Leyden started his career as a journalist and spent his first decade working out his ideas in writing rather than through talks. He covered a variety of beats on several daily newspapers in different regions of the United States and learned how to quickly explain things to mass audiences. Much of that written work is pre-web and not readily available today.
Leyden occasionally wrote magazine pieces during that period and by the mid-1990s worked at Wired magazine. He did some writing for Wired, including what the founder publicly called one of the best pieces of the first 15 years of the magazine – The Long Boom. That controversial 1997 cover story sparked a national conversation about the long-term implications of the “new economy.”
He then co-authored two books on new technologies and the future. He wrote a book version of The Long Boom, which was translated into various European and Asian languages and went into paperback editions. In the wake of the 911 tragedy, he spent a year interviewing 50 remarkable people in fields of the future, getting their insights about what to expect in the next 10 years. That book was What’s Next, and it also had British and Chinese versions.
Leyden is currently contemplating writing his next book on The Reinvention of America. He’s been working out his ideas on this topic in his talks, such as the recent one from the fall 2012 that can be found here. He was asked to write a short piece for The Prospect magazine about this idea for after the election and you can find the first draft in writing here.
Leyden’s new Reinventors startup company should also provide much food for thought as he talks to many remarkable innovators from different fields on what could be considered a “show” using group video on the web. And he expects to use this website and blog to continue to refine the concept in the year ahead.
Below you can see some examples of his past writing, and over time he expects to fill out “reviews” of what they mean to him….
