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Issue 102

January/February 2006

The Gucci Killer?

  • Shanghai Tang has learned from its past mistakes--and now it's gunning to become China's first great luxury brand. Forget about cheap socks and DVD players. This is the next battlefield for global competition.

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Features

  • Filling the Void

    Introducing the Fast Company/Monitor Group Social Capitalist Award winners--25 entrepreneurs solving the world's toughest problems with creativity, ingenuity, and passion. Because they can't stand a vacuum.

  • The Gates Effect

    The world's biggest private foundation wants to fix American high schools. Is it laying its enormous bets in the right places?

  • The Man Who Said No to Wal-Mart

    Every year, thousands of executives venture to Bentonville, Arkansas, hoping to get their products onto the shelves of the world's biggest retailer. But Jim Wier wanted Wal-Mart to stop selling his Snapper mowers.

  • Scenes from the Culture Clash

    Companies are just now waking up to the havoc that the newest generation of workers is causing in their offices.

  • Patently Aggressive

    Forgent Networks sues software giants for patent infringement. Is it protecting inventors--or driving a stake through the heart of innovation?

  • Squashing the BlackBerry?
  • Fuel for Thought

    His $10 million X Prize proved that money can drive big ideas. Now he's looking for more of them.

  • Hot Seat

    Room Board built its business as carefully as it creates furniture. Now it's moving in on the competition--and taking a place at the table.

  • Being There

    DreamWorks Animation couldn't find a videoconferencing system that made CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg happy--so it built its own.

  • The Test Prince of Bel-Air

    Robin Singh tapped his genius for logic to go from lowly Kaplan tutor to LSAT rock star.

  • Is Offshoring Good?

    The head of an Indian consulting firm and a high-tech-union president face off on the effects of offshoring and globalization.

  • Is Offshoring Good? [Full-text]

Now

  • Here's My Card...

    When font selection isn't enough to keep your business card on top, enter video.

  • In Good Company

    How Max Barry went from corporate drone to successful novelist and screenwriter.

  • Thrown Into the Deep End

    Learning how to swim the rough waters of a new job.

  • Hidden Las Vegas

    Odds are, business or pleasure will bring you here soon. Here are a few ways to live it up--after you've crapped out.

  • Home Run

    Your old job comes calling, begging for you to return. Here's how to decide whether to go back.

  • Watercooler

    States with jobs, cool podcasts, and job venting in this month's buzz roundup.

  • Reading List: FutureShop

    High-tech is hot again. This month's book finds riches in the eBay economy.

  • Other Recommended Reading
  • The Corporate Shrink

    The art of the cold call, and how to cope with life's rough patches.

Next

  • The New Power Ratings

    Companies sell us great products and services--but not what we really want.

  • Next Week: Sportacus Takes on Krispy Kreme Man

    Combine Teletubbies with Thighmasters and you get LazyTown, the popular TV show that gets kids up off the couch.

  • Game On!

    The folks who bring us shark fishing and Ted Nugent are set to make a serious run at sports TV's kingpin.

  • A Blog Masala

    Take a virtual voyage to the subcontinent and its emerging economy via these Indian business-related blogs.

  • Antiwar Games

    While a student in Serbia, Ivan Marovic cofounded Otpor ("resistance"), which helped topple Slobodan Milosevic's dictatorship. Now Marovic, 32, is out with a video game, A Force More Powerful: The Game of Nonviolent Strategy. He talks about why gamers make the best revolutionaries.

  • This Will Make Your Skin Crawl

    A new concept could let your own epidermis become a medical monitor.

  • Getting Inside Your Head

    A company that "fingerprints" brain activity to gauge emotional responses has attracted interest from Madison Ave. to the CIA.

  • The eBay of Programmers

    Rent A Coder matches projects with software developers from around the world.

  • Survey: A Small World After All

    Your competition is everywhere. And increasingly, "everywhere" includes emerging markets.

  • Datebook

    Critical calendar listings for January 2006.

  • When Worlds Collide

    What happens when a performance artist meets MIT engineers?

  • It's Print. It's Online. Will It Sell Ads?

    Can the newspaper business be saved?

  • Today's "Kitchen of Tomorrow"

    The first in a series of visionary tales inspired by the great corporate marketing films of the 1950s and 1960s.

  • Inno-waiters With Whine Lists

    How to turn wispy ideas into reality? Join us for dinner at the Breakthrough Cafeacute;.

Fast Talk

  • Fast Talk: Clean Sheets

    Boutiques such as the W made hotels sexy. Now the concept's getting stale. Five next-generation innkeepers take the experience way beyond a mint on your pillow.

From the Editor