Clifford Kurz and Susan West Kurz are romantic zealots. Passion has ruled their 21-year relationship, as well as the tetchy perfectionism with which they ran...

Mike Rowe has drawn a crowd. Again. This time it's on a chilly December night in Florence, South Carolina, at a local joint called J. Michael's Grill...

Most public speakers are wildly overpaid, and I am no exception. I used to think I could justify my ridiculous fee by putting a lot of careful...

It sounds like science fiction: A stent made of bioabsorbable plastic simply dissolves back into the bloodstream within a year or two after its work opening an...

The way we work is undergoing the biggest shift since Microsoft Office launched in 1989--and it's poised...

Most weekday afternoons, you'll find Paul Ayala in his Manhattan studio, drawing furiously with a blue Magic Marker. His worktable is littered with shoe and...

What do the horseless carriage, the iPod, and global warming have in common? Once thought fads or fantasy, it turns out that all three are here to stay. It also turns out...

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...

Facebook can be a lousy date. Nearly a month after Microsoft slipped Mark Zuckerberg's "social graph" $240 million for a pocket-sized 1.6% stake, the network...

1. INNOVATION, NOT INSTANT PERFECTION. "There are two different types of programmers. Some like to code for months or even years, and hope they will have built the...

If there is a phrase that describes the Zipcar car-sharing service--and I don't think there is yet--it would be some mix of Volkswagen's Fahrvergnügen...

The three-year-old California Institute for Regenerative Medicine may be the world's richest stem-cell-research effort, with $3 billion in bond funding. But it has also...

Every marketer, pollster, and advertiser knows this much about Hispanics living in the United States: They are deeply family oriented, and their families are...

Want to be a great leader? Michael Harvey, writing in the Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, identifies curiosity as a trait that...

Disturbing reports about the confessions and extreme self-exposure of young people on social-networking sites like MySpace and Facebook have become routine fodder for the...

What if people could borrow and lend money to each other without any banks in the middle? That's the idea behind two-year-old Prosper.com. "What we're really trying to do is to create...

  Patrick Robinson Executive Vice President of Design Gap Adult and Gap BodyAfter stints at Armani, Perry Ellis, and Paco Rabanne,...

It's Wednesday morning at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, and the United Airlines check-in area is a mob scene. Passengers queue up in a line that runs...

The standard by which all other design firms are measured, Palo Alto-based IDEO had a great year, even against its own high bar. Unlike past years, where design firm innovation was often about a...

For the past two decades, the history of the video game industry has been as predictable as most of its products: More advanced technology creates more powerful consoles, which run more realistic...

PERKS FOR GOOGLERS BY GOOGLERS "The majority of initiatives come from our Google population. We provide an atmosphere that says, 'We're not going to do this for you....

The engineering director of Google explains how the company maintains its creative culture and innovative operations. [Background: Founder of two companies, Verity and Eloquent; CTO of...

Target's strategy of rolling out capsule collections by well-known designers -- Loeffler Randall shoes and handbags, Erin Fetherston sweaters, Alice Temperley sportswear, Jovovich Hawk dresses --...

Last night, while chopping veggies with the TV buzzing in the background, I suddenly felt the hypnotic pull of that song with the drunken-piano-indie-chick-voice oozing, "Hoping I...

A straw that kills germs, an ink jet technology to re grow tissue and bone, hologram images of a cancer patient's anatomy, and a cap that reads the brain waves of paralyzed...

Black History Month is almost over, so I figure I'd tackle this topic while we're still in February. Maybe it's because I'm not watching as much TV, but I haven't seen nearly as many ads saying...

Publishing isn't dead, it's just sleeping -- with a vampire. Harlequin, one of the world's largest publishers of romance fiction, has reached well beyond the supermarket checkout line by using Web...

Over the past few weeks, it is possible you missed a few interesting announcements outside of the Microsoft/Yahoo venture. That was Microsoft‘s commitment to the Open Source movement (to be...

On Friday, an internal memo from Kevin Johnson, Microsoft’s president of...

February and Black History Month are just about over, so, building upon my last post about Black History Month and...

  As the creator of a comic strip character myself, I have, in some very early blog postings, poked a little fun at Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert.  Well, those days are over.  As...

Malcolm Gladwell often talks about Howard Moskowitz and his work in creating the best Pepsi (or the best Pepsis plural – see ...

"Closed for re-connection to our roots." For three hours today, for three long latte-less hours, every Starbucks in America will ...

Last post I talked about a young tour company director hell bent on enforcing the...

The growing success of a little web startup called Radar.net begs an interesting question: are we getting tired of lifecasting? Think about how many blogs are started every hour, and how...

In the March issue of Fast Company--careful, it's hot off the press--we unveil the new and improved Fast 50, aka the Fast Company 50. This...

  In the pre-Google age, it was common for recruiters and hiring managers to vet a job candidate with a phone call to references. Today, that process is almost quaint. Why bother to...

Employers know the problem with great job candidates is that they usually have jobs and aren't actively seeking another one. And why should they? It's a hassle to send out resumes, shake the trees...

I mentioned Trent Reznor's online strategies before, but I am...

"Whatever you do, don't hurt Barack!" It was the afternoon of Super Tuesday, and the Chicago sky threatened snow. Senator Barack Obama had...

Jay Rosen writes on PressThink something that I've long felt--that journalistic neutrality doesn't really exist, and it's much more important to demonstrate your integrity by acknowledging and...

Park bench or Barcalounger? For a while, it seemed as if that would soon be the biggest question for urban dwellers wanting a little Wi-Fi. Just a year ago,...

Chipotle Mexican Grill is the Bono of the fast-food business. Hardheaded financial analysts love it; do-gooders do too. "Chipotle has done a wonderful...

"I'm keen to meet up with retailers from Asia and South America. At the 2007 Congress, we made contact with Dubai's Landmark Group, and have since opened a Spar-branded...

Is Chipotle a one-trick pony? Is dependable Safeway actually more innovative than trendy Whole Foods? Should we have jettisoned AirAsia to make room for Virgin Galactic? Innovation expert Dev...

My brilliant colleague Carrie Byrne came up with the title of this post and the term. I'm just the messenger. Clopen source is the spirit of open-source application creation --...

A reader emailed this unique customer service issue to my attention: The reader's first complaint was, after spending innumerable hours writing, editing, and tweaking their...

When’s the last time you emailed 10 people about work-related business and actually got 10 responses? 8? How about 7? I’m willing to bet you’d be lucky to hear back from half of them and, if...

Josh Waitzkin was going head to head with the worlds greatest chess minds at the age of 6. Today his a world champion tai chi master. His bestselling book, The Art of...

Its first day in stores, on April 29, Grand Theft Auto IV, the epic video game from Rockstar Games, took in $310 million in sales. That accounts for around 3.6 million copies...

On Tuesday, July 14, 2008, I attended the Green Communications...

Last night, Warner Bros. released online the trailer for the film adaptation of graphic novel Watchmen. After a two second conflict with myself over whether I should wait to see the ...

Flashy and innovative, concepts offer auto designers the opportunity to let their imaginations run wild. From beginning to end, designers can spend anywhere from six months to...