#TheFirstWeekOfFall

Editor's Note:  If you're lucky, you get to meet someone during your career who can inspire imaginative thinking, offer a calming influence and when necessary, some very funny late afternoon riffing. This post was inspired by a long time friend who called to blow off a little of that late afternoon steam and crack wise about the magazine "media" industry.

This is for you my friend. A thanks for the friendship, the fun, and the ability to laugh at the absurdities of our business.

The first week of Fall is upon us. Kids have been back in school for a while. Leaves are starting to change color and some are already falling from the trees. There's no frost yet but maybe the air where you live is a little cooler. There's that anticipation that the holiday season is just there, just a little bit beyond the horizon. You may be too busy to think much about it, but it's starting to push its way into your thoughts.

Here in the shallower pools of the publishing industry. That place where magazines get sold at full retail, most people have their production schedules set. They know if they have promotional dollars. They know if they have a job. Or if they're going to get outsourced. Again.

But more importantly, if you work in newsstand, you may already have a pretty good idea of what those second half AAM, BPA and MagNet reports could look like.  For those of us who dare to dream we have a pretty good idea what upper management might ask when we're seated around the conference room table sometime just before the holidays.

Picture yourself in that conference room. Maybe the meeting will go something like this...

What do you think the end of the year will bring you? What's your outlook for 2017?