Making the Invisible Visible: Essays by the Fellows of the International Leadership Forum (Greenway Communications), edited by Richard Farson

Predicting the future through rational analysisof the present has not been a fruitful science. Most futurists have usuallybeen wrong. In Making the InvisibleVisible, editor Richard Farson blames the failure on lack of trueunderstanding of the present and commissions some 30 essayists to explore nowin their areas of interest. The span of topics is wide, embracing everythingfrom incivility to the environment.

One of the best essays, by Ralph Keyes, beginsby attacking architect Frank Gehry, accused of designing buildings to impressother architects, not the people forced to use them. He identifies similarexamples of “the onlooker effect,” including cell phones conceived for techgeeks rather than consumers and “annoyingly hip advertising campaigns” createdto impress other ad agencies. The problem has been compounded by the so-called“communities” of the like-minded that have proliferated in recent years, whichhave given us “fewer and fewer opportunities to meet those unlike ourselves.”