Letter From the Editor: Apple's Tree of Knowledge "I owned all three versions of the Newton," blurted Fast Company art director Dean Markadakis during a recent editorial gathering. "I've had every Mac since 1984."
Markadakis isn't normally so voluble, but this time, he couldn't restrain himself. We were discussing the ever-growing legion of Apple-istas, and he had to share his bona fides.
Updated Thu May 24, 2012
Letter From the Editor: Going the Distance I ran a marathon, once, when I was 16. I trained for several months with my dad, who'd run a bunch of them before. After I finished the race, I felt so crummy that I yelled at him, "How could you let me do this?" But within a few hours, I felt better. And having survived the experience gave me a certain pride and confidence that helped carry me into adulthood.
Updated Tue May 22, 2012
Letter From the Editor: Design With a Purpose The first time I went to the White House I was in grade school. This was back in the 1970s, when my family was in Washington, D.C., on vacation, and public tours were easy to arrange. My next visit, two decades later, was as a journalist, when I interviewed members of George W. Bush's economic team. This past summer, I went again, for a completely different reason. The occasion was a luncheon hosted by Michelle Obama to celebrate the Smithsonian's National Design Award winners.
Updated Mon May 21, 2012
From The Editor: Our 100 Most Creative People In Business 2012 Are Birds Of A Feather
Photo by Benjamin Lowy
My youngest son, Daniel, who is 8, has developed a fascination for bird-watching. This is not a pursuit that has ever appealed to me.
Updated Mon May 21, 2012
The Influence Virus: Our Unlikely Experiment in Social Media The first time I participated in a viral marketing effort, it was on a whim. And it failed miserably -- in part because we didn't actually have a purpose. I was a freshman in college, and late one night, a few of us came up with a bunch of quirky sayings that included the words "Goats Head Soup" (the name of a Rolling Stones album). We then stuck these sayings under the doors of every dorm room in our part of campus. Perhaps if we'd been trying to spur CD sales, it would have made sense. As it was, all we were after was a little buzz of conversation the next morning.
Updated Fri May 18, 2012
A 60-Second Lesson I recently attended a fundraising gala in midtown Manhattan, one of those sparkly gatherings of beautiful people who are easily stereotyped and ridiculed. This one was for the Cooper-Hewitt, the Smithsonian's design museum, and its annual National Design Awards. Top execs from GE and Target were on hand; so were fashion designers like Cynthia Rowley and tech stars like YouTube cofounder Chad Hurley. The White House sent an emissary. TV's Paula Zahn acted as master of ceremonies.
Updated Fri May 18, 2012
The Year of the Rabbit The flood of new ideas that we see, from Silicon Valley to South Beach, continues to amaze me (propelled, often, by creative talent that's immigrated to this country). But I'm also fascinated by China. The pace of change there has been extraordinarily brisk.
Updated Thu May 17, 2012
Letter From the Editor | And the Winner Is Apple! I SAT DOWN with the head of a major Hollywood studio this week, at a chic and exclusive destination in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood, and he plied me with tales of intrigue, drama, sudden collapse, and heartfelt resurgence. No, he wasn't pitching upcoming releases; he was telling me about his studio's business over the past year. It was a compelling saga, full of twists and characters and exotic foreign locales. Perhaps in a subsequent issue of Fast Company, you'll get to read all about it.
Updated Wed May 16, 2012
How Steve Jobs's Wilderness Years Show Us How To Move Forward Much has been written about Jobs since his death last October. But no journalist knew him the way Brent Schlender did.
Updated Fri Apr 20, 2012
Fear, Fun, And Creative Risk THE GEE WHIZ DINER is not, by all appearances, a hotbed of creativity. It is a standard New York City greasy spoon a few blocks from the Fast Company offices. Yet it was there, over corned-beef hash and eggs, that we cooked up the idea for this issue's cover gatefold of Conan O'Brien.
Updated Tue Apr 10, 2012
Steve Jobs's Legacy - And The Next Tech War
In a few days Fast Company’s next magazine issue will begin arriving in newsstands and mailboxes. The issue has four different covers, and one of them features a picture of Steve Jobs. But this is not a commemorative obituary. In fact, the issue had already been printed at our plant when Jobs passed away.
Updated Mon Oct 17, 2011
Letter From the Editor: Notes From the Underground I was reading my Kindle on the subway a few days ago when a passenger standing alongside interrupted me to ask how it worked. I found myself extolling the device's virtues, even as I acknowledged its shortcomings. Another passenger joined in, offering his opinion. It was a friendly and not unsophisticated conversation, and it struck me how different the New York subways are today from when I was growing up in the city in the 1970s.
Sat May 1, 2010
Letter From the Editor: The Learning Curve Goes Digital My grandmother turned 92 a couple of months ago. While her short-term memory isn't great, she can describe in detail growing up in the 1920s. It is amazing how much has changed in her lifetime. Commercial air travel. Computers. Nuclear power. And so much more.
Thu Apr 1, 2010
Letter from the Editor: The Secrets of Innovation I cannot reveal the details of the proprietary algorithm that underlies our Most Innovative Companies list. It isn't because I'd have to kill you afterward. Truth is: It doesn't exist.
Mon Mar 1, 2010
Why We Redesigned Our Magazine "Does this outfit still work?" That's a question I ask my wife way too often, after I pull out an older garment from my closet or drawer. Bell-bottom pants. Skinny ties. Pleated anything. Clothing goes in and out of style, rising in popularity, falling away, reemerging. If you're not careful, you can end up embarrassing yourself.
Mon Feb 1, 2010
Letter from the Editor: Faith-Based Business I may be wrong, but I'm never in doubt. That's a line I use with my staff (and my kids) to explain my decision making. It is partly in jest -- of course I have doubts, just like everyone else. But sometimes you need to project confidence and inspire obedience, especially when facing a wall of skepticism.
Posted Tue Dec 1, 2009
Letter From the Editor: The Best Rivalry in Business, Refreshed When you're in the media business, you worry about the cost -- and the risk -- of creating a new product from scratch each time. Movies, music, magazines: We all share the same challenge. In comparison, the idea of creating the same item -- say a can of Coke -- over and over can seem kind of simple. But if you think about it a little deeper, you quickly come to the opposite conclusion: If your product never changes, how do you keep it from getting boring? How do you hold onto your territory when new things are constantly emerging to tempt your customer away?
Posted Thu Oct 1, 2009
Letter from the Editor: Lessons of the Edupunks Like many teenagers, my son spends a ton of time on his computer. His passion is designing icons to personalize a desktop or iPhone interface. He posts sets of these icons online for people to download. He doesn't get paid for any of this. But he loves doing it.
I sometimes reprimand him for devoting so many hours to this: "Have you finished your Spanish homework?" Yet I also find myself wondering, What's actually the better training for his future, high-school Spanish or honing these self-taught computer skills?
Posted Tue Sep 1, 2009
Letter from the Editor: Endless Energy
When staff writer Anya Kamenetz and her husband, an engineer at Google, went on their honeymoon, they set aside a week to volunteer at an AIDS hospice in Pune, India. The hospice, it turned out, desperately wanted its own Web site. So while her husband crafted the digital code, Kamenetz interviewed patients and staff, putting together the content. The site was fully functional by the time they left.
Posted Wed Jul 1, 2009
Letter From the Editor: Think Randomly, Execute Strategically
A delegation of Scottish CEOs came by our offices recently. They were on a four-day tour of U.S. companies -- Apple, Cisco, and so forth. Their goal was both information and inspiration, about how best to keep their businesses, large and small, moving forward.
Posted Mon Jun 1, 2009
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