Every month, Company of Friends groups around the world meet to help members solve problems, learn from community business leaders, and collaborate on projects that benefit participants' careers, companies, and communities. Visit the CoF Community News page frequently to learn more about what local groups and members are doing -- and how.
An online discussion led by Indian business school students revisits a Fast Company feature from last year -- and yields some new ideas and insights.
Readers and members of Women in Technology International gather to explore some of the issues affecting women in the workplace.
Rules may be made to be broken, but promises aren't. The State of Grace Document upgrades the traditional contract for a more personal workplace.
Following our report on the top 20 social capitalists (January), several groups in the Company of Friends connected with social entrepreneurs to gauge the state of social capitalism in their own communities.
Leadership as a Performing Art
In January, Philadelphia Company of Friends members gathered at the Private Chef Kitchen in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, to explore the craft of effective performance.
Jim Miller, assistant professor of economics at Smith College and author of Game Theory at Work discusses game theory, the Prisoner's Dilemma, and the danger of competing on price.
Members of the Entrepreneurship & Small Business CoF group discuss ways to tactfully "fire" a dead-end client.
Things That Make You Say, 'Wow!'
Members of the London Company of Friends group explore what makes a high-quality customer-service and retail experience. Their ideas address personalization, the every day, and design.
At the end of August, members of the Melbourne, Australia, Company of Friends gathered for a panel discussion about death and business. The panelists and CoF members developed their own strategies and tactics for dealing with death in a business setting.
In mid-August, a New York City Company of Friends member began preparing to move to Ireland. Before leaving his job, he emailed members and asked: "What's the one piece of advice you wish you'd been given five months before you went out on your own?"
Richard Tait, Grand Pooh-Bah for the board game maker Cranium -- and a 2002 Fast 50 winner -- shares his company's "secret sauce" with the Seattle CoF group.
Few business journalists have addressed the economic effects of the ongoing military action on neighboring countries. To learn about the war in Iraq's impact on regional businesses, Fast Company contacted Istanbul, Turkey-based reader and Company of Friends coordinator Tayfun Demiroz.
In early June, members of the New York City CoF -- along with other CoF members and Fast Company readers from around the world -- gathered for a conference call conversation with Fast Company contributor Seth Godin.
CoF Roadshow: Between September 23 and November 4, Heath Row, Fast Company's social capitalist, drove up and down the East Coast to connect with business leaders and companies that are Leading in the East.
Tim Sanders sent a Valentine to the business community in our February 2002 issue ('Love Is the Killer App'). Since then, readers have responded with an enthusiastic embrace.
The Company of Friends, Fast Company's readers' network, isn't a traditional networking organization, but CoF groups do help members find jobs and projects to weather the economic downturn. To that end, the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas CoF has organized a series of career workshops.
Late last year in the Chicago CoF, an email exchange about evangelism marketing led two CoF members to secure a publishing contract with a local publisher.
Members of the Company of Friends group in Montreal, Quebec have taken to the air. In early January, five CoF members, including Dwight Herperger, volunteer coordinator of the Montreal CoF, were featured in a radio roundtable produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
Last summer, Fast Company contributing editor Dan Pink issued a challenge to the Company of Friends, FC's readers' network: If any group in the network invited him to participate in a free agency-related CoF event, he'd be there. By the end of the year, almost two-dozen CoF groups in North America had taken Dan up on his dare.
CoF Roadshow: While on the Company of Friends Roadshow -- Fast Company's search for what's next in the West -- social capitalist Heath Row visited Space, a design consulting firm based in Mexico City. Working with clients such as Coca-Cola de Mexico, GE Capital Corp., and Probursa, Space is changing the look of office space in Mexico.
The Fast Company readers' network is working to implement long-term disaster-relief efforts that get to the real heart of community. 'Before September 11, I believed that the Company of Friends was a business-networking group -- an association that people joined to make connections and find gigs,' says David Polinchock, the volunteer coordinator for Fast Company's readers' group in New York. 'Now I understand that this is a genuine community.'
CoF Roadshow: Since mid-June, 10 members of the LA, Long Beach, and Orange County chapters have been designing an October event to bring southern California's multiple business communities closer and to help other teams and organizations worldwide with collaboration.
The Fast Company Community Reaches Out
In times of crisis, a community's integrity is measured by the strength of its connections. In the wake of Sept. 11's national tragedy, members of Fast Company's Company of Friends reached out to each other, exchanging information, posting reactions, and sharing emotions.
CoF Roadshow: Starting September 17, Fast Company's social capitalist, Heath Row, will embark on the third-annual CoF Roadshow through North America. Fast Company spoke with Vancouver, British Columbia, CoF coordinator Peter Rees about the perfect practice, the need for sustainable business, and heroic leadership.
The Washington, DC, CoF cell, Women in Technology, and the New Media Society of Washington joined forces to experiment with a new networking format -- and to explore whether technology is art.
You think you've got it bad? Fast Company's CoF cell in the Triad, North Carolina, recently assembled a panel of true survivors who withstood ravaging fires, jumped from one industry to another, helped union members spin out a successful business. Learn how here.
New Growth in the Garden State
Two longtime members of the FC community have launched a CoF cell in Morristown, New Jersey -- the first ever in the Garden State -- and it's taken off at a dizzying rate of acceleration.
Who's afraid of the new economy? Not Valeria Maltoni. She's coordinator of the Philadelphia CoF cell, a group that shows no signs of cutting back its efforts to keep members on the cutting edge of business change.
Who says only world-famous historians can draw valuable lessons from the past? Fast Company's readers' network takes a page from the book of historian Stephen E. Ambrose and draws parallels between the transcontinental railroad and the Internet.
Fast Company's readers' network embraces the idea of mentoring -- but finds that some relationship models work better than others. Listen in as Company of Friends members share what they've learned.
Using tools provided by FC, CoF associates are conducting field trips to organizations that we have featured in the magazine. In effect, they are becoming their own on-the-scene reporters, learning straight from the source's mouth how particular fast companies operate. Here are two reports from the front: in Raleigh, NC, and Washington, DC.
New CoF member and associate of the San Francisco cell Kevin Kurtz manages some of Lucasfilm, Ltd.'s most active and valuable brands, including Star Wars. Fast Company talked to Kurtz about the importance of play, about the limits of branding, and about the power of imagination.
Last November, more than 25 members of the FC readers' network gathered at a lakeside outpost called Camp Cherokee, north of Atlanta, for what grassroots organizers called the Southern Fried Off Road Show. While discussion topics ranged from free agency to social justice to community organizing, much of the table talk centered on the importance of the South as a business region.
Several cells in the readers network have been exploring the uses of improvisation and comedy in the workplace. One group, the cell in Ottawa, Ontario, turned to the founder of an improvisational comedy club called the Institution to learn more about improv, 'hecticity,' and how you can run your business like a comedy club. (Especially when your business is a comedy club. [That was a joke.])
Meet Locally, Organize Globally
CoF Summit: About 100 CoF coordinators and members representing cells in six countries gathered in August in Denver for the first Community@Work summit. Participants convened to learn from other community builders, to exchange tools for making cells work better, and to chart a shared vision for the future of the network. Here's a short report we offered readers of the magazine.
CoF Roadshow: Three dispatches from FC's search for the New Economy in Europe -- the Euro-conomy. In Oslo, Norway, Opera Software makes the smallest, fastest, most flexible Web browser... and positive social change. In Paris, a holding company enables a handful of startups to share executive staff members, as well as business services. And in London, a business and community development director shares his lessons to build technology-business 'clusters.'
CoF Roadshow: Late this spring, FC's Social Capitalist, Heath Row, went on a 15-city, 12-country, and six-week tour of the new economy in Europe. While in Stockholm, Sweden, he met with Per Grankvist, a creativity evangelist at Icon MediaLab, a Stockholm-based Internet consultancy, to learn more about the company's 12-hour creativity projects.
With the January 2000 issue of Fast Company, we introduced a CoF-specific supplement called the CoF Action Pack to help CoF coordinators and members take action individually and as participants in a cell. Three cells around jump in immediately: Houston, New York City, and Toronto.
CoF member Karen Van Dyke leaves San Diego, California, to move to Orlando, Florida -- and becomes the coordinator of the cell in her new home town! We talk to Karen about CoF exchanges, the cell's participation in Realtime, and gratitude.
At a November 1999 meeting, members of the LA/Pasadena Company of Friends cell wondered aloud how they could volunteer for something meaningful. Coordinator Paula Johnson took note and found the right opportunity: a one-day commitment to rehabilitate the home of a low-income, elderly or disabled Pasadena resident.
A participant in last fall's Austin, Texas, CoF Roadshow event opens a girls' technology center and discusses how nonprofits need to work more like startups.
FC:Forums, FC's discussion forums, helps connect readers in Virginia and Indonesia -- who go in to business with each other.
Active FC:Forums participant and Atlanta CoF cell member Charles Letbetter talks to FC about change, the Brand Called You, and how happiness can inspire creativity.
Two cells in Boston, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island, team up for a day on the ocean -- and a team-building yacht race.
Karenanne Swift decides to organize her own, smaller FC discussion group instead of joining the Portland, Oregon, cell. FC talks to Swift about diversification, support networks, and the strength of face-to-face collaboration.
CoF Road Show: Heath Row learns about Houston-based OrchestraX's grassroots approach to classical music.
CoF Road Show: Heath Row meets with Chris Muccio in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to learn about coopetition in the talent war.
CoF Road Show: Heath Row visits a Net business incubator in Atlanta with a new approach to online business development.
CoF Road Show: Heath Row talks to Rick Silver of Cheroff/Silver & Associates about the marketing of politics and the politics of marketing.
Even if there's not a cell in your area, you can still be involved in the CoF. Unassociated member Meredith Cash talks about how she works the network from Pierre, South Dakota.
The Seattle cell turns to the pages of the magazine for speaker ideas -- and organizes an event featuring D. Michael Abrashoff.
Ken Keberle, coordinator of the Phoenix, Arizona, cell and a Real Time alumnus, talks about his Wow Project, flexible manufacturing, and how success feels.
CoF cells in Toronto and Washington, DC, facilitate events that involve hundreds of CoF members -- online and offline.
Brian Koval, a CoF member in Ann Arbor, Michigan, organizes a CoF cell inside his company -- Ryder System Inc. FC talks to Koval about change, vision, and learning.
In late 1999, the New York City cell gave back by volunteering at a low-income and homeless housing facility. FC talks to cell members about voluntarism in the New Economy.
In Toronto, Ontario, Vicki Saunders, the founding coordinator of the biggest cell in Canada, works with children to develop products and services for clients such as EverFresh.
A CoF member takes the FC message to an offsite planning meeting for a very old-economy company. FC touches base with Baker Oil Tools about its change project.
In San Diego, the CoF cell organized a peer-to-peer mentoring project. FC touches base with one of the mentor teams.
Out of the Box and into the Books
Bryce Mathern was the 10,000th member of the CoF. FC talks to Mathern about opening an Amazon distribution center in the UK, the seven sins of deadly meetings, and collaboration.
Griff Wigley, founding coordinator of the Atlanta cell, weighs in on new jobs, community, and diversity.
FC touches base with two CoF cells outside the United States: Romania and Melbourne, Australia. Romania wrestles with political instability and newly free markets, and Melbourne takes the FC message to students in local schools.
Griff Wigley, founding coordinator of the Twin Cities CoF cell in Minnesota, talks to FC about his background at the Utne Reader, the importance of deciding on purpose, and the power of conversation.
FC touches base with one of the oldest, largest, and biggest CoF cells: New York City.
The San Francisco cell's coordinator talks to FC about network organizations and what CoF members can do once they've finished reading the magazine.
Andy Lawrence, an active participant in Fast Talk and the CoF, goes on a cross-country trip to meet other FC readers. We caught up with him during a quick stop in Boston.
An announcement of CoF cells' new home bases from September 1998.
This Company Just Keeps Growing
An update on the CoF from August 1998
Curt Wehrley of Indianapolis, Indiana, was the 1,000th person to sign up for the CoF. FC talks to Wehrley about West Coast thinking in the Midwest and the importance of family.
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