Saabira's Recommendations?

Late last year, Ian Moray stumbled across a cotton-candy-pink Web site called Whateverlife.com. As manager of media development at the online...

This promises to be a joyous holiday season for Steve Jobs and the incandescent Apple. Over the past year, the company's...

Customer evangelism tip: if you want to bring your customers closer to you, don't use the p-word, at least not to their face. Don't say "Our policy is …" because...

Fast Company is about to shake things up again. Back in 1995, in our first issue, we announced on our cover: "Computing is Social." It became a Fast...

Just as I was thinking that this Social Media phenomena was actually making me more social, along came this ...

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

"He looked like Jesus," confesses a blushing 27-year-old hipster in gray New Balance sneakers and a zip-up hoodie. She is talking about her boss, Alex Bogusky,...

Undeleted email of the day … View PDF In a nutshell: a company...

I have spent the last few days at the Sustainable Brands conference in Monterey, CA. The event brings together some of the most...

  Okay, I admit the headline on today’s entry could fall under the category of “bait and switch.”  See, I don’t really want to write about...

Spotted downunder during "Seniors Week". ...

A new organic/natural food store just opened up in town. If you've ever been inside one of these massive chemical free superstores you can appreciate the experience. These are not your corner...

Well folks, today we at FastCompany.TV launched ...

When you walk around the Bangalore campus of technology-outsourcing giant Wipro, something feels familiar. Sure, it's India, so the sun is too hot and the...

Occassionally, a “design celebrity” says something that starts the Design Industry echo chamber buzzing. In April, mention of an interview that Philippe Starck gave...

Chris Reed isn't your typical CEO. He's a tie-dye aficionado who sports a ponytail, eats vegetarian, and enthuses ceaselessly about the benefits of yoga, Ayurveda, and...

It’s incredible what you can find on the Internet these days. I was cruising around cyberspace the other day without any specific sense of where I was going when I stumbled upon a paper on...

I had asked my readers a few weeks ago, that if they had the opportunity to ask Bill Gate’s any question, what would they ask. I was amazed at not only the amount of responses, but the quality...

Today I want to look back at what I've done over the past few months and register a complaint with reality!  Why did I wait so long to move on? After months...

I’ve taught hundreds of students how to improve their photography; I’ll be passing tips to help you get better shots right away. First of all, simply take more shots! I don’t mean...

There was a story in a recent Wall Street Journal about a new technology that lets insurance companies reward...

In the past week I’ve seen three companies and one surprising manifestation of the cleantech revolution that’s shaping up worldwide. All of these observations are worth sharing as a means of...

The line between the real world and the online world got a little more fuzzy today. Vivaty (www.Vivaty.com) just...

That's how Josh Bernoff of Forrester and Groundswell co-authoring acclaim, ...

For many people the term “New Media” is one of the most abused and over-hyped buzzwords around. So when I met the owner of the Roxy theatre in Los Angeles, and saw how he used new media...

At 28, entrepreneur Scott Ginsberg, has the most visible name in the world. Meet Scott any time, anywhere, day or...

Back in the days of Web 1.0, a.k.a. before the great crash of 2000, Scott McNealy, then CEO of SUN Microsystems was fond of saying, “The network IS the computer.” Now that we’re in the...

Vumber does one thing and does it well. Provide a cheap and easy to use, disposable phone number and voicemail product. Vumber allows you to create a phone number from any area code you...

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 ...

The most frustrating thing about Apple's newly introduced "mobileme" service is that it seems I can’t create an alias return address with my own domain name. Yes, I can forward all...

Major League Baseball has gone green. Here is how an article in...

When Mike Macadaan, a Silicon Valley based designer at AOL, decided to throw a tech exhibition, you’d think he would have done it locally. Instead, Macadaan did the unthinkable. He went to Los...

Last week at E3, both Microsoft and Sony made announcements related to video. Microsoft announced a partnership with Netflix to make streaming video available on the Xbox 360. ...

You know the agitators in any revolution always put up posters and banners to make their point to the public (and to anger the authorities too, of course!). In a Los Angeles suburb last week a...

I’ve been learning about “el sistema,” the Venezuelan music-training program that has been offered to over 300,000 impoverished Venezuelan children.The brainchild of Jose Antonio Abreu, a...

Have you ever come home from a tech convention with a bag full of schwag and wondered if there was a better use for it? Emerging media consultant Michael Liskin was wondering the same thing when...

This is a guest post by Mark McNeilly.  If you’re looking for a model of a successful career one could do worse than to look at that of George...

The dog days of summer are upon us - west coast skies are smoky and the east coast is humid and stormy. The economy is tanking, but if you stretch the concept of good news, employers are coming...

Photography is such a technical subject that many photographers get caught up in it, or snarled up in it, as the case may be. Cameras are such wonderful contrivances that we can get lured in by...

“Our company decided to make our own documentary.” Sounds easy enough, but do you know where to start? “Let’s just roll some tape and see what happens.” Sounds exciting,...

In my mind, already, China has botched these Olympics. Word has come out that two different aspects of the elaborate opening ceremony were faked. Some of the fireworks seen on the televised...

If you read my posting about the “Ongoing...

Post contribution by Craig Briggs- Brandimage There are many cliches that exist in...

If you’ve ever been thwarted in your attempts to reach a live customer service agent by Byzantine phone menus that led you in circles, then you understand Eric Strand’s pain. Eric, himself...

Things are tough out there. Really tough. Everyone I speak to has a story – cancelled contracts, price pressure, layoffs, disappearing clients. In my own experience, the slowdown was abrupt....

We all tend to wait for “special moments” to pull out our cameras and start clicking. Somehow, we need to be transcended above the everyday to get a great photo. Where do these special...

Many times we have left a meeting and discovered everyone on the team interpreted the meeting differently.  It’s as if we all went to a different meeting.   Communicating and...

I came across two very different sources of fortune-telling this week. The first was the Border Governors’ Conference (BGC), held at Universal Studios in Hollywood and focused on building a...

My well loved, well used laptop died last week. I purchase a new one and as I was getting it back to a usable state, I opened a list of software I install after purchasing a new PC for my...

Marketing schizophrenia can be defined in many ways, but one of the most compelling barometers I've found is an advertiser's consistent creation of short term "campaigns"....

Introduction Are you shocked and awed by the rapidity and complexity of the ongoing changes in the Rules of Work? Are you still trying to figure out what “Diversity” really means?...

Twin brothers Evan and Eric Edwards grew up in constant fear that the next thing they ate would kill them. Diagnosed with severe food allergies, they knew that with one wrong bite they would have...

On the train ride home last night, there was an ad for "BeKanye" -- a miracle drug to turn YOU into Kanye West! It was a fun poster, done in the style of those cheesy supplement ads....

Browsing through some photographs at a street fair this weekend I came across a simple image of a field and a forest. For a moment, I was transported there. It looked like a...

Everyday there’s another story extolling the virtues of the four-day workweek, or four,...

The first of Erik Erickson's eight stages of psychosocial development, is Trust vs. Mistrust. That is attained when a parent (primarily the mother) can leave a child without the child becoming...

It’s the election season and we are inundated with headlines on the players, policies, perceptions, peccadilloes and politics. For my clients who sell to the public sector we have a recurring...

A “mismatch” problem?” What the heck is that? I had the same question as I watched ...

Recently, I was filling up my Beetle and the guy at the next pump commented that I must get great gas mileage. "It gets high 20s on the highway if I'm lucky." I said, rather unenthused....

FROM the world stage of Beijing and the uproar over ...

I love to read. I read books about networking, building positive self and business images; about the Laws of Attraction and the power of positive thinking…the “SECRET”....

The motto “No man left behind” expresses one of The Marine Corps' core beliefs and helps make the organization a world class fighting machine. But while I applaud the Marine Corps for the...

In high school, the thought of giving yourself the grade you thought you deserved always sounded too good to be true. Most of my friends, myself included, would in all likelihood...

Eight years ago I did some work with a chemicals company. One of their divisions made paint and wanted to invent a framework for innovation. One of the things we did was get into bed (not...

In an election year of many “firsts,” one major “first” to celebrate is the fact that, for the first time, both presidential candidates have made work life flexibility part of their...

  When it comes to technology, every home-based business owner can feel a little bit alone from time to time. There’s no help-desk or IT staff to call when your PC, Internet connection, or...

In 1999 I was Communications Manager for the World Bank's enterprise resource planning (erp) initiative....

An early challenge job changers face is determining who they are professionally. If you've been in the workforce 5 years or more, you've worked in LOTS of areas where you could demonstrate...

If you want to become interpersonally competent, you need to do three things: 1) get to know yourself; 2) build long term, mutually beneficial relationships with the people in your life; and 3)...

Commentators have coined a term that is being hotly debated in business, political, and social settings these days - - the “China Price”. A quick Google search shows that the China...

Welcome to my first post. I am so excited for the opportunity to engage in a conversation with people who are innovative and entrepreneurial in helping their businesses and their communities to...

Most people wouldn’t dream of trading a high flying career in television to work with fledgling digital content producers, but Jordan Levin, former CEO of the WB network,...

Has the Human Resources Department Become the Union of the 21st Century? Every Labor Day I reminisce about my 24 years as a labor attorney and union official of an 8,000 member national...

I have come to realize that having Jim Cantore of The Weather Channel broadcasting from your hometown is not necessarily a good thing.  If you live in Florida and it’s during...

Labor Day has come and gone and the last fun day of summer has passed. There are less than 100 working days left in the year, a fact relayed by Bud Bilanch in a recent ...

Reporters and venture capitalists often ask me to name some of the top vertical search engines. Because I believe strongly that search will become a dynamic industry of very search specific sites...

A track record, my kingdom for a track record. In my last blog I spoke about leaders needing ...

Harvard prof John Kotter is one of the foremost authorities on change leadership. I thought it would be...

On this third anniversary of Katrina, and in Gustav’s wake, we see the power of the media to engage us in bearing witness. Reporters bring the stories into our homes. Anderson Cooper stirred...

"Patronize your local, even if it's a little more expensive. Otherwise, one day, it won't be there." My mother's words, which I've adhered to for...

I have to disagree with Michelle Higgins (...

"The hotel guestroom of the future" was was showcased at...

Summer used to be a time when things slowed down.  That doesn't seem to be happening any more.  People think summer is quieter and then they ask "Whatever happened to...

Of all the keys to success, attitude is by far the greatest factor that can be controlled. There are many moments in life that standout as epiphanies or “aha” moments, if you will. One such...

The news that Liz Claiborne has closed all 54 Sigrid Olsen stores is sad indeed for Sigrid and the boomer women for whom her fashions were designed.  But it was also a setback for those who see...

Eddie Bravo: Formless Wisdom Pt. 1 By: Adisa Banjoko Nothing in the world is more flexible and yielding than water. Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong, none can...

When I was a kid the only phone books anybody had were the ones they delivered when you ordered your phone. Then came the Donnelly yellow pages, the Smart Yellow Pages, and the yellow pages from...

I once worked for a boss who accused me of being granular or always looking at things from “in the weeds.”...

September 7 - This week, the ServiceNation Summit in New York City will focus national attention on citizen service. ...

Political conventions are largely mass entertainment for the party faithful, punctuated by self-serving interpretations of both current events and history. Like summer big-budget movies, this...

Boy, it's a great time to be a speech expert as well as a leading authority on political communication. And both political parties provided a great show, particularly the speeches of Hillary...

September 8 - For a “Mad Men” (AMC TV) junkie who also happens to thrive on philanthropy and service, ...

Your personal information is online and getting more accessible every day. So how can you manage your online reputation and privacy in this cyber world where walls don't exist?...

At an event in San Francisco this morning, Steve Jobs announced a new version of the iPod Nano and of the iPod Classic. It now has an aluminum shell with a long form factor and an oval shape, and...

Every client I work with to improve Employee Performance struggles with the reality of Employee Engagement. While every Manager knows that without meaningful Employee Engagement in the Work...

Harvard Business School Professor John Kotter is a world-class authority on change leadership. He has written ...

Let's face it, everyone and their mother has a video on YouTube. That's a good thing - user generated content is mainly what's fueled the rapid growth of social media - and it's also...

If you're a politics junkie you're probably a) addicted to polls and b) becoming increasingly concerned about the ultimate nightmare in presidential elections, the electoral college tie. If you...

Are you responsible for developing new products or services for your company? If so, there’s a good chance you’ve read some books or articles on the subject. Maybe attended a conference on...

The blogosphere is an increasingly crowded, complicated space to navigate. Everyone’s an expert, everyone has “great” content and everyone’s rabidly eager to be found. So how do you get...

Last week I looked at some of the reasons your business needs a blog, and this week I'd...

What is good design? I asked friends and colleagues what good design is. Most of them answered naming a few products or mentioning a designer’s name. I felt that these answers were not...

It’s no secret that Generation Y workers (a.k.a. Millennials) don’t exactly have the best reputation in the workplace. Perhaps you’ve heard some of the following comments made about this...

Here are some compelling statistics for all of us in the workforce: Someone in America's Baby Boomer Generation turns 60 every 10 minutes. Of America's entire workforce...

The latest search numbers were recently released and it appears that for the month of August once again Microsoft and Yahoo lost market share to Google. What’s worse is that not...

Last weekend I attended the annual Blogworld and New Media Expo in Las Vegas and was struck by how much “real world”...

Whether one is Republican, Democrat or Independent, most people agree that Barack Obama is a master of highly effective communication. In Say It Like Obama: the Power of Speaking with Purpose and...

September 25 – There is no denying the interest of sitting among the heads of global corporations, heads of state, and movie and television stars, and casually exchanging business cards and...

Windows Vista Speech Recognition software may not have rendered the keyboard obsolete, but it certainly has made it unnecessary for many people. The voice-control software translates speech into...

Rod Collins is the former Chief Operating Executive of Blue Cross Blue Shield Federal Employee Program, the largest private...

A few years ago a pop cult book came out that made a splash. It was aptly titled, "He's Just...

In the past two years Twitter has grown from an online community of big techies to a community that is inclusive of many niche audiences including moms and political junkies. Twitter has also...

Some people have asked me recently what precisely makes communication sound like “the language of a leader.” This is a topic I explore in the book recently published by McGraw-Hill called Say...

“Surround yourself with smart people,” a smart friend recently said. That is, if you enjoy learning, boosting your intelligence and finding your way through a successful...

Much is written about our oil addiction, but we are addicted to another fossil-drug - - coal. And while oil steals the breath from our kids and incentivizes our bad behavior around the world,...

Wal-Mart is out with a fascinating presidential election poll of its female shoppers (a.k.a. Wal-Mart Moms) that reveals as much about Wal-Mart's fortunes as it does about Obama's and McCain's....

September 27 - It is particularly poignant to hear of Paul Newman’s death after spending three days of an immersion at the ...

How do you open minds that have been closed by fear and distrust? How do you get people to buy in who if they are not fearful, are at least...

I'm a voracious learner. In addition to reading magazines, books, blogs, tweets, and faces, I persistently look for patterns, connections, anomalies and what's new. I tolerated school only...

In the October issue of the magazine FastTalk, Fast Company interviews six political strategists to...

Something I hadn’t given much thought until a consultant mentioned it during a training session last week. In his mind, if you’re going to “win,” the only way you can do so is...

Have you ever wondered what you would do if your business was hit by a large scale disaster? Sure you have your insurance policy, but what would you do during the weeks or months waiting for the...

What we don't do for our children? Oh the places we'll see and the experiences we'll have, if we surrender to the journey. Let me tell you mine. I started my business on my kitchen table...

With lay-offs for the third quarter totaling 287,142 the largest number...

  Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain participated in their first presidential debate on Friday, September 26, 2008. As I...

October 1 - The extreme stress experienced from Wall Street to Main Street since September 15 is rippling into the ...

I'm always excited when we receive an RFP (Request for Proposal) here at Percepted… especially when it’s from a new...

When there are many opportunities, it is best to choose the opportunities that speak to your personal interests. It is even better to manage the opportunities by only agreeing to accomplish what is...

While meandering around the Murray Hill district of Manhattan,  I was stopped dead by an intriguing sign: "...

Hello and welcome to Washington Watch. I'm Rob Atkinson, President of the ...

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation has been tracking Barack Obama...

With the speed of a thunderstorm and the force of a glacier, the massive deleveraging of global markets is reshaping the face of American finance. The venerable system of Wall Street investment...

As I travel around to universities this fall, I’m meeting more and more international students pursuing their college degrees in the United States. These students face unique challenges while...

Are the days of the big design agency over? It seems to me they have been over for quite a while now. In the late 90's with the dot com craze in full throttle it looked as though they were...

If you can't fathom how Twitter can help your company, read on. When a student opened fire on the Virginia Tech campus last year, the school had no systematic way to alert...

Since last week was national customer service week (hat tip to ...

Last week, we saw a  glimmer of hope that the promise of "retail strategy" may at long last rising above the level of a cruel contradiction in terms. I'm talking about the new strategic...

Interviewers and entrepreneurs often ask me the same question. What’s the most common trait between successful rock stars and successful entrepreneurs? I know they all wish I had a silver...

Congress passed the bailout plan with a price tag of nearly a trillion dollars, but the ink was hardly dry on this new Monopoly money when quite a few experts began to predict it wouldn’t be...