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January 31, 2008
Werbach Sells Out to Saatchi
Those still on the fence about the sellout status of our September coverboy Adam Werbach--the youngest ever Sierra Club president who's now doing sustainability work for Wal-Mart--are about to be taken for another surprise twist. This morning Werbach announced that his San Francisco sustainability consultancy, Act Now, has been scooped up by none other than the lovemark-man himself: Saatchi & Saatchi's Kevin Roberts. The new company, called Saatchi & Saatchi S, in which Werbach will remain CEO, plans on bringing sustainability to the ad agency's clients, which include A-listers like P&G, Toyota, and Visa.
To be frank, I was shocked. The gut reaction: well, clearly Werbach has sold out. Pairing up with Wal-Mart was painful enough for the environmental establishment to swallow. Now Werbach will be owned by The Mad Men of Madison Avenue, the one place where greenwashing is most feared and excessive wastefulness still runs rampant.
Of course, a cynical take is easy. If you look at the decisions Werbach has made throughout his career, they may seem counterintuitive, contradictory, even hypocritical and lost. But in fact, the one thing that has stayed constant is his environmenal convictions--it's just the methods he's exploiting that have changed. (At least he believes). Instead of continuing to throw rocks at a company like Wal-Mart, he switched from outsider to insider, deciding that he needed to be inside the system to provoke change. Now with Saatchi, he's embedded himself in the fourth largest communications holding company in the world that holds the key to influencing the behavior of some of the most powerful global brands.
Werbach told me he sold to Saatchi because his little 50-person company was too small to reach the global scale he wants to impact. For example, in developing economies like China and India, he wants to be on the ground shaping consumer behavior with a built-in sustainability ethos. Publicis's ad shop has an army of 7,000, with over 150 offices around the globe--which means within a couple of months Werbach will have instant offices in New York, Chicago, London, Beijing--and don't forget Wal-Mart country's Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Like most of his moves, Werbach's latest experiment can be criticized for is being too optimisic, too idealistic, too ambitious. He can also be criticized for being too impatient--impatient to not allow his company to grow organically on its own terms not beholden to the pressures of a huge public company. It's a criticism he's received countless times before. But it's that very impatience--he believes--that's necessary if we ever want to make a dent in this thing called the climate crisis.
Posted by Danielle Sacks at 9:27 AM
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January 29, 2008
Design Thursday: When is a corset like a coffin?
Why, when fashion designer Hussein Chalayan feels like making one out of amber wood and metal, as he did for his Fall/Winter 1995-96 collection, that's when. And why is this relevant now?
Continue reading "Design Thursday: When is a corset like a coffin?"
Posted by Linda Tischler at 2:53 PM
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January 25, 2008
Sports Business: The Future of Tickets
An article in today's Arizona Republic refreshed my memory about a cool start-up I heard about last year that hosts an online exchange of futures-like contracts for major sporting events.
The site, yoonew.com, allows sports fans to purchase a contract associated with a specific team that translates into a ticket to a championship such as the Super Bowl or Final Four if that team reaches the game.
Posted by Jason Del Rey at 4:00 PM
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Green (Fri)Day: Total Information Awareness
Dan Hill, living in Sydney, is the web editor of British magazine Monocle. He gave a fascinating talk at a conference called Interesting South last fall that he recently put up on his blog.
He calls it "The Well Tempered Environment." It's a sketch of a "public dashboard" to gather and publish information about energy and resource use, to get people competing on a household, neighborhood, citywide, regional, even global level to use less.
We know that technologies that make information transparent and provide real-time feedback can shape behavior almost effortlessly --for example, wearing a pedometer makes you walk more . Hill's idea applies this principle to environmental awareness. The talk included a half-dozen actual existing products along this line, and I've noticed a few more such ideas popping up elsewhere.
Continue reading "Green (Fri)Day: Total Information Awareness"
Posted by Anya Kamenetz at 9:00 AM
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January 24, 2008
CEO Lee Scott Speaks About Wal-Mart's New Strategies
Yesterday Wal-Mart's CEO Lee Scott presented a speech to over 7,000 store managers. Surprisingly, the focus of his speech was Wal-Mart's devotion to sustainability. Scott cited the store's selling over 145 million compact fluorescent lightbulbs, and stressed the company's mission of continuing its pursuits toward energy efficiency. He also announced that the retail giant would work with suppliers to make its more power-hungry products 25 percent more energy-efficient over the next three years.
Also in his speech, Scott announced Walmart's continued exploration of ways to improve its healthcare policies and practices. Of note, he said, was that Wal-Mart employees with health insurance has risen to 93 percent. Now, Wal-Mart will also promote electronic prescriptions, to reduce costs by using less material and to decrease potentially-dangerous prescription errors.
Since the media backlash against Wal-Mart a few years ago, the company has strived to remake itself and its image by embracing sustainability. Scott's speech illustrates a continuum along this trajectory. But are will these moves be enough? While these are great attempts, the world's largest retailer won't be able to change minds until it takes a more dominate leadership position and becomes an agent of industry change.
Here are a few things Wal-Mart could do:
- Give huge incentives to suppliers that reduce packaging materials and embrace sustainable practices.
- Spotlight on the store's greenest products. And the company should stress that such practices will probably reduce cost, increase profit, and increase demand.
What do you think about Wal-Mart's recent sustainable practices? What do you think the company should do next?
Posted by Kevin Ohannessian at 2:20 PM
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Design Thursday: What would a Mayan branding guru do?
In the middle of a cold, nasty January day, it’s hard to resist the lure of a beachy vacation in Cancun --- even if the closest you can get is a meeting room in New York’s Meatpacking District. So earlier this week I trudged over to the opening party for Nizuc, the latest hotel/condo/resort project by master hotelier Adrian Zecha, the head of tony Amanresorts and GHM Hotels (best known in North America as the company behind The Setai in South Beach.)
Continue reading "Design Thursday: What would a Mayan branding guru do?"
Posted by Linda Tischler at 12:22 PM
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January 23, 2008
Innovation Wednesday: Meet John Donahoe, eBay's new CEO
This afternoon eBay made it official: Meg Whitman's stepping down, and John Donahoe's stepping up. No surprise, of course. When Whitman brought in Donahoe in 2005 to run marketplaces, which generate about 70 percent of the company's revenue, the move had succession plan written all over it - in indelible ink.
"I've known Meg for 25 years," he told me when I visited eBay a few months ago for a story in the magazine. Donahoe worked with Whitman at Bain & Company in the 1980s and prior to eBay served as worldwide managing director. "In our conversations [about joining eBay] the tipping point was the sense of purpose and mission," he said. "If I'm going to dedicate my energy to some form of work, I want it to be something I care about. The whole business model of eBay is around this premise that people are good. It's this marketplace where strangers who never meet can have transactions hundreds or thousands of miles apart for items of high value."
As president of eBay marketplaces for the last three years, Donahoe has proven his mettle by leading a series of sweeping and urgent changes to the company's core business, which I described here the other day. In late 2005, he began looking to hire a CTO who could “take eBay to the next level.” Given the site’s size and complexity, there weren’t many candidates with comparable job experience. Then he met Matt Carey, Wal-Mart's CTO.
Posted by Chuck Salter at 6:07 PM
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Innovation Wednesday: Filming Dirty Jobs, A Behind the Scenes Look
Want a dirty job done right? Ask some dirty boys to do it.
That’s the takeaway from my visit to the “set” of Dirty Jobs, the runaway hit series from the Discovery Channel. Mike Rowe, the star and rogue philosopher behind the show, is profiled in this month’s cover story. But I would be remiss, and he would be disappointed, if I didn’t spend a bit of time talking about how it all comes together. Because it’s dirty work indeed.
Posted by Ellen McGirt at 2:24 PM
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January 21, 2008
Ludacris -- Rapper Turned Entrepreneur?
When I overheard an excited murmur about how Chris Bridges was setting up a restaurant in Atlanta, I didn't think anything of it. Neither the name nor the act seemed worthy of much interest. A little while later the name popped up again – this time in the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
Apparently Chris Bridges aka, Ludacris (aha), is making his first foray into the restaurant business with plans to open three Atlanta restaurants in conjunction with Bay area restaurateur Chris Yeo, who already owns four California based restaurants.
The 30 year old rapper is reported to be expanding his entrepreneurial activity of late: a few months ago he paid $2.7 million for a building that formerly housed the restaurant Spice, in midtown Atlanta. He is the CEO of his own 8-year-old record label, Disturbing tha Peace Records, which has signed a number of prominent artists, including rapper Chingy.
Now this sounds terrible, but I have to admit I was taken aback at the idea that someone who I know only in context of his desire "to lick you from your head to your toes" and his overly-virile claims about having "a hoe in every area code," could be business savvy enough to be able to delve into the real estate business and make an attempt at being a real entrepreneur.
"I don't generally speak about it… I keep it to myself. I'm definitely into real estate. I'm a silent partner and an entrepreneur outside of music," said Ludacris in an interview with the Chronicle.
Apparently, Ludacris isn't the only rapper/musician who has dabbled in the restaurant business. Moby owns vegan restaurant Teany, Gladys Knight lays claim to Gladys and Ron's Chicken and Waffles, and Robert De Niro owns TriBeCa Grill in New York, Ago in L.A., and Rubicon in Sa. Youngbloodz own a Cuban restaurant at the Atlanta based Wyndham hotel, and Fat Boy Slim co-owns Greenwich Village based restaurant, the Spotted Pig.
More significant than the number of celebs who own restaurants however, are the number who have owned restaurants that have since gone under. Britney Spears's Manhattan based Nyla, closed its glitzy shutters and filed for bankruptcy a mere six months after launch. Wesley Snipes's Hollywood based China One, Puffy's restaurant Justin's, Jim McMahon's eponymous Chicago based restaurant, and J Lo's LA based La Boca del Conga Room, all went down, and hard.
Continue reading "Ludacris -- Rapper Turned Entrepreneur?"
Posted by Saabira Chaudhuri at 6:49 AM
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January 18, 2008
From the Editor of Fast Company: Crude Ideas
What kind of work is most valuable? At this magazine, we tend to talk about ideas and inspiration and management techniques, but less often about the dirty work of getting the job done. Which is why this issue's feature about Dirty Jobs' Mike Rowe was such an opportunity. Rowe, until recently, was a screwup. He worked a sequence of low-end acting gigs, more intent on entertaining himself than on having an impact.
Then he discovered Dirty Jobs--or, more precisely, he created it. He found a way to use his particular skills effectively, and he found the motivation to act on those skills. And it all worked.
Rowe is on the cover not just because his compelling personal saga illuminates how entertainment networks operate and the resurgence of cable's Discovery Communications (which airs Dirty Jobs)--though it certainly does that. But Rowe's story also allows us to examine an underappreciated aspect of economic success: the genius of expertly executed craftsmanship. It is the glue that cements ideas, on one end, and hard work, on the other, to fuel productivity. Either type of asset is squandered if inappropriately deployed. Execution is the great differentiator in our global economic competition.
Consider the acknowledged hero in American business today,
Posted by Robert Safian at 11:05 PM
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Sports Business: The New Yankees Boss
Over the past two decades, Yankees principal owner George Steinbrenner has ceded more and more of his role as team spokesman to his PR consigliere Howard Rubenstein. More recently, as speculation on his deteriorating health has mounted, the Boss is rarely quoted directly, only occasionally exhibiting flashes of the confrontational, meddling owner that the rest of the league has long loved to loathe.
But a funny thing has happened over the past few months: George's eldest son, Hank, the team's senior vice president, has stepped forward as the new mouthpiece for the team -- which, I think,could have a profound effect on how the organization conducts business going forward and even a greater impact on the business, period.
Posted by Jason Del Rey at 4:20 PM
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January 17, 2008
Revision3 Continues Social Strategy with Digg Reel
Say what you will about the wisdom of the crowd, it sure makes for a great site. I find myself visiting Digg.com twice a day, where I'm led toward interesting corners of the Web. Because of Digg I read more science news and political news. Similarly with the site's videos, I find Internet sensations, potential memes, and even fun time-wasters.
Today, Revision3 launched a new show, Digg Reel, that makes finding video on the Web much easier. Hosted by Jessica Corbin, cohost of the company's Tekzilla show, Digg Reel features a rundown of the site's top weekly videos. As Jim Louderback, Revision3's CEO, describes it, "It's great for a top level filter of all the videos that are out there." After watching the pilot, I must say I enjoyed Jessica's banter, the way choice comments are lifted out of the usual Internet mire, and the fact that I can see a clip of the best fifteen seconds without having to watch the entire movie.
Digg Reel also supports the social aspects of Digg by fusing a collaboration between Web surfers and a particular site, and leveraging it into a conversation between you and the host. The viewer is drawn into a faux-intimacy with Jessica, aided by her geek-next-door likeability. It's a lot like Diggnation and the dude-tastic conversation between Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht, where the audience finds it necessary to participate.
Will Revision3 continue to find success? I don't see why not, as long as the company's shows continue to fill a social niche in its fan's Web life. "Our strategy is to launch more programming that appeals to niche audiences on the internet," Louderback says.
Posted by Kevin Ohannessian at 6:00 AM
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January 16, 2008
Innovation Wednesday: How eBay Searches and Updates 100 Million Listings in 60 Seconds
As I described in the magazine recently, eBay is pursuing a new strategy, catering to buyers instead of sellers. It's the biggest and most urgent change to the site in years.
Although the number of listings and gross merchandise sales have continued climbing, buyer activity has slowed down dramatically. Despite the mind-blowing number of registered users worldwide - 222 million, or the equivalent of three-quarters of the U.S. population - only about a third bid, bought, or listed an item in the previous 12 months. Those active buyers increased at the smallest rate in four years, a dangerous trend.
eBay has been overhauling its site to make shopping easier and enjoyable, with features such as window-shopping, auction-countdown, and eBay-to-Go. But one of the keys to improving the overall experience remains behind the scenes: the search technology.
Meet Randy Shoup, the main architect for search infrastructure at eBay.
Continue reading "Innovation Wednesday: How eBay Searches and Updates 100 Million Listings in 60 Seconds"
Posted by Chuck Salter at 11:38 AM
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Technology Blogger Robert Scoble to Launch FastCompany.TV
The launch of our FC Expert Blogs back in December of 2006 and our brand new FastCompany.com homepage in June of 2007 were just the humble beginnings of our plans afoot for major developments of the new, agile FastCompany.com that Ed Sussman, president of Mansueto Digital, which runs FastCompany.com, CompanyofFriends.com, Inc.com, IncTechnology.com, and IncBizNet.com wrote about in our FC Now Staff blog on June 1, 2007.
Our latest announcement is the launch of FastCompany.TV, a new online video network featuring coverage of bleeding edge technology trends, interviews with leading executives and business people, reviews of the latest technology products, and lifestyle programming. Robert Scoble, one of the most popular technology bloggers in the world, will join us to serve as Managing Director of the site, slated to launch in March. FastCompany.TV will debut several programs over the course of 2008 featuring Scoble and other well known personalities. (Read our press release for more details.)
Scoble is already a member of our family. He writes a regular column in Fast Company magazine about how technology is changing business, which is integrated into our site at Scoble on Tech, where we also feature his calendar from Upcoming.org and his Google Reader feed of daily tech reads, along with video interviews.
About joining Fast Company, Scoble says:
"I decided to join up with Fast Company because I wanted to work with a brand well known for covering innovation and technology in an authoritative, provocative manner. And I’m excited that the Mansueto Digital websites are innovating in the social media space themselves."
When Scoble talks about our innovation in the social media space, he's referring to how we plan to integrate viewer participation into FastCompany.TV, as well as Mansueto Digital's open-source build in Drupal of IncBizNet, an online business networking community and database created exclusively for private companies. He's also talking about the Company of Friends, one of the first online business networks that debuted in November of 1997. Unlike other social networks, where it's about showcasing your resume and playing games, the Company of Friends has always been about bringing people together to share ideas -- both online and offline -- about the core themes central to our magazine, such as innovation and social responsibility. We'll announce more news about how we plan to grow our social media efforts later this month. And don't forget to look out for FastCompany.TV in March.
Update
Robert Scoble's blog post about his decision to join Fast Company on his blog: Why we’re going to FastCompany.tv
Mansueto Digital President Ed Sussman on Beet.TV discussing Scoble coming on board: Robert Scoble to Launch Online Video Network At Fast Company -- Post Update: We Interviewed Scoble's New Boss This Morning
Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 1:05 AM
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January 15, 2008
Steve Jobs Reveals Apple's MacBook Air and iTunes Movie Rentals
Steve Jobs announced Apple's new ultra-thin laptop MacBook Air during his keynote at MacWorld. With only a .76" thickness at most, Jobs called it the thinnest laptop ever made. Air features 13.3" LED screen, 1.6 GHz Intel Core Duo processor, a multitouch pad for iPhone-like navigation, and an 80 GB hard drive or an optional 64 GB solid state drive. An optical drive is an optional accessory, and it features 2 GB of RAM. The Air survives up to five hours on a battery charge. Pre-orders for the new laptop begin today, shipping in two weeks with a starting price of $1800. Apple has gone more green with Air as well, featuring recyclable components and less packaging used in retail.
Jobs also announced a software update to iTunes and Apple TV to support movie rentals. There are over 1000 movies available now, priced at $5 for HD films, $4 for new releases, and $3 for older films. The films can be download in 30 seconds and customers will have a 30-day window in which they can watch the rented film. Also, Apple has lowered the price of its Apple TV from $299 to $229. And the technology company has also released updated software for both the iPhone and iPod touch.
There were no big surprises in the keynote -- not even Jobs' usual "One more thing..." routine. Jobs' keynotes have become an Internet phenomenon with dozens of sites offering live blogs--many of them temporarily crashing from overwhelming traffic. Usually, it's because everyone is awaiting the next sexy tech device or software to knock them off their feet. But is the keynote successful when there are no big surprises?
Big surprises aside, I appreciate the keynote for the numbers update: iTunes has sold 125 million TV shows, 7 million movies, and an incredible 4 billion songs--20 million on Christmas day alone. The iPhone has also been successful, with 4 million already sold within the 200 days it's been on the market.
Despite the lack of a big surprise, do you think Jobs keynote was as successful as his keynotes past? Is the MacBook Air an interesting enough product to maintain Apple's aura of innovation?
Posted by Kevin Ohannessian at 1:45 PM
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January 10, 2008
Technology: Hacking, Loving, Hating the Asus EEE PC
This week I became the roughly one billionth person to buy one of those diminutive, happy little things called Asus Eee PCs. Mine is the low-end $299 version, and it came in a color I've taken to calling Confident Man Green.
Naturally my first inclination was to hop on the Intertubes and figure out how I could hack and update this thing with quick-and-easy mods, so it might be ever so much more than I'd hoped. Here's what I found.
Posted by Chris Dannen at 5:01 PM
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Sports Business: College Football Fans Vote With Their Eyes
College football is dead to me. And, apparently, if TV ratings are any type of accurate gauge, more and more sports fans share that sentiment.
The average ratings for Fox's four Bowl Championship Series (BCS) games fell 13 percent from last year. ABC's lone BCS game, the Rose Bowl, dropped 20 percent.
Posted by Jason Del Rey at 2:21 PM
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January 9, 2008
Design Thursday: Don't Get Mad, Design Products
“Anger and frustration are great starting points” for product design, James Dyson, inventor of the eponymous vacuum cleaner, told Fast Company’s Chuck Salter in an interview last spring. At the time, Dyson, who’s famously obsessed with engineering
Continue reading "Design Thursday: Don't Get Mad, Design Products"
Posted by Linda Tischler at 5:15 PM
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Competition: How McDonald's Will Kill Itself Killing Starbucks
McDonald's has nearly 14,000 stores nationwide, all of which will be equipped with full-fledged coffee bars and baristas by year's end. Having already begun adding plush seating, gentler lighting and subtler colors to their franchises, the big M is looking to steamroll the limping Starbucks on its own turf. Starbucks, however, isn't going anywhere; rather, it's McDonald's that will be maimed most by its own campaign to destroy the Seattle super-brand.
Admittedly, McDonald's is one of those monolithic brands that will likely have a longer half-life than radium -- but that hardly makes it invulnerable. By adding the "theatre" of a coffee bar (as one McDonald's VP has phrased it), the company has gained little more than the potential to alienate customers, confuse its menu and open up a black hole for capital.
If you haven't gotten the scoop on McDonald's big move, here's a useful summary from the Wall Street Journal:
Continue reading "Competition: How McDonald's Will Kill Itself Killing Starbucks"
Posted by Chris Dannen at 1:34 PM
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Blu is Beautiful
When Warner Bros. announced at CES last weekend that it would no longer support the HD-DVD format and would exclusively offer Blu-rays, Toshiba and the other companies that support the HD-DVD format canceled an HD-DVD event that was to be held at CES and went into damage control. Rumors of Paramount's imminent switch from HD-DVD to Blu-ray have been making the rounds for days. Paramount claims it has no plans to switch formats.
Why not?
Continue reading "Blu is Beautiful"
Posted by Kevin Ohannessian at 11:26 AM
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January 8, 2008
Media: MTV Content to Bolster imeem's Business
Now that imeem has secured rights to music from all the major labels, as I reported earlier on this blog, the social media network is looking to expand its offerings in the video department. Its announcement today indicates that it has already gained significant headway in meeting this new goal by partnering with MTV Networks. Starting in February, imeem will offer clips and episodes of shows from MTV Networks' brands, including MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon.
As reported a few months ago here at Fast Company, more television networks have made their programming available on the Internet through streaming, as opposed to paid downloads (the iTunes model). For the most part, though, cable networks have shied away from this trend. MTV Networks' move is significant in that it sets a precedent for other cable networks to follow as video on demand continues to grow.
Continue reading "Media: MTV Content to Bolster imeem's Business"
Posted by April Joyner at 7:38 PM
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January 7, 2008
Technology: The Cool-Stuff Roundup of CES
Nerds everywhere are lapping up the news coming out of the annual Consumer Electronics Show, and, being a nerd, I've been hard at work consuming it all. Permit me tasteless puns as I regurgitate the news of the coolest gadgets until I'm blue in the tooth.
So here they are: the hi-def, low-priced, pocket-sized, mondo-screened, battery-powered, eco-friendly doohickeys that will make me glad I'm not Amish in 2008.
Continue reading "Technology: The Cool-Stuff Roundup of CES"
Posted by Chris Dannen at 5:08 PM
| 1 Comment
January 2, 2008
Innovation Wednesday: Oil Hits $100 A Barrel. Now What?
No matter how you modify it – call it light and sweet, or even crude – oil remains a problem that we just can’t seem to shake.
That became painfully clear today, as an historic benchmark was reached, when oil reached $100 a barrel. Although most market watchers thought was inevitable, it was still a shock to the system. The Dow ended up shedding 1.7% on the day, a fairly heady drop for the first day of trading in a new year, and was accompanied by the usual sturm and drang from broadcasters - Mexican weather, Nigerian inventories, assassinations - oh my! Oil settled at $99.62.
There are, of course, other things to worry about than just oil: The nasty credit crunch/ housing market, a weak dollar, and global unrest clearly among them. But bottom line, we’re all paying about 60% this year than we did last year for a product which is just as essential to our daily lives as it ever was.
Posted by Ellen McGirt at 5:42 PM
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