Interesting Fast Company writing - on GoPro, DonorsChoose and Dutch flood prevention

A few different interesting pieces from Fast Company Magazine included two features and one brief mention of a company.

From the November issue was the fairly long "Against The Tide" by Jeff Chu on flood prevention measures in the Netherlands and the March "50 Most Innovative Companies" issue included two interesting stories, one on DonorsChoose and one GoPro.

The feature was "Beyond School Supplies: How DonorsChoose is Crowdsourcing Real Education Reform" by Peg Tyre on the #9 company on the list and later on was a short missive on GoPro, the #39 company and a fascinating one to me in how they've built a lifestyle brand to sell a piece of hardware (reminiscent of how Red Bull has created a lifestyle around an energy drink).

Fast Company Features - on Pinterest, Windows 8, Uniqlo and Coursera

After not reading Fast Company for a few months, I went through three issues recently and found several features that stood out.

The Aug issue had "Cheap, Chic, And Made For All: How Uniqlo Plans To Take Over Casual Fashion" with Jeff Chu writing on the fast-growing Japan-based casual apparel retailer. Very interesting company that recently opened it's first West Coast store in San Francisco and next week is launching it's US online store.

The Sept edition of FC had a piece on a topic of interest in "How Coursera, A Free Online Education Service, Will School Us All." Written by Anya Kamenetz, it's an excellent look at the company teaching hundreds of thousands online, for free. Fascinating topic that I've previously linked to pieces about under the tag online education.

The Oct issue focused on Design and included "Can Ben Silbermann Turn Pinterest Into The World’s Greatest Shopfront?" by Max Chafkin and "Windows 8: The Boldest, Biggest Redesign In Microsoft’s History" from Austin Carr. Interesting pieces both on a new company and an established coporation doing something different.

Admiral Mike Mullen Story from Fast Company

Some pretty interesting stuff from the May 2010 issue of Fast Company.

The cover story is a profile of Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Written by Jeff Chu, "Mullen on the Move" is an interesting look at the nation's top military officer. What comes across is a guy who combines together a huge work ethic (as evidenced by a snapshot of one day's schedule) with what appears to be an excellent grounding in his role and that of the U.S. Armed Forces.

In terms of his role, Mullen describes himself as being someone who doesn't necessarily do anything (in the sense that he doesn't make troop decisions), but does seek to advise well President Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates as his bosses. Beyond that, he comes across as a strong advocate of the military understanding and interacting with both business and the public. From dinners with CEOs to time on Jon Stewart and Facebook accounts, he does seem to be a guy that... gets it. As he says "I am resourced by the American taxpayer. I take great care with the stewardship of the money they pay for the national defense."

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Two other things of interest from this issue were this piece on IBM's World Community Grid (whereby spare computing power is used for large scale public good projects) and this on Susie Wee and touch efforts from HP. Tis' the thing of the future, that touch technology.