The Return of Fast Company into My Life

Instrumental in my early years in employment and management was a magazine called Fast Company. I devoured each issue in the mid-1990’s and often incorporated things I learned into things I was working on at work. But Fast Company started to tail off earlier last decade, and at some point, I didn’t renew, and didn’t seem to miss it.

But with some airline miles about to expire, and Fast Company on the list of magazine subscriptions you could use miles to purchase, I decided to give the magazine another go. And, so far, very good: some of the same “I can’t put this issue down” mojo last experienced well over a decade ago.

In fact, it appears Fast Company will join Wired as the two things I simply must drop everything else I’m reading and plow through as soon they arrive in the mail. Here are some links to articles from recent issues that I particularly liked:

The Telltale Brown M&M. David Lee Roth of Van Halen asked venues for all the brown M&M’s to be removed from his candy dish not because he was a diva, but because he wanted to know the other side was reading every single line of his contract.

50 Most Innovative Companies - #1: Facebook. My baby’s all grown up! Not sure why there is so much FB-hating going on; there’s a lot to like about this company.

#9 Walmart and #28 Frito-Lay. A nice look at how these two behemoths are going green. This is how you change the world: 2.5 billion bags at a time.

#31: HTC. Wait, the CEO of this mobile phone manufacturer is Taiwanese and a Christian? I think I have a new role model.

First, Do No Harm. FC’s right: there’s a lot more social, environmental, and economic good that can be squeezed out of hospital design.

Transition Game. Steve Nash lays the foundation for a successful post-basketball career. A killer quote from his friend, Jeff Mallett of Yahoo!, got him going: “It’s 20 years from now and you have 15 minutes to tell what you’ve done in the last 20 years; if you mention basketball, you fail.”