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Consultant Peter Drucker was hired as adviser and contributor. Editor is T (for nothing) George Harris, 43, a former Look senior editor and TIME correspondent, whose freewheeling enthusiasm has made him a sort of Mr. Chips to his writers. (The oldest is 27.)
"We're not a want-ad magazine for jobs," says Harris, who has put out two issues so far. "We'll tell people what's going on so they'll have a chance to act." Using Psychology's art style, the magazine is smashing to look at, but has yet to offer many articles over which today's college kids are apt to freak out. "Big Government Wants You" did not go far beyond information available in civil service brochures. "Activists, Radicals and Yippies" offered little analysis that had not already been provided aplenty elsewhere in the press.
On the Beach. The payroll is now up to 140 people and the corporation has spread, amoeba-like, into any available office space in tiny Del Mar. The staffers seem positively euphoric about their mission and a working atmosphere that calls for a new definition of the Organization Man. "The whole place is pretty freed up," says Craig Vetter, 26, a Careers writer. Formal hours are so casual as to be nonexistent, pants and bikinis are the girls' thing, and the men are dressed up when they don't go barefoot or wear sneakers. Parties are so frequent that their ends and beginnings almost overlap.
Even older staffers are caught up in the mood. Clarence Olson, 41, has quit his job as assistant editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Sunday magazine to become an assistant managing editor of Careers. "I walk to work, I camp in the house, I sleep on an air mattress," he says. "I'll just lie on the beach and maybe even buy a dune buggy."
The staff's enthusiasm and optimism seem justified, at least for now. Despite their flaws, the magazines—particularly
Psychology Today—are based on the sound idea of leading general readers through fascinating new fields of specialization. Charney is backing them with an intensive and well-financed promotion campaign. The charter issue of Careers last September was mailed free to all Psychology subscribers. Four million letters were sent to people on a well-culled mailing list, and 100 full-page ads have run in national publications.
John Veronis, 40, former senior vice president of Curtis Publishing and now a partner in the company (which has the pretentious title of Communications Research Machines), has persuaded 40 investors to put up $10 million. Already, Psychology Today claims a paid circulation of 350,000 (yearly rate: $10), which puts it in a category with Harper's and Atlantic. Careers claims 250,000.