What's on Your Mind?

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. Regardless of whether your company has a strict in-office policy or supports a flexible schedule, the reality is that office attendance is at its highest levels in five years, according to Bisnow. Nobody would argue the need for a healthy office, especially one with more people in it. And if you ask what makes a healthy office, most would say it is one that supports physical health and safet…

Lego just announced its first book nook: Sherlock Holmes’ Baker Street. I was guessing this was coming sooner than later, with Lego’s ever-increasing focus on the adult market and the growing popularity of book nooks. The design is fantastic, full of the fine details you expect of high-quality book nooks, which are miniature dioramas that are designed to fit between books on a shelf. But, unlike those, you can actually take this off the bookshelf, unfold it into a three-building Victorian London street, and play with it. Conceived by Japanese artist Monde in 2018, book nooks often depict a street, a room, or some other structure inspired by a theme from a real boo…

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. In a world with a constant information deluge and a labyrinth of disinformation to continually navigate through, people are exhausted. What is true? Who is honest? Who and what can I believe? Who can I trust to lead in a way where I know they understand what I need? Will anyone do what is best for me? It is no wonder that people are frustrated with those in charge—everywhere. Politic…

There’s a lot of momentum around women’s sports right now, as ad spending doubled in 2024 and the largest dedicated female sports fund recently announced it has expanded from $150 million to $250 million. While these leaps and bounds are notable, more progress is needed to ensure this isn’t a fleeting moment—but rather the beginning of transformative change. Of course, more money always helps, too. “Women’s sports is skyrocketing and it’s because we are more visible, more than ever, right now,” Stef Strack, founder and CEO of Voice in Sport, said during a panel discussion at the Fast Company Grill at SXSW. “Investors are looking at women’s sports as a growth oppor…

Fast Company explores the complicated truth about the effect social media has on this generation’s teen population. View the full article

You don’t wait for the sidewalk. You don’t check an app to see if it’s working. You don’t wonder if it’s meant for someone else. Sidewalks are just there—always available, always on. And when they’re well designed, you barely notice them. They quietly support everything: commerce, mobility, safety, health, and freedom of movement. Sidewalks don’t require instructions. They’re intuitive. Step on, move forward. That’s the framing we need for local bus service. A well-run bus system is an express sidewalk—a piece of infrastructure that dramatically expands the number of destinations within walking distance. Unfortunately, buses aren’t thought of that way. In most Ame…

For some, Microsoft Teams is a necessary evil: the modern day equivalent of an ever-ringing desk phone. But the fact is that in many organizations, it’s become an essential tool for communication and collaboration. And as long as you’re using it, you might as well transform your Microsoft Teams experience from simply functional to truly powerful. Here are some quick tricks you should be using to get the most out of Microsoft Teams. Slash your way around the interface Slash commands save you time by providing quick access to frequently used features. Simply type a forward slash (/) in the search box at the top of the screen and a list of available co…

As the Class of 2025 graduates into an uncertain and fast-changing working world, they face a crucial question: What does it mean to be successful? Is it better to take a job that pays more, or one that’s more prestigious? Should you prioritize advancement, relationship building, community impact or even the opportunity to live somewhere new? Sorting through these questions can feel overwhelming. I am a business school professor who spends a lot of time mentoring students and alumni in Generation Z — those born between 1997 and 2012. As part of this effort, I’ve surveyed about 300 former undergraduate students and spoken at length with about 50 of them. Throug…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. National active housing inventory for sale at the end of April 2025 was up 31% compared to April 2024. That’s just 16% below pre-pandemic levels in April 2019. However, while the national housing market has softened and inventory has surpassed 2019 pre-pandemic levels in some pockets of the Sun Belt, many housing markets remain far tighter than the national average. Pulling from ResiClub’s monthly inventory tracker, we identified the tightest major housing markets heading into the spring 2025 season, where active inventory is still the furthest belo…

When the Ring Pop factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania, unexpectedly shut down last summer because of a shaky floor, it abruptly halted production of tens of millions of the iconic oversized candy bauble lollipops that come attached to a cheap plastic ring meant to be worn on a finger. It was a shocking moment for an American candy brand whose enduring popularity spans at least five generations of consumers. “Everyone knows Ring Pop. All I have to do is put its shape in front of somebody and they know immediately what it is,” says Tony Jacobs, CEO of Ring Pop maker, Bazooka Candy Brands. After seven months, a new Ring Pop factory opened in Pennsylvania in Ma…

In a perfect world, workplaces would be environments of mutual respect, open communication, and fair treatment. Unfortunately, that’s not always the reality. Whether you’re dealing with a micromanaging boss, a dismissive colleague, or a workplace culture that undervalues your contributions, knowing how to assert yourself is essential to avoiding burnout and developing as a professional. Standing up for yourself doesn’t mean becoming combative or aggressive. Instead, it’s about cultivating confidence, setting boundaries, and advocating for your worth. Here’s how to grow a backbone at work while maintaining professionalism and integrity. Recognize your value This…

Lately, I’ve felt weighed down by the constant churn of chaos and uncertainty—like I’m carrying a low-grade tension in my body that never fully lets up. The news is dizzying. The pace of change is relentless. Some days it feels like we’re lurching from one crisis to the next with no time to process, no moment to exhale. I find myself waking up already bracing for what the day might bring. It’s like the ground is constantly shifting, and we’re all being asked to find our footing in real time. And then there are the quieter, internal questions I carry with me—the ones that tug at me in the middle of the night or when I’m trying to make sense of the day: Am I doing enoug…

Pope Francis will be laid to rest Saturday after lying in state for three days in St. Peter’s Basilica, where the faithful are expected to flock to pay their respects to history’s first Latin American pontiff. The cardinals met Tuesday in the Vatican’s synod hall to chart the next steps before a conclave begins to choose Francis’ successor, as condolences poured in from around the world. According to current norms, the conclave must begin between May 5 and 10. The cardinals set the funeral for Saturday at 10 a.m. in St. Peter’s Square, to be celebrated by the dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re. U.S. President Donald The President said he and…

It would seem unlikely for clothing designers get their wheels turning by thinking about what happens to garments when people are through with them. But that’s exactly the sort of backward thinking that led to Under Armour’s new “regenerative sportswear collection,” created in collaboration with Portland, Oregon-based Unless Collective. The collection, which is making its debut in Italy this week during Milan Design Week, comprises footwear and clothing made entirely from plants and plant-based materials. That means they’re biodegradable and compostable. “All of our products make good dirt,” says Eric Liedtke, Unless co-founder & Under Armour EVP of brand stra…

Understanding intelligence and creating intelligent machines are grand scientific challenges of our times. The ability to learn from experience is a cornerstone of intelligence for machines and living beings alike. In a remarkably prescient 1948 report, Alan Turing—the father of modern computer science—proposed the construction of machines that display intelligent behavior. He also discussed the “education” of such machines “by means of rewards and punishments.” Turing’s ideas ultimately led to the development of reinforcement learning, a branch of artificial intelligence. Reinforcement learning designs intelligent agents by training them to maximize rewards as th…

As you sift among the various options for your short-term investments, keep these key items on your dashboard: yield, guarantees, liquidity and your individual situation. The short-term investments that promise the highest yields often come with at least some risk and/or constraints on your daily access to funds. It may be that you’re just looking for the highest safe yield and don’t care that much about liquidity. Or maybe having ready access to your funds is the name of the game. Also think through whether you value an ironclad guarantee or are willing to go without in exchange for a potentially higher yield. Some cash instruments are fully FDIC-insured, while o…

“He just put it in bold!” exclaimed Ryan Gosling’s character in a Saturday Night Live video that attracted a cult following in the world of graphic design last year. The follow-up to a 2017 SNL bit in which Gosling played a man haunted by his realization that the logo for the 2009 blockbuster Avatar was expressed in the gauche Papyrus typeface, the newer video centered on his fresh horror of discovering that the same graphic designer responsible for the first logo had updated the wordmark for the movie’s sequel by simply setting it in bold type. A year later, it seems that life is imitating satire, as, following last week’s announcement of Amazon’s brand refresh, 2025…

Norman Foster has always treated technology as a form of expression. As one of the pioneers of high-tech architecture (along with his friend and colleague Richard Rogers), his buildings celebrate exposed structure, advanced engineering, and machine-age style. Think of the flashy steel trusses and tension rods of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank headquarters, the transparent spirals of the Reichstag dome in Berlin, or the diagonal frame of the elliptical Gherkin in London. His latest project, dubbed the Gateway to Venice’s Waterway, recently unveiled at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, extends that tradition into electric mobility. Developed with Porsche and the …

A new ad from the Coca-Cola Co. opens with a shot of a typewriter clacking out Stephen King’s The Shining. The viewer follows a passage being written in an old-timey typeface until there’s a reference to a bottle of Coke. Suddenly, the type appears as the cola company’s script logo. The ad is part of a new campaign called “Classic” running in Spain and the U.K., in which Coca-Cola highlights instances when its brand name appears in literature by rendering them in the books’ original first-edition typefaces. The passages are printed in black, and references to either “Coke” or “Coca-Cola” in passages from King’s The Shining, J. G. Ballard’s Extreme Metaphors, and V. S.…

Meghan Markle has been teasing the launch of her lifestyle brand, now called As Ever, for a while now, and Markle finally revealed its product line earlier this week. But while followers of the Duchess of Sussex are just now learning what her brand will offer, Markle’s fledging business has already faced its fair share of controversy. In the spring of 2024, Markle dropped the first hint at a potential business in the form of several artisanal jars of jam sent to various celebrity friends, each branded with the name “American Riviera Orchard.” The next update didn’t arrive until this February, when Markle announced on Instagram that she had scrapped the “American Rivie…