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Are Words Appreciated Anymore?

Richard Laermer | Posted 03.24.2012

Read More: Death of English, Writing, Human Interaction, Attention Span Disorder, Laermer.com, Listening Difficulties, Bad Communications, Email Madness, Pet Peeves, Grammar, Business News

These days people communicate in funny ways. I often wonder if anyone is paying attention to the words they write down (forget what they say -- we eit...

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A Farewell to BlackBerry: The End of the Affair

Richard Laermer | Posted 01.11.2012

Read More: Outages, Blackberry Playbook, Handhelds, Laermer.com, Technology News, Blackberry, Obsessive Emailing, Playbook, Research in Motion, 2011 Trendspotting, Small Business News

BlackBerry Inc. has sadly morphed into one more in a long list of corporate doofuses whose right hand and left hand refuse to communicate.

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Athens: New World to Emulate

Richard Laermer | Posted 12.28.2011

Read More: Athens, Greek Monetary Woes, Laermer.com, Falling Governments, Trendspotting, Patronage, European Fall, Political News, Ancient Greece, Plaka, Good Change, World News

After a week here I believe that these leaders are childish and scared to change; and that Greek professional workers will never accept those in power.

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Bad News Is Good News: All in the Pitch

Richard Laermer | Posted 11.06.2011

Read More: Laermer.com, Consumerism, Recession Specials, Bad News, Worse Off People, Sliced Bread, Business News

Are you in business? You want to generate north-leaning numbers? Locate something you can tout that will make people feel horrific -- and then explain why you're around to lean on.

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The Last Decade & Mediocrity: A Look Ahead

Richard Laermer | Posted 11.17.2011

Read More: Entertainment Overload, Catastrophic Events, Vonnegut, Living News, Political Change, Laermer.com, Tea Party Winners, Taylor Swift-as-News, Mediocrity, 2011, Weary World, Healthy Living News

There's a Kurt Vonnegut short (very short) story called Harrison Bergeron. In it the United States Handicapper General, under the auspices of the 211t...

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How to Know if Your Client's an Incurable Ass

Richard Laermer | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Recessionary Advice, Who's the Boss, Finding the Happiness, Bad Karma, Money Making, Bad Clients, Conference Calls, Laermer.com, Work Headaches, Confucious, Business News

  This post has been a long time coming. If you work for a living,   every now and then you are fortunate to have dreamy clients - the one...

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Seven Signs the Recession's Still Ramming Us

Richard Laermer | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Insufficient Fuding, Getting Screwed, Flexibility, Recession, Comunication Skills, Sally Hogshead, 2011: Trendspotting, The El Show, Laermer.com, Village Pourhouse, The-Double-Dip, Business News

This is not a rant. It's a reintroduction to something you knew in 2009 all too well: The Great Recession. People tried to tell us it was over. I, li...

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10 Mistakes Businesses Make Daily...and 10 quick-fix solutions

Richard Laermer | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Horizontal Growth, Laermer.com, Stagnation, Staying Alive, Punk Marketing, Trend Spotting, Business Advice, Stupid Business Mistakes, Business News, Gut Feelings, Common Sense, Business News

During the last mercurial cycle, I asked several super-successful types what killed businesses. If we can somehow work on eradicating a few simple mis...

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Sorry, Big Doesn't Get the Job Done!

Richard Laermer | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Laermer.com, Competition, Business Power, Demonstrating Goodness, Public Relations, Business News

The CEO of a fast-growing software company recently smacked me with a question: Why should he hire RLM PR, a 13-person firm, instead of a so-called na...

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Sleep: Memory, Technology And The Future

Richard Laermer | Posted 11.17.2011

Read More: Boosting Our American Spirit, Napping, Living News, Good Night's Sleep Habits, Laermer.com, Nature Journal, Nap Salons, Marge Chamption, Aldous Huxley, Creative Production, Sleep Science, Sleep, Healthy Living News

Despite the initial promise of sleep learning, the general consensus in the scientific community is that such research is outdated. However, the same collective seems to be taking another look at sleep now.

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This Title Could Never Do Justice to How Much Christmas Is Pissing Me off This Year

Richard Laermer | Posted 11.17.2011

Read More: Congress, 2010s, Boycotts, Festivus, Laermer.com, Sensible Thinking, Distractions From Reality, Bad Year, No Christmas, Living News, Tiger Woods Drama, Fake Wishes, Happy Festivus, Healthy Living News

Can we get rid of this two week hiatus--and move on over to 1/04/10? Do we need the time off that badly? Am I Scrooge-worthy? Or am I just sensible?...

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The Myth of "Personal Branding"

Richard Laermer | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Michael Jackson, Fame Quotient, Laermer.com, Business News, How to Fame, Personal Branding, Making Money, Faming, The New Fame, Money vs. Happiness, Me 2.0, Business News

"Personal Branding" is a term that gets bandied about at every cocktail party despite not having any real discernible meaning.

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The Decade is Starting Anew -- Maybe We Will Too

Richard Laermer | Posted 11.17.2011

Read More: Laermer.com, PDA-Enhanced Living, Y2k Memories, Living News, Garbo Moment, Trend Spotting, End of Decade, Anticipation of New, Healthy Living News

These 10 years have been so difficult to define; even before the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and even the hardly explicable 1990s ended, we knew what they meant.

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Have Balls; Mortgage Will Follow!

Richard Laermer | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Bad Pitch Blog, Meetings, Ballsiness, Kanye West, Taking Risks, Laermer.com, Messaging, PR in Harsh Times, Balls, Punk Marketing, Sally Hogshead, Buy In, Cya, Office Politics, Recession-Beating Tips, Slow Business Period, Business News

Hey everyone; guess what! The chips have now fallen ... so go get some off the floor.

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"Kidlessness" or, It's Not About the Children

Richard Laermer | Posted 11.17.2011

Read More: Kidlessness, Richard Laermer, Childless, Being With Child, Laermer.com, Friendship, Birthday Parties, Having Babies, Dick Cavett, Children, Raising Children, Healthy Living News

As you know, unruly children make the kidless nuts! Pals complain about their messy homes all the time. I tell them: "I didn't tell you to have them."

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Gay, Gay, More Gay: Can't We All Just Get It Straight?

Richard Laermer | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Bill Clinton, Doma, Laermer.com, Full-Faith-and-Credit-Clause, Martha Coakley, Kenneth Cole, Constitution, Massachusetts, Gay Marriage, Barack Obama, Being Gay in America, States Rights, Brutal Honesty, Gay, Gay Rights, Gay Issues, Politics News

A state that recognizes same-sex marriage is entitled to have its "public act, record, and judicial proceeding" (and marriage is arguably all three) respected by all the other states.

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Tell The Truth: You're a Real Storyteller

Richard Laermer | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Literature, Limerick, Books, Laermer.com, American Literature, Pulitzer Prize, Angela's Ashes, Frank Mccourt, Autobiograhies, Ireland, Prospective Customer Acquisition, Customers, Reading, Truth Commission, Media News

The success of Angela's Ashes taught us that the most popular stories that seem to resonate with readers and spur new and positive changes are often the true ones.

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Much Ado About So Little It Hurts

Richard Laermer | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Supreme Court, Law, Supreme Court Justices, Cnn, Sonia Sotomayor, Laermer.com, Cable News, Lindsey Graham, Constitution, Barack Obama, Obama Supreme Court Nominee, Media News

The issue before the Senate is simple: Is the nominee qualified to sit on the Court? The answer: Yes. All the kvetching about how a nominee's race shaped her worldview is for the cameras, baby.

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Dramamine & "American Idol": Whose Country's Making Me Sick Now?

Richard Laermer | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Adam Lambert, Laermer.com, Media, Music, American Idol, Kris Allen, Tv, Entertainment News

I am sick of all this idle chatter. And then.... Last night millions (100? 50? Does it matter?) watched the annual crowning of their Idol on FOX. Ye...

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Celebrity Athletes: Could the Marketing Game Be Played Out?

Richard Laermer | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Steroids, Endorsements, Moneyball, Baseball, Football, Laermer.com, Marketing, Basketball, Celebrities, Entertainment News

Being famous means being memorable, never forget. Big corporations want characters. Buzz is about who talks about whom. That will never change.

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The Coming Newspaper Renaissance: Instructions for Survival

Richard Laermer | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Laermer.com, Warren Buffett, Media News, Editorials, Newspaper Death Knoll, Newspaper Renaissance, Womens News Columnists, Death of Old Media, Gutenberg, Washington Post, Pulitzer Prize, Media News

From whence will the Newspaper Renaissance hail? It will start with papers moving away from their belly-buttons and instead examining their core businesses.

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Why We're Gadget Freaks (It's Not as Simple as You Think)

Richard Laermer | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Style News, Gadgets, Consumer Magazine, The Perfect World, Laermer.com, Pdas, Nose Hair Trimmers, Restlessness, Ebay, Dr. Seuss, Style News

We can't perfect our lives and our world is far from it, but we can perfect the perfect PDA. Or nose hair trimmer. Or card shuffler (note to self: time to get one of those).

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Amazon Failure, the Future of the Corporation and "Crisis Communications 101"

Richard Laermer | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Captive Consumerism, Laermer.com, Business News, Entrepreneurial Spirit, Future of the Company, American Dream, #Amazonfail, Business News

Amazon moved gay, lesbian, and transgendered books to their Adult section. They say it was a re-categorization error which would have been a plausible excuse if they corrected it immediately.

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Spitzer, Spitzer, Spitzer: A Cautionary Tale Of No

Richard Laermer | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Laermer.com, Breaking News, Scandals, Bad PR, Image Consulting, Boring Celebrities, Newsweek, Eliot Spitzer, Politics News

Whoever did the training for Spitzer should go back to selling shoes -- it's that simple.

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"Punk Marketing" In a Recession

Richard Laermer | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Creativity, Pop Culture, Business News, Laermer.com, Branding, Recession, Trendiness, Old Advertising, Punk Marketing, Advertising, Business News

Chances are things are going to get bad before they get better. This is where you earn your stripes as a marketing pro.

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