Fast Company Magazine September 2007 Issue 118

Table of Contents | September 2007

Features

Environmental Activist Adam Werbach Used To Call Wal-Mart Toxic, But Now He Works For Them: Once the youngest president of the Sierra Club, Adam Werbach used to call Wal-Mart toxic. Now the company is his biggest client. Does the path to a greener future run through Bentonville? By Danielle Sacks; How Green is Wal-Mart?
In October 2005, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott outlined audacious environmental and sustainability goals for the company. Here's the status of some of the company's major initiatives. By Charles Fishman; Wal-Mart's Personal Sustainability Project
The Personal Sustainability Project, or PSP, that Werbach and his firm, Act Now, are running for Wal-Mart is intended to help the company's 1.3 million employees see how sustainability--defined very broadly as "having enough for now, while not harming the future"--relates to their own lives. Here's the strategy. By Fast Company Staff; Quiz: How Green is Corporate America?
As businesses scramble to be identified with the "green" movement and brand themselves as eco-friendly, it gets harder and harder to tell which companies are serious about making a difference and which ones are more interested in making a marketing statement. By Fast Company Staff; Slideshow: Wal-Mart: The New Green Giant?
Are the corporate retailer's eco-friendly initiatives enough to correct decades of damage?
The Short, Shady History of Hollywood South: One New Orleans industry survived Katrina: its booming film business. Now the lawsuits are flying, and the old rot is setting in fast. Another sad tale from the city that just can't stop itself. By Anya Kamenetz
Philadelphia's School Of The Future--Brought To You By Microsoft: Across the country, talent-hungry corporations are trying to save our struggling public schools. Are they creating smarter kids--or a fleet of drones? By Elizabeth Svoboda; Top Companies Get In The Education Game
These days, getting involved in public schools is practically a requirement for top companies. Here are some of the most ambitious initiatives. By Fast Company Staff
Meet Mahalo: The New People Powered Search Engine: Serial Webmeister Jason Calacanis survived the dotcom bust and went on to sell Weblogs Inc. to AOL for $25 million. He says his new search engine--powered by people, of all things--will give Google a run for its money. We almost believe him. By Adam L. Penenberg; Podcast: Did He Really Say That?
Fast Company Contributing Writer, Adam L. Penenberg, chats with Jason Calacanis, founder of a new human-powered search engine called Mahalo, who offers tips on how to entice venture capitalists to pony up millions and why critics like Gawker Media tycoon Nick Denton are simply "delusional."; Video: People-powered Search In Action
Jason Calacanis founded Silicon Alley Media and sold Weblogs Inc. to AOL for $25 million. For his third act, he returns to the Web with a search engine that actually uses human guides to find the best results. They build customized pages and even clean up the spam. See how they work in our exclusive video.
How a Teenager's Hobby Became a Booming Online Business: No rich relatives? No professional mentors? No problem. Ashley Qualls, 17, has built a million-dollar web site. She's LOL all the way to the bank. :) By Chuck Salter; Whatevercash.com
How Ashley financed her business. By Chuck Salter; Her Space: A Guide to Ashley's World
"It's all about giving girls what they want," is the way the 17-year-old explains her success. By Chuck Salter; Teen Traffic
Here's how Whateverlife.com is ranked by Quantcast, which analyzes traffic to more than 20 million sites. By Chuck Salter; Slideshow: The CEO Who's, Like, 17
Meet the founder of Whateverlife.com -- a teen who transformed her hobby of designing MySpace layouts into a boomingly lucrative online business.
Has Grameen's Village Phone Program Gone Obsolete?: Grameen's famous Village Phone Program lifted thousands out of poverty--and helped Muhammad Yunus win the Nobel Peace Prize. The problem: It's not working anymore. By Richard Shaffer; The Phone Ladies' Conundrum
By Fast Company Staff

Fast Talk: Olympic Trials: Going for China's Gold

GE's $500 Million Springboard: By Cora Daniels
UPS's Setup Man: By Cora Daniels
Adidas's Fake-Out Artist: By Cora Daniels
Hyatt's Vertical Jump: By Cora Daniels
An Activist's Difficult Game: By Cora Daniels
A Pioneer's Startup Story: By Cora Daniels

Retail Health Clinics Radicalize the National Health Landscape: Retail health clinics are dotting the landscape like Starbucks, frustrating doctors but delighting patients. Is this the beginning of the answer to our national health-care crisis? By Ellen McGirt
Watch List 9/07: The books, conferences, and people to look for this month. By Fast Company Staff; Head Honchos With Big Missions
People to watch. By Michael A. Prospero; There's A Message in Every Email
From the journals. By Aimee Rawlins
The Ticket Resale Business is Booming: EBay and other scrappy online outfits have created a legitimate $2 billion--plus secondary market for seats at concerts and sports events--and a risky new world for Ticketmaster. By Amy Feldman; What's the ROI On That Skybox?
By Amy Feldman
How Amp'd Mobile Careened Through Millions Into Bankruptcy: How the "can't miss" wireless startup Amp'd Mobile burned through $360 million and found itself in bankruptcy. By John Rosenthal; We Know What Boys Like
Amp'd targeted 18- to 25-year-old boys by focusing on comedy, reality, and sports programming, much of it produced in-house. By Fast Company Staff; Four Provocative Players in the Wireless Market
Amp'd Mobile's bankruptcy doesn't mean that companies shouldn't try to create niches in the wireless market. Here are four provocative upstarts. By Aimee Rawlins
Siemens on Transforming the Air Travel Experience: In Germany, engineering giant Siemens tests features designed to make air travel less awful. By Michael Dumiak
Down But Definitely Not Out: Ground Zero Design Winner On the New WTC: Daniel Libeskind shares his vision for architecture and why he's at peace with the plans for Ground Zero that replaced his own. By Alec Appelbaum; Podcast: Daniel Libeskind's Vision for Architecture
Libeskind won the 2002 public competition to design a replacement for the World Trade Center destroyed six years ago on September 11. The site developer, mistrusting his dreamy talk and jagged angles, relegated him to master planning the overall site. Hear why Libeskind is at peace with the plans for Ground Zero that replaced his own.
Sketchpad: Mattel's Easy For Me 1-2-3 Barbie: Toy packaging is frustrating to open, wasteful, and bad for the environment. How Mattel's designers and engineers worked to free Barbie from her shackles. By Alissa Walker
Indoor Air Pollution a Menace: By Jennifer Boulden
Make Your Grass Greener--Without Chemical Pesticides: By Jennifer Boulden
Consumer-Electronics Companies Open Up the Doors to Innovation: Consumer-electronics companies are embracing the open-source model--enlisting volunteer developers, designers, and just regular folk--to create cooler products for all their customers. By Michael A. Prospero

Columns

Made to Stick: The Idea Behind the Exorbitant Price Tag: How ideas pave the way for products. By Chip Heath and Dan Heath
The Scoble Show: Will Microblog Services Like Twitter Change The Way We Communicate?: Why Twitter will change the way business communicates (again). By Robert Scoble; Scoble on Tech on FastCompany.com
Robert Scoble is a technology enthusiast and video podcast evangelist. Here you will find his magazine columns and web exclusive videos, as well as excerpts from his blog citing the best of the tech web.; Video: Business by Twitter
Mansueto Digital President Ed Sussman chats with expert tech blogger and videocaster about Twitter, the fastest growing application in Internet history. Scoble sees services like Twitter, where users can update snippets from their lives -- through text, images, and video -- as the next great marketing tool. It's just that marketers haven't quite caught on yet.
Not So Fast: The Hollow Man: Peeling the layers on Alan Greenspan's real contribution to the economy. By Elizabeth Spiers

More Great Stuff

Letter from the Editor: Lessons of the Fall By Robert Safian
Contributors: By Fast Company Staff
Feedback: Letters. Updates. Advice.

Table of Contents | September 2007

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