I do, and I blogged about it. I was turned on to FC back in grad school, but when the dot com bubble burst I think you guys were slow to admit that things had changed, and there would be no era of 19 year old millionaire dot-com founders anywhere in the near future. I threw out a few issues that had almost no interesting content, but I held on and now I think you are back, and writing good stuff.

I agree that Fast Company has had a bit of an identity crisis since the bubble burst. But I don't fault the magazine or the Company of Friends for that. These are turbulent times and the wave FC was riding crashed dramatically. There are still plenty of good ideas out there and forward-thinking people to profile. The biggest issue facing Fast Company magazine and the COF is not the economy, it's fear. Those of us who were once fearless promoters of a new business paradigm have now retrenched into jobs we feel we can't afford to lose. We've gone from fear of stagnation as the world sped by us to fear of losing it all in a layoff. I find the article right on target that, "after the dot-com frenzy broke, people were less interested in re-engineering their jobs and more interested in making sure they had one."

Things will come back, not to where they were, but to steady growth again. The challenge for Fast company will be to remain relevant. Do its readers still want a business revolution?

Scott

Here in London I don't read the New York Times everyday so can't benchmark its journalism. To me the article tried to be fair but lacked the depth and insights of those who have lived with the movement for the last few years; as a result the article was a little two-dimensional, a hard way to portray the many dimensions of Fast Company as it has evolved. Specifically, I don't think it fully understood the reasons for the re-launch of CoF and the consequent drop in numbers, nor the fact that those 8000 existing members had just made a very conscious decision to renew. (Seth they did listen...)

And it missed the sheer energy of FC that permeates live events, whether RealTime or a small CoF meeting. That is hard to capture but those that have experienced it will know what I mean.

First, let's remember this ran on Media Monday when the NYT thinks they need to convince their readers that have the pulse on media happenings - which they don't (and honestly can't.) Second, it was not a very well written article - what was really the point other than making generalizations about the change. Third, and to me most important, John and the team either chose not to give him much on the positive side or haven't decided what FC will be. Having reinvented companies for over 20 years you can't reinvent by thinking in terms of incremental changes. I think FC is a great read, I was at Real Time and got a lot from it but what is the next big idea for FC. Tell us and we will help you build it!