I love FAST COMPANY! I’m grateful everyday for Alan Webber and Bill Taylor for acting on their entrepreneurial instinct that there was a ‘market’ for this type of resource.
And, to Joe Mansueto for picking up this ‘torch’ (as well as Inc. magazine) and continuing to fuel it.
If you are in any way connected to the For Impact world or consider yourself to be a For Impact leader or social entrepreneur, you need to read this article from this month (February 2013) Fast Company.
10 Conversations That Changed the World contains 10 great examples of “dialogue that inspired innovation”.
Here’s my shorthand:
- The Birth of Silicon Valley. A ‘traitorous’ group of eight young geniuses create first venture back start-up, Silicon Valley and more.
Note: One of our current partners/coaching clients is Education Pioneers. They’re awesome. One of their funders, Art Rock, is part of this group of E-8!
- Zuckerberg Bets On Social. An IM conversation with a high school friend clarifies his priorities!
- Consumer Electronics Get Sexy. Great conversation around ‘design’.
- Steve Jobs Goes To The Movies. Killer line. “Everything we were … was about the presentation and storytelling.” This is why Jobs bought into Pixar.
- Reading, Writing And Education Reform. 100% true or not, this is incredible story re: Wendy Kopp, Teach for America!
- Mass Retail Meets High–End Design. Target and Michael Graves, the designer. “I don’t copy. I create.”
- Absolut Brilliance. TBWAChiatDay Agency creates bottle-centric ad campaign. “It was the very fact of the SIMPLICITY (of the campaign) that would make this thing take off.”
- Starbucks Saves The Modern Organization. CEO Howard Schultz comments to an investor’s request to slash Starbucks benefits. “After all these years, if you believe the financial crisis should change our principles and core purpose, perhaps you should sell your stock! I’m not building a stock. I’m trying to build a great, enduring company. We are a performance-driven organization, but we have to lead the company through the lens of humanity.”
- Funny Goes Viral. The two founders of CollegeHumor.
Best line: “I’d love to say I had this vision of changing how comedy worked. It was really, I don’t want to have a job that sucks.”
- Zappos Kicks Off Internet Shoe Sales—AND EVERYTHING ELSE. 1999. “5% of sales in the $40 billion shoe industry were through paper mail-order catalogs.” “I’d tell them again: 5% of shoes were sold through mail-order catalogs.” Read this conversation and you’ll get it. (Another great line from Zappos founder Nick Swinmurn to investor, now CEO, Tony Hsieh: “We assume that for the foreseeable future, everyone will continue to wear shoes.”
