned that Richard Carter passed away at the age of 91 last month, over across the bay in Concord, CA. He was a war hero in WWII, an artist for the Deseret News in Salt Lake City and then, in his late 60's... he became...

Four simple rules to make sure your trademark is limber enough to play in the big leagues.

Clients looking for a new brand name often warn that it must be easy to spell (among a host of other concerns) when, in reality, that's a consideration that can have little bearing...

Fred Stoller shouldn't be the star of a movie.

That's what conventional wisdom would have us believe. He doesn't look like a movie star. He doesn't sound like a movie star. He doesn't act like a movie star.

All of which are precisely the reasons he's great as the star...

Spoofs are hard. Correction: Spoofs are easy; good spoofs are hard.

Savvy enough to realize this, perhaps, The Selling -- a new "supernatural comedy" by director Emily Lou and writer Gabriel Diani -- wisely avoids trying to be a straight-out spoof. Instead, the film treads a fine line between original...

Full disclosure: I'm a huge conspiracy buff.

Not in the sense that I believe in UFOs, hybrid alien-human star babies, FEMA death camps or many of the other theories that fuel the hearts and minds of the delightfully paranoid. I'm just a fan of the idea of conspiracies. That one...

Creating your new brand for an expansive experience as opposed to a particular product will inevitably serve you well.

There used to be a time that most brands had a first and last name. Pepsi Cola. Kodak Film. Eveready Batteries. It wasn't that the last name was always a part...

Lots of pundits took their potshots at the iPad as it was first coming to market in early last year, with even video sketches on YouTube mocking the name as some kind of high tech version of a feminine hygiene product.

Now, a year later, with Apple reportedly having sold...

It's not just the start of a new year but, when the clock ticks midnight on December 31st, we'll be into a whole new decade. The end of the aughts. As in "we ought to have just skipped the last ten years." Fortunately, with our book I Hate...

A time-honored tradition in the workplace is the re-gifting of junk you no longer want, wrapped and bowed and given to another at the annual holiday party in a "white elephant" exchange. Usually this is some last minute scramble to figure out just what piece of cast-off detritus you can...

To be a Soloist is to be aware of that which the masses are too distracted to see. The following are secrets not so much because the information is hidden, but because most people simply aren't paying attention to the obvious.

In I Hate People!, the book I wrote...

There's that guy in your office that happily spews rumor and gossip as if they're facts and figures all day long. In our book, I Hate People!, we call people like that the Know-It-None.

It's not always easy to distinguish yourself at work, at least in a way that's favorable. And in a style that doesn't make it look like you're puckering up to give the boss a butt hickey.

It's hard enough for newcomers to get noticed but if you've been at the...

Just because you're back from that summer sojourn doesn't mean that the party has to be over. Discover ways to keep those great summer experiences alive the rest of the year.

I saw a sight today that brought back memories of summer's end. A young boy was running, backpack flopping,...

Even though the smart Soloist often hates meetings, a lot of people love them. Meetings give the illusion that the least industrious in your organization are actually doing something. Which means Corporate America's plague of status updates, mid-project reviews and interdepartmental interfacing isn't going to diminish anytime soon.

Just because...

What a great time to be Twitter. It's all the rage. Sitting in the social networking sweet spot that used to belong to first MySpace, then Facebook. This too shall pass when the next hot socialnet comes along. But, for now, there's something different about Twitter. And it's...

In our new book, I Hate People!, Jonathan Littman and I take pains to make sure that our protagonist, the Soloist, is not painted as some kind of recluse, loner or freelancer. Our idea is more along the lines of a musician. A first chair violinist is the example...

I've been a huge proponent of personal computers and all other gadgetry in general. Bought Radio Shack's TRS-80 back in 1980-when-it-came-out. The first 128K-no-hard-drive Mac. The original Palm Pilot. No tech too glitchy, no adoption too early.

The commonality about it all? I've been in ultimate control of what content...