What's on Your Mind?

If you were given $100 and five minutes in a bookstore, which titles would you pick? That’s the premise of Simon & Schuster’s upcoming web series, Bookstore Blitz—the publisher’s latest internet-inspired effort to market its authors. And Bookstore Blitz is just the beginning. In a recent interview with The Cut’s Cat Zhang, the flagship imprint’s new publisher, Sean Manning, shared his plans to modernize Simon & Schuster into a media powerhouse. Other series in the works include an awards show–style interview program called Read Carpet. “We’re essentially an entertainment company with books at the center. Every Tuesday, we have a new author who’s a cultural…

Bodyarmor just unveiled the brand’s biggest-ever packaging refresh after nearly 15 years on the shelf. The sports drink brand’s new look coincides with the debut of a new national TV advertising campaign called “Choose Better,” which will air beginning this weekend during the National Hockey League playoffs and stars professional athletes including NHL all-star Connor McDavid and Women’s National Basketball Association champion Sabrina Ionescu. Bodyarmor says the rebrand was a nearly yearlong effort and includes newly designed labels across the entire portfolio, placing nutritional claims more boldly on the front of the packaging, a refreshed wordmark, and a brand…

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. AI won’t replace doctors anytime soon. Despite the clickbait headlines and the reports of chatbots outperforming doctors on this-or-that clinical task, medicine will always depend—literally and figuratively—on human touch. What’s interesting, though, is how AI seems to be improving that human touch. Thanks to notetaking apps, doctors can stop typing and be more present in the precious …

In large organizations, HR usually has a process for documenting concerns about employees’ effectiveness that can be used either to help fix those problems—or to provide a basis for later termination. One of the central records used for this purpose is the dreaded performance improvement plan, or PIP. If you get called in to see your supervisor and get hit with a PIP, you’re likely to experience a range of emotions. Understanding your emotional reaction and how to cope with it is an important part of moving forward successfully. Let’s consider a range of emotions you might be experiencing and what you should do: Feeling Grief One possibility is that the PIP com…

Basketball great LeBron James has become the first professional male athlete to have his likeness depicted in a Ken doll. Mattel Inc. unveiled the LeBron Ken doll on Wednesday to kick off the toy manufacturer’s “Kenbassador” series. Last year, nine female athlete Barbies, including tennis star Venus Williams, were introduced. “As a young kid, I was fortunate to have role models who not only inspired me but also showed me what’s possible through hard work and dedication,” James said. “Now, as an adult, I understand how vital it is for young people to have positive figures to look up to. That’s why partnering with Barbie to release the LeBron James Kenbassadors doll…

Sales of graphic novels have doubled over the past five years, to some parents’ dismay. But data shows these books can have a positive lifelong impact on young readers. View the full article

The torches designed for Milano Cortina 2026, next year’s Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Italy, were made in service of the flame. Named Essential, the reusable, ultra-minimalist torch has a flared, open-top design meant to show viewers how the flame is generated because “what’s important isn’t the torch, but the flame,” Italian architect and engineer Carlo Ratti tells Fast Company. The design is meant to showcase the flame in motion. “The open-top design is crucial to how the flame comes to life,” explains Ratti, who designed the torch with his eponymous firm, Studio Carlo Ratti Associati. The torches were developed by Eni and Versalis, both official supp…

A commercial airliner was on final approach to San Francisco’s international airport in November when the crew spotted a drone outside the cockpit window. By then it was too late “to take evasive action,” the pilots reported, and the quadcopter passed by their windshield, not 300 feet away. A month earlier, a jetliner was flying at an altitude of 4,000 feet near Miami’s international airport when its pilots reported a “close encounter” with a drone. In August, a drone came within 50 feet of clipping the left wing of a passenger jet as it departed Newark International Airport. The incidents were all classified as “near midair collisions” — any one of which could ha…

Design industry leaders trust artificial intelligence less than they did a year ago, and many see the world as an increasingly uncertain place. These are a few of the most striking takeaways from the 2025 State of Design & Make report from the design and engineering software maker Autodesk. This third annual design industry outlook is based on surveys and interviews with 5,594 industry leaders, futurists, and experts across industries including architecture, engineering, construction, and operations, design and manufacturing, and media and entertainment. Leaders from what Autodesk calls the “design and make” industries were asked to report on a wide range of t…

Moments after Daniris Espinal walked into her new apartment in Brooklyn, she prayed. In ensuing nights, she would awaken and touch the walls for reassurance—finding in them a relief that turned to tears over her morning coffee. Those walls were possible through a federal program that pays rent for some 60,000 families and individuals fleeing homelessness or domestic violence. Espinal was fleeing both. But the program, Emergency Housing Vouchers, is running out of money—and quickly. Funding is expected to be used up by the end of next year, according to a letter from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and obtained by The Associated Press. That would le…

In the mid-1920s, most Americans ate light breakfasts. Edward Bernays, who would eventually be considered the father of public relations, was hired by a company that sold bacon to promote the idea that a “hearty” meal including bacon and eggs was more scientifically beneficial. Bernays conducted interviews and then carefully framed the results that led to a shift in public opinion. America’s iconic breakfast is now bacon and eggs. In the 1950s, the Keep America Beautiful campaign was launched by a coalition of corporations whose products were often littered (soda bottles, plastic packages, etc.). Their iconic moment was 1971’s commercial with actor Iron Eyes Cody as a…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Speaking to investors last week, Lennar co-CEO Jon Jaffe said that the spring 2025 selling season for America’s second-largest homebuilder is off to a slower-than-normal start. “We do not see the seasonal pickup typically associated with the beginning of the spring selling season,” Jaffe said. “So we continue to lean into our machine focusing on converting leads and appointments and adjusting incentives as needed to maintain sales pace. These adjustments came in the form of mortgage rate buydowns, price reductions, and closing cost assistance. La…

The Ford Pinto. New Coke. Google Glass. History is littered with products whose fatal flaw— whether failures of safety, privacy, performance, or plain old desirability—repelled consumers and inflicted reputational damage to the companies bringing them to market. It’s easy to imagine the difference if these problems had been detected early on. And too often, businesses neglect the chance to work with nonprofits, social enterprises, and other public interest groups to make product improvements after they enter the marketplace or, more ideally, “upstream,” before their products have entered the crucible of the customer. For companies and consumer groups alike, this…

When a friend and I began investing in thoroughbreds in 2018, it wasn’t fantasies of running in the Kentucky Derby or the Preakness Stakes that excited us most. It was naming the racehorses. We’d seen California Chrome and American Pharoah etch their names in the sports lexicon. And while producing a horse of that caliber was a longshot, just the prospect of the announcer yelling, “Here comes [name we chose] down the stretch!” was unexpectedly thrilling. This weekend’s Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the Triple Crown, features some elite thoroughbreds, and even some better names. Journalism, the favorite, has arguably the best name in the field. American Promise h…

April 2025 was a busy month for space. Pop icon Katy Perry joined five other civilian women on a quick jaunt to the edge of space, making headlines. Meanwhile, another group of people at the United Nations was contemplating a critical issue for the future of space exploration: the discovery, extraction and utilization of natural resources on the Moon. At the end of April, a dedicated Working Group of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space released a draft set of recommended principles for space resource activities. Essentially, these are rules to govern mining on the Moon, asteroids and elsewhere in space for elements that are rare here o…

In 1918, as World War I intensified overseas, the U.S. government embarked on a radical experiment: It quietly became the nation’s largest housing developer, designing and constructing more than 80 new communities across 26 states in just two years. These weren’t hastily erected barracks or rows of identical homes. They were thoughtfully designed neighborhoods, complete with parks, schools, shops and sewer systems. In just two years, this federal initiative provided housing for almost 100,000 people. Few Americans are aware that such an ambitious and comprehensive public housing effort ever took place. Many of the homes are still standing today. But as an …

Accenture announced on Wednesday that David Droga, CEO of its technology-focused creative group Accenture Song, will step down from his role in September. Droga will transition from his day-to-day leadership role into a broader strategic role as vice chair of Accenture. As part of the transition, Ndidi Oteh, who currently serves as the Americas lead for Accenture Song, will become the CEO of Accenture Song, the company said. He will also join Accenture’s Global Management Committee. Meanwhile, Nick Law, current creative chairperson for Accenture Song, is set to become the creative strategy and experience lead. ‘Once-in-a-generation creative leader’ An awa…

It’s rarely possible to be 100% efficient, 100% of our workday. We need breaks and working with others means we need time and space for that collaboration to happen. But oftentimes, a needed break or interaction can balloon into an unneeded time suck that leaves you feeling frustrated that you didn’t accomplish what you actually needed to get done. So how do you identify when you’re spending way too much time in an area and then eliminate that waste so that you have more time for what’s most important? As a time management coach, here’s what I’ve found to be the most effective ways to make this happen. Identifying your time sucks Honest awareness: Sometim…