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May 31, 2006

Class Act

The other day the New York Times lauded a Maryland university for churning out talented scientists, mathematicians, and engineers at an impressive rate. The school wasn't Johns Hopkins. It was a lesser-known academic powerhouse, the University of Maryland in Baltimore County (which I'm pleased to report Fast Company readers learned about several years ago).

Every school that's serious about making the American workforce more competitive and addressing the growing shortage of scientists and engineers should copy the Meyerhoff Scholarship Program at UMBC. Ninety percent of the participants major in math, science, or engineering -- and 90 percent of those go on to graduate school.

The program works for a variety of reasons -- its pre-college summer boot camp, summer internships at top labs, collaborative environment (students study in small groups, like scientists), the sense of community (they share a dorm all four years).

Then there's the leadership of UMBC president Freeman Hrabowski. A lifelong math geek -- "I still get goose bumps doing hard math problems," he told me -- he tries to be the kind of role model that inspired him as a boy: "When I was 13, the summer before 11th grade, I spent the summer at the Tuskegee Institute and met a black math professor with a Ph.D., who liked talking about books as much as I did. After that I told myself, I'm going to be like him. I envisioned having a Ph.D., teaching math, and being a dean one day. So every morning, I'd look in the mirror and say, Good morning, Dr. Hrabowski."

That Ph.D.? He earned it at 24. The dean's job? Had it at 26. Here's a dynamic college president who's leading by example. If only more colleges would follow him.

Posted by Chuck Salter at 4:24 PM | 1 Comment

Growth Sports

Back in the day, Blackboard Inc. was one of the faster growing businesses in the DC area. Because "back in the day" can be read as during boom time, a lot of companies in that region's tech sector have come and gone. Blackboard hangs on -- and even continues to thrive.

In the Washington Post today, Steven Pearlstein takes a look at some of the lessons Blackboard learned in the new economy. The piece is worth a read.

Posted by Heath Row at 3:53 PM | Add Comment

Yves Behar: Man for all Species

Is Yves Behar the new Leonardo?

Everybody's favorite product designer, Yves Behar, was a one-man design lab last week at New York's International Contemporary Furniture Fair.

For starters, he was the genius behind the coolest lamp at the show. His LED "Leaf" lamp for Herman Miller, looks like a Mobius strip, and uses 40% less energy than conventional bulbs. Its lifespan is a remarkable 100,000 hours --- a good thing, since it costs a pricey $525. At a Soho party in his honor, Behar regaled guests with the lamp's cool touch controls that operate like an iPod's flywheel: One lick for the cool-warm spectrum (fluorescent to incandescent), the other for intensity (from cozy dimness for romance to brilliant, land-your-aircraft here wattage).

But that's not all! This boy wonder has also produced a crazy looking high chair for Calla, that looks like the grammaphone in those old Victrola, "He hears his master's voice," ads.

But, wait -- there's more! Not content just to create for design groupies and trendy babies, Behar is reaching out to the animal kingdom, with a collection for Gino and Dog that the kids at the California College of the Arts designed under his direction.

Add to this, the work he did with Crispin Porter for MINI Cooper and chandeliers he designed for Swarovski crystals and you wonder: does this man ever sleep? Or maybe that's when he gets his best ideas. I'd love to see the sketch pads by his bed....

Posted by Linda Tischler at 3:08 PM | 2 Comments

Their Wallets and Their Mouths Aren't that Small...

Was Randy Newman right after all? It sure seems that way, to read Sunday's New York Times piece (subscription required) bemoaning the downsizing of petite departments in stores all over America. To hear the manufacturers tell it, the petites just aren't generating enough business to justify their existence anymore.

But America's vertically challenged women aren't taking this lying down. (Or standing up). The story is one of the NYT's most emailed, along with the usual political subjeccts, and today's letters to the editor section is filled with outraged women, including one 75 year old who wonders what kind of plastic surgery she'll need to shop in the girls' department.

I come from a petite family, where my 5'4 1/2" build makes me a relative giantess, but I can still empathize. The real point, however, is a broader one: for all the talk of mass customization in such areas as music, cars, etc., it's still largely a web phenomenon. The "mass" appeal businesses such as fast food and much retail still must cater to, well, the masses for their survival. The fact that many petites must now surf the web for their clothes without being able to try them on, while inconvenient for them, seems more likely to hasten the demise of the department store than anything else. As one husband wrote the Times, "For those of us with petite wives (not junior wives), this policy will translate into fewer trips to Bloomingdale's, Saks and Neiman Marcus for us in the future." Short-sighted, no?

Posted by Jennifer Reingold at 11:38 AM | 1 Comments

The (Ice) Cream Rises...

It's summer time, and the living is easy. So our minds turn to all things summer: kite flying, picnics in the park, baseball, and ice cream. Today's New York Times offers two glimpses behind the business of ice cream -- which make interesting parallel reads.

First up, R.W. Apple, Jr., takes a look at Blue Bell, a Texas-based ice cream maker that, even though it's sold in only 16 states, ranks third in total ice cream sales nationwide. That's right, this "little creamery" outsells Haagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry's. It's secret? Snappy slogans, central control, and quality ingredients.

Secondly, I was sad to learn of the passing of James Conway, Sr., who helped launch the Mister Softee ice cream company. A multimillion business, Mister Softee -- whose trucks sing the song of summer -- ranks among the largest franchisers of ice cream trucks in the U.S. Conway was a graduate of Wharton.

This morning, I've got a taste for ice cream. We'll see how the day goes, but maybe I need to stop off at the Times Square Cold Stone Creamery.

Posted by Heath Row at 9:35 AM | 2 Comments

May 30, 2006

Leading Ideas: Don't Stop...Start

"Nature abhors a vacuum" -- François Rabelais (1494?-1553), French Renaissance satirist, from his book Gargantua and Pantagruel

Consider This:

If you want to change something in your life, it's common to try to stop the behaviors you don't like. While this certainly seems logical, it seldom works. The reason is simple - it unintentionally creates a vacuum where the old behaviors used to be. And since nature hates a vacuum it will fill it with anything it can find - usually the very behaviors you're trying to stop since they're so familiar. Instead of stopping certain behaviors, try focusing on what you want to create - and the new behaviors you need to get there. Eventually, with practice, new behaviors will develop enough muscle to naturally replace the old ones.

Continue reading "Leading Ideas: Don't Stop...Start"

Posted by Doug Sundheim at 10:30 AM | 3 Comments

May 25, 2006

Hello, Wheat. Goodbye, Chaff!

Two of the most recent ChangeThis manifestoes might make useful parallel reads. Tom Ehrenfeld, who used to work with Fast Company's sister magazine, Inc., offers The Rewritten Rules of Management, which considers the Bill Swanson leadership wisdom plagiarism through the lens of Enron: "Letting Swanson get by with a slap on the wrist is like letting the Enron folks off with a small fine and a few hours of community service."

Meanwhile, Robert Sutton, a professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford Engineering School, cites Sturgeon's Law and suggests that 90% of management advice is crap anyway. After indicating that "the way business advice is sold today makes it difficult to cull the good from the bad," Sutton goes on to offer ways to identify what's awesome -- and what's awful.

Posted by Heath Row at 7:13 PM | 4 Comments

The Jeff Skilling Interview That Never Ran

"I'm the chief sheepherder."

That's how Jeff Skilling described his role as Enron's CEO to me back in 2001. This was several months before the Enron empire began to crumble. I was working on a piece about the role of teaching in leadership, and I called Skilling after hearing that he spent a good bit of time teaching on the job. The interview didn't make the cut - it was heavy on platitudes and self-promotion - but the transcript reads better now than it did then, especially in light of today's convictions. A Houston jury found Skilling guilty on 19 counts of fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, and insider trading, and Kenneth Lay guilty on six counts of fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud.

During the trial, Skilling said he didn't know anything about CFO Andrew Fastow's financial shenanigans. Before the scandal, however, Skilling painted himself as a hands-on and plugged-in CEO:

"I tend to be open. I tend to encourage debate on subjects. I'll give you an example. We had a meeting this morning looking at a capital investment we're contemplating. We did the typical pro forma economics -- do these numbers look reasonable? Then we started asking the real questions: Why will this capital investment give us more than compensatory return? What about the market return? Who are our competitors and what are they good at? What are customers looking for, and are we good at offering those services? You want to have a deeper discussion."

Real questions. A deeper discussion. Here was an analytical thinker who enjoyed digging for details and dissecting a deal. Well, until his multimillion-dollar defense team recast him.

More pre-meltdown Skilling: "I'm teaching problem-solving. I'm helping people identify ways to be where the competitors aren't. Some people look at the marketplace and say what's GE doing? Let's do that. Here we ask what's GE not doing that we can do?"

As far as Skilling and Lay are concerned, we now know the answer: Doing serious time at Club Fed.

Posted by Chuck Salter at 5:02 PM | 3 Comments

Kudos to Fast Company

Fast Company and senior writer Linda Tischler have received a great accolade: The Deadline Club (the New York chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists), named Linda's story about Cirque du Soleil, "Join the Circus," the best magazine feature story of 2005. As the judges said, "Linda Tischler provided a dazzling account on the world of Cirque du Soleil. She laid out the many acrobatic feats it took to build this powerhouse brand. Her soaring narrative zeroed in on a colorful landscape of characters with vision."

I’m delighted by this recognition, not least because I’ve always seen Linda’s story as a bull’s eye for Fast Company. It’s lively, dramatic—and instructive. As the story says, you don’t have to be a fan of the big top to understand that Cirque du Soleil is an innovation high-wire act. “Offbeat and wild it may be,” Linda wrote, “but Cirque could still teach most businesses a thing or two about recruiting and retaining supremely talented specialists, coaxing extreme creativity from a diverse band of employees, and building a powerhouse global brand. But above all, it's a study in the virtues of taking big but controlled chances, as you'd probably expect in a business that's all about using skill and training to skirt death and disaster for the sake of beauty and laughs.”

Posted by Mark Vamos at 4:46 PM | 2 Comments

Marketing BlogJam Update

Just a reminder that FC Now will host a Marketing BlogJam in two weeks, led by several bloggers from Corante. They'll be covering the 2006 Innovative Marketing Conference presented by blog site Corante and the Center on Global Brand Leadership of Columbia Business School.

fastcompany.com readers can attend the conference, too, at a discounted price. Click here for more information, and check out FC Now on June 8 fo the Marketing BlogJam kick-off.

Posted by fastcompany.com editors at 11:04 AM | 1 Comment

May 23, 2006

Go, Go, Globalism!

The real sign of how tightly integrated the global economy is isn't offshoring -- or any political organization or multinational structure -- it's the Eurovision Song Contest.

And, in a fine parallel to Fast Company's recent feature about bosses from hell, this year's winner of the Europe-wide competition, announced scant days ago, may very well be from that nether region. Lordi, a Finnish metal band that dons the garb of monsters -- think Gwar gone global -- took the top slot for their little ditty Hard Rock Hallelujah.

Meanwhile, here in the U.S. of A., we get Ryan Seacrest. How can that possibly be fair?

Posted by Heath Row at 5:19 PM | 2 Comments

Fast Company... on the Air!

Fast Company contributor Anya Kamenetz will appear on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” at 12:35 p.m. ET today to discuss the ”The Network Unbound" feature on the business use of social network services in the June issue.

Join us if you're able!

Posted by Heath Row at 10:15 AM | Add Comment

May 22, 2006

How Billionaires Can Save the World

Last week I attended The Future In Review (FiRe), an intriguing annual conference hosted by Mark Anderson, the publisher of Strategic News Service. Mark asked each of the attendees--a bunch of brilliant scientists and influential players from Wall Street and Silicon Valley--to write about their favorite philanthropic organizations. I was particularly interested by the contribution of David Brin, a science fiction writer, who said that he's working to develop the Eye of the Needle Foundation, which is "aimed at offering billionaires truly original and exciting ideas to gain renown by saving the world." For a look at what he's taking about, check out this article on his Website.

Posted by Alan Deutschman at 9:56 AM | 12 Comments

May 19, 2006

The Turnaround Tale Begins

Fast Company’s fans know that the group-thinking herd had recently all but written off this magazine. And our fans also know that the herd, as is usually the case, was wrong. Now the true story is starting to come out: Fast Company is alive, well, kicking butt—and more relevant than ever. As Marketwatch critic Jon Friedman writes, “Fast Company is a snappy, lively magazine and it boasts an easy-to-navigate Web site, which is filled with interesting information and news.” Jon did a pretty good job of discussing our editorial strategy—which simply (and profoundly) consists of traveling the leading edge of business to find the people, organizations, and ideas that will shape the future. Most important, he understands that, thanks to the support of our great owner, Joe Mansueto, and our renewed editorial focus on the things that make this magazine distinctive and great, we are here to stay.

Posted by Mark Vamos at 12:14 PM | 9 Comments

10 Ways to Rethink Your Work

Getty Images has an interesting project in which they worked with five collaborators to consider 10 Ways -- how 10 different approaches to photography can change how you look at images.

As I explored the different elements, which include light, information, memory, space, response, emotion, color, truth, time, and transformation, I was struck by how each of them can also have impact on how we do what we do, with whom, and why.

When you have some time, consider clicking through the 10 Ways yourself. And think about how each plays a role in your work -- and in your business. Which one do you think is most important?

Posted by Heath Row at 11:22 AM | 6 Comments

In Search of ...the Organized Life

A couple of months ago, Jane M. Von Bergen, a longtime reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer, set out to clean her cubicle and get organized -- in print. Her desk at the newspaper was, well, a mess. Stacks galore: newspapers, notes, phone numbers, story ideas, files, everything. Like a lot of journalists, she's interested in a lot of things, and she sees story ideas at every turn. Another clip, another idea jotted down somewhere, another stack in the making. When she goes to find a name or number buried somewhere in the clutter, she's like the feds looking for Jimmy Hoffa's body. I can definitely relate. Maybe you can, too.

According to one estimate, companies lose 15 percent of their paper documents, and employees spend nearly a third of their time looking for them. It takes a personal toll, too. When you're constantly disorganized, it's hard to stay productive, which makes you feel lousy and even less motivated to get a handle on the problem. It's a vicious cycle, one that inevitably results in a late-night screening of "Office Space" for the umpteenth time. Or so I've heard.

In her stories and blog, Von Bergen chronicles her efforts. The dump-everything-on-your-desk-into-a-box method. The two-minute rule for what to do with an item. Advice from super-organized colleagues who use Outlook as more than an address book. Ribbing from other colleagues when she brought in a shovel and bucket. But Von Bergen got results: Her inbox, once bloated with more than 4,000 emails, has less than 250.

What's the best daily or weekly habit you've adopted to manage the paper/email/info flood?

Posted by Chuck Salter at 9:14 AM | 8 Comments

Poster Childishness

File under: Friday fun.

John Watson's Motivator Web app will help you make demotivational -- and other -- posters in the vein of Despair Inc.

Update: Thank to a reader email, I was reminded that the service can also help you create motivational posters all your own. I was attracted to the fun -- and potentially funny -- uses and failed to mention the positive and productive aspects of this DIY tool. Please, motivate, don't de-motivate.

Posted by Heath Row at 9:05 AM | Add Comment

May 18, 2006

DMI Branding Conference - Brand Smackdown

Robert Wallace, of Wallace Church, and Frank Nuovo, Nokia's former design chief, offered intriguing presentations this afternoon. Wallace focused on bringing simplicity and clarity to branding, offering ten cogent steps for building brands and drawing examples from the brand revamps he's done for Lean Cuisine and Heinz products. Nuovo, who left Nokia in April after eleven years at the helm of the design department, lead the audience on a long, colorful exploration of Nokia's brand strategies over the past decade. Some of it was rather candid - he apologized for the N-Gage ("You had to remove the battery to replace the game cartridge! I should have been out of a job.") and admitted he now uses Skype, not Nokia ("I had five different mobile phones around the world. My monthly phone bill was $5,000-$6,000!")

The most provocative presentation yet came from James Woudhuysen, Professor of Forecasting and Innovation at De Montfort University, in the UK. I should have seen Woudhuysen coming - he made his first public appearance at the conference earlier in the day, when he stood up during IKEA design chief Lars Engman's Q&A session. The audience was basking in the glow of all of Engman's smart Scandinavian design when Woudhuysen, whose hand was the first in the air, approached the mike to ask what Engman had to say about the design of IKEA's instruction manuals. This bit of humor was lost on most of the audience.

Later Woudhuysen stepped to the podium...

Continue reading "DMI Branding Conference - Brand Smackdown"

Posted by Lucas Conley at 9:51 PM | 2 Comments

Best Brands in the Land

According to a survey recently conducted by City Business Journals Network and Russell Marketing Research, the 10 brands best-known by American CEOs are as follows:

• UPS
• Dell
• Microsoft
• Sony
• Sam's Club
• Southwest Airlines
• QuickBooks
• Costco Wholesale
• FedEx
• Best Buy

Which company do you think is best -- which brand is strongest?

[Via IT Facts]

Posted by Heath Row at 4:01 PM | 14 Comments

Now Batting: The XM Inno

Have you ever tried to surreptitiously listen in your office to that baseball game that's being played so inconveniently in the middle of the afternoon (like today's Yankees/Rangers game)? Wanted to listen to it while walking around, but forgot your transistor radio? The Pioneer inno, as well as the nearly identical Samsung Helix, is XM Satellite's $400 answer to this pressing humanitarian need, giving the user the ability to listen to live satellite radio while walking around, and in a pretty stylish way, too.

The inno's dimensions are comparable to a full-size iPod, except that the front edges are beveled slightly, and the bottom rounded. The body is made of a metallic bluish-gray facade, with a small stubby antenna protruding out the top. Taking a cue from the Motorola Razr, the buttons on the face are all outlined with bright blue lights.

The inno comes packaged with goodies, including a cradle to recharge the unit, a 20-foot antenna, a remote control, uncomfortable headphones that also double as an antenna, and a pair of ear buds that, while snug in the ear canal, sound muddy. (Not helping this is the fact that, unlike the iPod with its myriad audio profiles, you can only adjust the treble and bass levels.) The device plugs into the cradle on its side, which seems a little awkward, even if the crisp screen automatically reorients images 90 degrees when plugged in. The cradle also comes with a line out jack for connecting the unit to a home stereo, but it's almost redundant considering the power of the unit's FM transmitter. Aside from the fact that you have your pick of the spectrum to stream the device, it also comes in clearly even when the stereo is a good 15 feet away. Annoyingly, though, the same transmitter that works so well in the home is next to useless when trying to stream it to your car stereo.

Outside the office, reception was remarkably clear, with only a few dropouts even in the cavernous avenues of New York; In fact, walking from Penn Station to Grand Central, I got better reception than the FM radio for my iPod. One of the nice things, especially when listening to aforementioned baseball games, is that the screen displays and continually updates the score, inning, and number of outs. While that's no so demanding for, say, a pitcher's duel, it's quite helpful when you're dealing with a slugfest and rambling announcers.

For those times when you can't get a signal, you can listen to music you've uploaded to the device from your computer (not with iTunes, of course). Adding to its functionality is that, like your old-school tape deck, you can record music being broadcast over the air; thanks to the device's 10-minute buffer, if you've been listening to the same station, you can even start recording mid-song and get all of it. You can even program the inno to record a certain station at a specified time. Unfortunately, the song can't be downloaded onto your computer, and there's only 1 GB worth of storage on the inno, which seems paltry these days. Even so, the ability to record songs has drawn the ire of record companies, who are seeking $150,000 for every song downloaded by XM customers. As Geddy Lee, the frontman for Rush sings in "The Spirit of Radio," (which I recently recorded on the inno)
One likes to believe in the freedom of music
But glittering prizes and endless compromises
Shatter the illusion of integrity

Posted by Michael Prospero at 3:11 PM | 3 Comments

Fast Company... on the Air!

Early bird alert! Tomorrow morning at 4:40 a.m. ET, Fast Company's Michael Prospero will appear on ABC's "World News This Morning." The topic? "The Network Unbound," Anya Kamenetz's article on next generation social networks in the June issue.

Posted by Heath Row at 11:50 AM | Add Comment

DMI Branding Conference - Day Two

The Design Management Institute kicked off day two of this year's conference, Design + Brand + Experience, with two presentations from global brand leaders. The first presentation, from Verena Kloos, president of BMW Group's DesignworksUSA, was fairly technical and focused on brand strategy. Lars Engman, Design Director at IKEA, spoke next, offering a broad look at the evolution of the IKEA brand and discussed where the company finds new ideas. Click through for a quick summary of each...

Continue reading "DMI Branding Conference - Day Two"

Posted by Lucas Conley at 11:30 AM | Add Comment

May 17, 2006

From The 18th Annual DMI Brand Design Conference...

For 18 years, the Design Management Institute has brought together some of the world's best design thikers to discuss how all types of design can be used to help develop brands. This year, the conference will center around brand experiences and will feature presentations by creative executives from Walt Disney Imagineering, IKEA, BMW, Nokia and Cheskin (among others). I'll be blogging a few highlights from the conference room floor (feel free to pass on questions). After the jump, a breakdown of the five levels of brand experience and how designers can help brands develop better relationships by creating meaning...

Continue reading "From The 18th Annual DMI Brand Design Conference..."

Posted by Lucas Conley at 5:42 PM | 2 Comments

Doctors, Help Us Heal Ourselves

I just learned about a fascinating initiative in which 20 global health organizations and universities are working with IBM to see whether an open-source approach might help clip the wings of bird flu.

Building on the work of Larry Brilliant, the initiative will tap IBM's Interoperable Healthcare Information Infrastructure and Spatio-Temporal Epidemiological Modeler, which will involve an open-source community of epidemiologists exploring how diseases spread.

Posted by Heath Row at 2:58 PM | 2 Comments

Leading Ideas: Find the Courage to Act

"In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) from the essay Self Reliance

Works of genius don't come from great ideas. They come from guts. It's true, you need a great idea in the first place - but that's only 1% of the equation. The other 99% is action. Everyone has great ideas. Very few people have the courage to bet on them. It stings to see our own rejected thoughts in another's work of genius because we realize that they had the courage to act...where we did not.

Continue reading "Leading Ideas: Find the Courage to Act"

Posted by Doug Sundheim at 9:00 AM | 10 Comments

May 16, 2006

Digital Music's Fickle Fans

Tomorrow, MTV and Microsoft unveil their new digital music contender, Urge. MTV is digging deep into its vault to capitalize on its strengths, adding original live performances to its inventory along with an onslaught of celebrity playlists, customization, and editorial content. The two-tiered subscription service--$14.95/month if you want to download songs to a portable, non-iPod device; $9.95 if you don't--includes access to CD-quality radio stations and the ability to play and download songs to your PC. The system is tied up in Windows Media Player 11, and MTV has cleverly re-introduced an emphasis on cover art as a way to sort and play albums. Urge will also include "Auto Mixes," which take the artists and songs users like and continously find similar ones, refreshing its inventory with every new sign-in. Having interacted with automated playlists that left me more insulted than enlightened, it will be interesting to see how well this one works.

Lately I've been testing out different music services to see if their vast inventories include songs that, for whatever reason, aren't on iTunes (Napster scored well). Music fans are incredibly fickle when technology stops working to our advantage. Just look at the set-up our parents had compared to what we use now. Whenever music is wrapped up in something fashionable, it's even more ephemeral. We're moving closer to a point where iPods are going to seem like, sooo last year. Urge is joining a growing group of services that aren't iPod compatible (which, it should be pointed out, was actually an interoperability block on Apple's side, according to MTV's Van Toffler). The recently-released iPod alternative iriver Clix has been getting good reviews. Who knows--by the time the fall colors hit the stores, the TRL crowd might have sold all their iPods on eBay.

Posted by Alyssa Danigelis at 3:29 PM | 7 Comments

Starbooks

Not only has Starbucks moved into the music and movie businesses, it will soon step into the world of publishing, as well -- at least in terms of selling books in its shops.

This move makes sense -- much more than Starbucks promotion of the movie "Akeelah and the Bee." You can at least read and listen to music while drinking your grande latte. And if the book recommendations are as on the mark as Starbucks' music selections, it could offer a nice retail uptick for publishers.

Will Howard Schultz become the next Oprah?

Posted by Heath Row at 1:12 PM | 6 Comments

Yahoo's new look--worth a look?

Yahoo unveiled its new home page, its first overhaul since September 2004. You can view it here. It's a little sleeker than the previous iteration if you view them side by side, but overall, what's the big deal here? It's still an evolutionary improvement. I suppose that's all you can do when you're a mass-market service such as Yahoo, but the Web's design development still seems retarded by the dot-com bust of six years ago. No one's really moved the bar for a long time. What do you think of the "new" Yahoo and what's it going to take for anyone to deliver the Web experience we should have had a long time ago?

Posted by David Lidsky at 12:35 PM | 3 Comments

Upfront's Nostalgic Look Back

Yesterday's Upfront presentation by NBC held all the the usual appeal for the 26-year-old agency employee (Watch Jerome Bettis throw a football into the balcony! Watch Regis Philbin catch another one! Watch Matthew Perry take on a serious role! Watch Jeff Zucker be self-deprecating! And, in the afterparty, get your picture taken touching the Stanley Cup while wolfing down as much in the way of free eats as you possibly can!). But beyond that, something else was happpening: the emergence of convergence, as evidenced by the importance Jeff Zucker placed on the network's online offerings. While the presentation (subscription required) was a welcome acknowledgement of reality, I couldn't help but find a weird irony in the programming schedule itself. Just as everyone concedes that the salad days of network television are finally over, the networks presents not one, but two shows based on life at.. a major network TV show! Is this wishful thinking, or denial?

Posted by Jennifer Reingold at 10:34 AM | Add Comment

May 15, 2006

Inspiring Design

Edward Rothstein recently considered the role that failure can play in improving the design of products and services.

What do you learn more from: Success or failure? Take the Fast Company poll.

Posted by Heath Row at 5:44 PM | 1 Comment

So... What Do You Do?

Friday's New York Times article about the coffee graders who work for the New York Board of Trade was interesting for a couple of reasons. One, commodity speculation raises some fascinating questions about how prices are determined. And two, it reminded me of how much business is fueled by caffeine.

That said, it also made me think about cool jobs in general. In the past Fast Company has showcased jobs we want to have -- as well as undersung workplace heroes. Here are some of the better "A Day in the Life of Work" pieces:

• Stick Figure
• Reaper Man
• Spice Girl
• Shear Heaven

What do you think are the most fascinating and interesting jobs?

Posted by Heath Row at 5:31 PM | 4 Comments

Unique Success

What are the top five Web domains? According to the Washington Post, Yahoo, Google, MSN, AOL, and eBay have the most unique visitors, based on February 2006 figures. Those five names are not exactly surprising, but out of the five, only Google saw substantial growth from February 2005 -- 21%.

Even more surprising are the four sites in the top 50 that had triple digit growth in unique visitors between February '05 and '06. Blogger.com grew 528%, rising from a relatively modest 2.5 million users to 15.5 million. Clearly the popularity of blogging is on the rise. MySpace had 318% growth, as social networking continued to spread. Wikipedia had 275% growth, as news involving the open-source encyclopedia increased awareness of the Website. Perhaps most surprisingly, the fourth large domain that had triple-digit growth was Citysearch, where unique visitors jumped 185%.

Check out the Post's list and see what surprises you.

Posted by Kevin Ohannessian at 2:01 PM | 17 Comments

Groundbreaking BS

"Welcome to the world's most dynamic e-business marketing, design and consulting agency. We provide distinct clients with groundbreaking business strategies and cutting-edge designs to aggressively and creatively compete in a changing economy."

If this sounds very familiar (and suspiciously empty) then this Website, for the fake consultancy "huh?," will be good for a laugh. Their motto: "We do stuff."

Posted by Lucas Conley at 12:40 PM | 4 Comments

May 11, 2006

Marketing BlogJam

For two days in June, FC Now will host a marketing blogjam in connection with the 2006 Innovative Marketing Conference presented by blog site Corante and the Center on Global Brand Leadership of Columbia Business School. Throughout the day on Thursday, June 8 and Friday, June 9, guest bloggers will post every hour from the event. Guest bloggers will include Francois Gossieaux, head of marketing and business development at Corante; David Rogers, associate director of the Center on Global Brand Leadership; and John Winsor, founder of Radar Communications. Several speakers from the conference will be blogging as well. So be sure to join us in June for an exploration of new ideas in marketing.

Posted by fastcompany.com editors at 4:12 PM | 3 Comments

Un-Uglyfying Americans

Business for Diplomatic Action, which seeks to educate Americans working abroad that being better world citizens translates into increased success in business, has started distributing "World Citizen's Guide," a booklet to help curb many of the faux-pas Americans are prone to when traveling overseas on business. (You can download a free abridged version here.)

While many are very commonsense concepts, they're things that business travelers --and tourists, too--really should take to heart, since the pervasiveness of international business makes diplomats of us all, especially at a time when the U.S. is in need of ad-hoc goodwill ambassadors. As Keith Reinhard, the founder of BDA, and chairman of DDB Worldwide, says in our April cover story on Al Jazeera, "the United States government is simply not a credible messenger."

More often than not, foreigners have issues with American international policies, not Americans themselves. What have you seen in your travels? What do you do when traveling abroad to bridge cultural gaps and create a better business climate?

Posted by Michael Prospero at 3:06 PM | 13 Comments

Multimedia Smackdown

Yesterday, Google announced plans to be more up-front and clear as a company. CEO Eric Schmidt, speaking at Google Press Day 2006 (where Google launched four new products, including Google Desktop 4) told reporters, “We’re committed to a much more transparent way of working with you all."

Great. Right.

I would have ignored the announcement (and that bit about Google's new product launches - there have been so many at this point...) if not for an interesting article over at Information Week. Here's a quick soundbite...

The major innovation in Google Desktop 4 is Google Gadgets, small applications that can live on users’ desktops or inside the Google Desktop environment. They’re Google’s answer to Apple’s Dashboard widgets.

For Apple and Microsoft, this has to be a troubling development: More and more of the programs they sell in their operating systems are being offered free by Google. Moreover, these programs are open and they have APIs that developers can build on. And just as Amazon creates book recommendations based on user purchase history, Google plans to leverage its knowledge of its users to pitch programs that dovetail with their interests.

Google vs. Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple and Microsoft? After all, Apple did just align itself with Microsoft's Windows. And Google has been nitpicky with Microsoft lately (no doubt partly on account of an earlier alliance with Firefox, including ad support). Amazon snubbed Google to forge a deal with Microsoft. And eBay, it too! Is there a major multimedia smackdown a brewin'? If so, it makes sense that Google is trying to dust off its image (ahem, China) and get some hearts-and-minds action going.

Posted by Lucas Conley at 12:20 AM | Add Comment

May 10, 2006

"Lost" and Found

As most of our friends can tell you, Wednesday night is "Lost" night at our house. They know not to call. Unless it's a rerun, we probably won't pick up. Even though Tivo is recording the episode and we could watch it any time, we usually watch the night it airs. Can't risk overhearing or reading a spoiler. We wait just long enough to give the show a head start, then skip the commercials. As soon as it's over, we hit the "Lost" discussion boards. Yeah, we've got the fever. Not quite as bad as the fans described in today's USA Today, but close.

I think this is the first show where the Web truly enhances the show for me. I'm not talking about snarky recaps that help you appreciate the absurdity of "24." We rely on "Lost" anthropologists who must be watching the show frame-by-frame for new clues. They routinely find things we've missed, like the annotated version of the map that Locke glimpsed in the hatch. They postulate theories about what's happening and why that keep us talking until the next episode (Claire is Jack's half-sister?!). Then there are the fake sites, fake book, fake TV and newspaper ads for The Hanso Foundation.

What do you think, is "Lost" breaking new ground with its multimedia mystery, feeding an obsession that's headed nowhere, or annoying non-viewers who truly are lost about all the fuss?