Categories: Articles

Fast Change

Reading Fast Company magazine when it debuted in 1995 changed me forever.

I don’t think I’ve ever missed reading an issue from cover to cover. The speed, pace and writing of the articles was (and still is) unlike any other business magazine writing that came before it. While you may find some of the style now shows up in the pages of BusinessWeek, Wired, Harvard Business Review, Inc. and other business publications, Fast Company really did break new ground in terms of the topics covered, businesses featured and style of writing… and that’s why their competitors are trying to tap into that kind of energy and flare.

What we learn from Fast Company Magazine is that businesses are moving fast and things are ever-changing.

Yes, you can hear about a lot of the content that you now see in the printed version in many online spaces first. There’s no denying that the Web has forever changed the speed of information, but the magazine still touts impressive stories. The co-founder of Fast Company is Bill Taylor. Taylor (who no longer works at Fast Company) has authored two best-selling business book (Mavericks At Work and Practically Radical), is a professor at Babson College and a columnist for The Guardian newspaper. I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with Taylor last week at The Art of Marketing (which also featured Avinash Kaushik, Gary Vaynerchuk and Guy Kawasaki). While I had heard that Taylor was an amazing presenter, I was not prepared for just how good he truly is. No slides. No podium. Just him on stage, casually sharing stories about the rapid pace of business and the change that comes with it. Not only is his content eye-opening, but his presentation skills are flawless.

Watch this video…

Here’s Bill Taylor from March of this year talking about everything new business at an event called, Powering The People, put on by The Edison Foundation (he comes in about 3:55):

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.