What's on Your Mind?

In the world of interior design gaming, where perfection is often the goal, Redecor, a 3D design-simulation game, has taken an unexpected turn—celebrating flaws. The limited-time Real World Beauty collection, available free until April 15, highlights the authentic, lived-in charm of real homes. Instead of perfection, this update introduces design elements that reflect everyday life, such as coffee stains on wooden tables, sofas worn by pets, and walls decorated with kids’ doodles. The “flawed” collection features elements that players never explicitly asked for but quickly embraced. Natalie Gal, senior director of content for Redecor, explains the inspiration behind i…

European Union privacy watchdogs fined TikTok 530 million euros ($600 million) on Friday after a four-year investigation found that the video-sharing app’s data transfers to China breached strict data privacy rules in the EU. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission also sanctioned TikTok for not being transparent with users about where their personal data was being sent and it ordered the company to comply with the rules within six months. The Irish national watchdog serves as TikTok’s lead data privacy regulator in the 27-nation EU because the company’s European headquarters is based in Dublin. “TikTok failed to verify, guarantee and demonstrate that the personal data of…

The Fast Company Impact Council is a private membership community of influential leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual membership dues for access to peer learning and thought leadership opportunities, events and more. Most ordinary people know little about the calculus, statistics, linear algebra, logic, and programming languages required to design projects and products to leverage artificial intelligence. However, we are not exempt from using products and services that rely on AI. If we do not learn how to maximize these tools, our organizations—businesses, schools, and governments—will …

In news outlets, business publications, and scholarly journals, there is a crescendo of commentary about the combined power of human intelligence and artificial intelligence. Without question, that convergence is already yielding exciting discoveries in many fields. Yet a third, equally crucial, kind of intelligence is being left out of the discussion: nature’s intelligence. The idea that nature itself displays the hallmarks of what we understand as intelligence—the ability to learn, to encode those learnings in new, more effective models, and to continually adapt—is not altogether new. Leonardo da Vinci understood this well. Nature was his teacher and his inspira…

Public servants manage a geographically distributed group of people across dozens of public and private organizations daily. Cybersecurity officials work with state and federal counterparts, and homelessness coordinators work with public health departments and nonprofits. State veterans affairs departments sit at the intersection of educational and health benefits along with housing and job assistance. From my conversations with public servants across the country, it’s clear that most critical government functions cannot happen without collaboration. This makes it paramount to have a deep understanding of who does what across dozens of organizations for government…

In a world where trust in institutions is at an all-time low and the pace of change is relentless, the most effective leaders are not those who hide behind polished press releases or corporate jargon. They are the ones who step forward with authentic stories—stories that reveal not just their vision, but their humility, values, and the messy realities of leading in uncertain times. Welcome to the era of the storytelling CEO, where transparency isn’t just a buzzword, it’s the new leadership currency. Why Stories Matter More Than Ever For millennia, stories have been the glue that binds communities, shapes cultures, and helps us make sense of the world. Today, as org…

In September, the U.S. Labor Department reported that weekly applications for unemployment aid jumped by 27,000 to 263,000, the highest in four years and a warning sign for the future of low-income populations. And at a time when government policy couldn’t be less interested in addressing systemic economic disparities, solving these issues will depend on the ability of business leaders to listen, learn, and come together to tackle the socioeconomic issues impacting a majority of Americans every day. I’ve seen these challenges up close for years in my New York Capital Region home—and the challenges are just as present in cities around the U.S. So on a national level, …

The early darkness in most of the U.S. means that fall has set in. That also means it’s officially holiday shopping season. With the economic impact of President The President’s ever-fluctuating tariffs an open question, there’s an opportunity for shoppers to make their spending meaningful, which opens up a lane for companies that are offering something other than the e-commerce onslaught of nearly identical products that populate sites like Amazon and Walmart. What the Amazons and even Etsys of the world are currently missing is the sense of curation that defines Uncommon Goods, an online shop stocked with exclusive, offbeat items sourced from independent artisans. …

The airline industry is notoriously hard to decarbonize: large jets traveling long distances can’t feasibly use batteries, and sustainable aviation fuel is still only produced in tiny volumes. As airlines explore a range of options, United Airlines Ventures’ Sustainable Flight Fund just invested in one possible solution—a system that uses crushed rocks to capture CO2 for use in fuel or to store underground. The fund announced today that it invested an unspecified amount in Heirloom, a company that uses a powder made from limestone to pull CO2 from the air, relying on the material’s natural ability to absorb the greenhouse gas. At a facility in California’s Central…

My family had Slide Show Night when I was growing up. Not every Saturday, but a whole bunch of Saturdays. Either my sister or I would be in charge of setting up the projector, the screen, and loading the carousel. During the show, there’d be a few landscapes or skylines taken during vacations, but almost all the shots were up close. Like most dads, mine wasn’t a professional photographer, but he did a good job of capturing memory triggers: faces, gestures, and decorations. Before we were driving age, my sister and I were given our own cameras as Christmas gifts. We’d spend our own money buying and developing film. We basically documented our Gen X life: playing in th…

It’s 4:59 PM on a Friday. You’re the Head of Design at a mid-sized biotech firm—mid-sprint, mid-thought—building out a set of specialized design roles that will define how your team delivers value for the next three years. Then the email arrives. Your recruiting partners have sent a pre-written job description, authored by a product manager, with a mandate to use it as-is. The title: UX/UI Designer. You pause. Not because the gesture wasn’t well-intentioned—it was. But because you recognize exactly what this moment represents: a quiet, recurring erosion of role clarity that has followed the design profession for over a decade. One ambiguous title, multiplied a…

People are often under the false impression that making their language complex or using jargon enhances their credibility. That might be true in certain circumstances. If you’re an academic talking to other academics or a software engineer talking to other software engineers, using jargon makes sense. However, if you‘re talking to people outside of your field of expertise, it can alienate them. And when you alienate someone, it can cause them to switch off. It also reduces the likelihood that they take away anything useful or do what you’d like them to do. That’s probably the last thing you want to happen when communicating with someone. So if you’re prone to …