Chicago is the Creative Capital of ohe Universe. Discuss.

Interviews by Kate Rockwood — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:08:56 -0400

"Big yes! A great creative place has to have great art, great food, and a combination of beauty and grit to be inspired by. Chicago has all of that."

Brad Morris
Second city
comedy ensemble member

"More and more people are moving to the city, and more and more people are realizing what a gem it is. It really is an emerald."

Dee Rosciolistar
of Chicago's Wicked

Oakley's Post-Apocalyptic Headquarters

Alissa Walker — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:30:46 -0400

Directions to Oakley headquarters in Foothill Ranch, California, read like coordinates to a secret rebel base: Turn on One Icon Drive. Pass the abandoned motocross ramp. Take a right at the helipad. And we're the 400,000-square-foot gray fortress at the top of the hill. Yeah, the one with the giant cylindrical spikes protruding from it. There's a torpedo out front. Can't miss it.

Global City of the Year: London

Alice Rawsthorn — Wed, 14 May 2008 13:06:10 -0400

It's shockingly expensive. The roads are jammed with traffic. The subway system's hopeless, and the buses no better. There's a surveillance camera on every other corner, and the sidewalks are strewn with litter. The biggest airport is a joke. The richest residents are fleeing or threatening to; the poorest have been chased out into the suburbs by soaring property prices. And the weather sucks.

For Your Consideration: Answers About the Health of the Arts

Laura Palotie — Wed, 14 May 2008 11:20:13 -0400

In my post last week I linked to The New York Times' City Room-section that featured reader questions for the president of the Alliance for the Arts, Randall Bourscheidt. The topic was the state of the arts in New York City, and the often verbose inquiries included questions about donor funding, treatment of older artists and whether European countries with more generous government funding have an advantage.

Best Cities for Innovation

Ellen Gibson and Kate Rockwood — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:10:39 -0400

You can see it in their stats and in their cityscapes: These 12 Fast Cities around the globe are thriving. We'll be watching these nodes of creativity and innovation this year and beyond -- we're expecting big business and big things.

Beijing

U.S. City of the Year: Chicago

Alex Kotlowitz — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:09:51 -0400

In the bottom of the ninth inning of the 2005 World Series, as the long-suffering Chicago White Sox were about to win their first championship in 88 years, play-by-play announcer Joe Buck waxed eloquent about Chicago's South Side, where the Sox play. He described it as "a collection of neighborhoods...Irish neighborhoods. Italian neighborhoods. Polish. Lithuanian. Firemen. Policemen. Schoolteachers. Stockyard workers." Stockyard workers? The last stockyard closed in 1971. Irish, Italian, Polish, Lithuanian?

Now: March 2008

Fast Company staff — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:35:09 -0500

Week 1

march 1
BID
Meg Whitman's 10th Anniversary as CEO of eBay

Open House: Just Plane Ambitious

Ellen Gibson — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:25:04 -0500

London Heathrow (LHR) Terminal 5

CSI: Construction

Fast Company staff — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:05:18 -0500

Water Damage The black layer is a peel-and-stick waterproof membrane. The blue layer is the stainless-steel outside cladding of the building. The metal skin is applied directly over the waterproofing, whereas there should be both space and insulation between them. This causes condensation, which erodes the wall.

Fishmouthing In the upper-left-hand corner, where a wall of windows meets another wall, the waterproof layer appears to be wrinkling. That's "fishmouthing" of the membranes, caused by inexpert application, which lets in moisture.

Lost in the Funhouse

Anya Kamenetz — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:05:17 -0500

The Ray and Maria Stata Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is an outlandish cartoon village in listing brick and scrolling aluminum, with a Möbius-strip main corridor inside. An italic-angled entrance, shaped like the cutting edge itself, ushers visitors off the drab Cambridge street. But then you see it, tha t universal symbol of malfunction: an orange mechanical lift.

Genius at Change

Anni Layne — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:34:23 -0500

Bill Strickland sparks revolution from the inside out. He is a change agent with more than 30 years of experience, but he resembles no other change agent in any industry, any company, or any government agency -- because Strickland's "inside" is not IBM, Ford, or the U.S. Mint. His transformations and insurrections affect whole families, communities, and cities. He is a change agent for society.

People to Watch

David Futrelle — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:24:32 -0500

It Sure Beats the NEA

Lisa LaMotta and Alex C. Pasquariello — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:19:35 -0500

No one misses the controversies that beset the National Endowment for the Arts in the 1990s. Its funding of cutting-edge, but controversial, art exposed how outmoded the New Deal--era approach to promoting culture truly was.

Creative Capital is a private-sector response to such messiness. Bringing venture philanthropy to the arts, it has funded 242 projects with grants of up to $50,000 since 1999. But its approach is about more than money. "We look for people open to changing how they market themselves," says executive director Ruby Lerner.

Moving Pictures

Anya Kamenetz — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:13:16 -0500

I'm not the first blonde to find herself standing with eyes closed in an office in Beverly Hills, eager to be manipulated by a Hollywood executive. "Hold out your hands," says Jeff Skoll, founder of Participant Productions, the film company behind Good Night, and Good Luck, Syriana, and An Inconvenient Truth. "Now, imagine that your right hand is holding a heavy book.

Creating a Blue Ocean of Innovation

Fast Company staff — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 07:55:39 -0500

Water, water, everywhere

You don't have to compete in a red ocean of bloody competition. Even exhausted industries -- like the circus -- can be reinvented.

Don't swim with the school

Quit benchmarking the competition or setting your strategic agenda in the context of theirs.

Find new ponds to fish

Don't assume your current customers have the insights you need to rethink your strategy. Look to noncustomers instead.

Cut bait on costs

Put as much emphasis on what you can eliminate as on what you can create.

Without a Net

Linda Tischler — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 07:54:48 -0500

1. Cast teams for creative conflict.

Cirque officials generally make sure there's a mix of nationalities and viewpoints when they draft a creative team. Then they lock creators in a room with the instructions, "Don't come out till you have something great." Easy consensus, says Daniel Lamarre, Cirque's president, is the enemy of groundbreaking ideas.

A Day in the Life of Work: Udder Artistry

Bill Breen — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 00:43:57 -0500

Norma "Duffy" Lyon, 74 butter sculptress : Toledo, Iowa

"They call me the Butter-Cow Lady. For 44 years, I have sculpted cows out of butter at the Iowa State Fair. My big mouth got me the job. In 1959, I saw a photograph of a butter cow that the previous sculptor had made. It looked all rat-headed, with the horns coming out of the wrong place. I had taken two sculpting classes at Iowa State University, and I knew cows, since we milked 300 Jerseys at our dairy farm. I told the boss at the fairgrounds, 'I can do better than that.' The following year, they offered me the job.

The Art of Being Progressive

Chuck Salter — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:55:36 -0500

One way to appreciate the distinctive culture at Progressive is to experience firsthand the environment that Peter Lewis has created at its headquarters in Mayfield Village, 30 minutes east of Cleveland. The sprawling complex could easily be mistaken for a contemporary-art museum. A walkway designed to resemble a stream winds playfully into an underground tunnel, thereby creating the illusion of being underwater. Sculptures of Styrofoam clouds, metal origami birds, and cartoonish, floor-to-ceiling evening gowns abound.

The Art of Hope

Sara Terry — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:54:59 -0500

Andy Karaman is starting to think about college. That's not necessarily an unusual thing for the average 17-year-old. But in Karaman's case, it represents a major breakthrough: No one in his family has ever gone to college, and it's not a subject that his family regularly talks about around the dinner table. The impetus for Karaman's new sense of opportunity? His art teachers at the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild.

The Giving Trio

Sara Terry — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:54:21 -0500

Two years ago, jazz great Herbie Hancock came to the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild to perform in MCG's 350-seat concert hall, as part of the annual jazz series.

He left having found a soul mate in Bill Strickland.

As Strickland does with most of the musicians who play at MCG's hall, he'd shown Hancock around - and told him about his ideas for using the arts and vocational training as a way to rebuild lives.

Genius at Work

Sara Terry — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:53:57 -0500

Bill Strickland can tell you when his life began: It was a Wednesday afternoon in September 1963.

And he can tell you how it began: It started with a lump of clay.

The Arts