What's on Your Mind?

Cultural planning has shape-shifted throughout its history, encompassing beautification initiatives, placemaking (and placekeeping) projects, and preservation work. But in the past decade, the field has accelerated significantly, according to Rana Amirtahmasebi and Jason Schupbach, the editors of The Routledge Handbook of Urban Cultural Planning, a new manual that compiles the most innovative programs, policies, and approaches to the discipline that have recently emerged. A throughline? That creative wellness is essential to cities, and that everything from the climate crisis to displacement, tourism, public space, and infrastructure can benefit by centering culture …

I don’t know about you, but I usually cringe when I get my weekly Screen Time Report. Did I really spend that much time online? Turns out, I’m pretty average. According to DataReportal’s 2025 Global Overview Report, adults worldwide clock in about six hours and 38 minutes on digital devices each day. While being average is comforting, I know I could benefit from more time unplugged. Yet, the thought of a full digital detox feels scary. “It’s very hard to completely disconnect yourself,” says Cristiano Winckler, director of digital marketing for Somebody Digital, a digital marketing agency. “But anything in excess is going to have negative consequences. The quest…

The Mojave Micro Mill just broke ground in the Mojave Desert about 85 miles from downtown Los Angeles. It’ll be the first steel mill to open in California in more than half a century when it begins production in two years. More notable, it’ll do so using local sun and wind power, making it the first self-powered, net-zero steel mill in the country. Mojave Micro will make rebar—the thin rods of steel used to reinforce concrete walls and floors—out of recycled scrap steel using a net-zero manufacturing process. Eric Benson, CEO of Pacific Steel Group, which will operate the plant, said the company had started to strategize about a new facility a few years ago. Sinc…

When outdoor accessories brand Yeti completed its first major acquisition last year, there were skeptics. After its January 2024 purchase of Bozeman, Montana-based cult bag brand Mystery Ranch, many of that brand’s acolytes feared it would disappear, swallowed by its larger new owner. And second, isn’t this a coffee cup and cooler brand? Not exactly. It’s been almost a decade since Yeti first dropped its first Panga duffel in 2017, and since then it’s branched out to include backpacks, luggage, and more. But the company sees the new Ranchero backpack—the first Yeti product to integrate Mystery Ranch design—that launched in March as a turning point for it to truly beco…

Bellevue, Washington, is the home of thousands of Microsoft employees. Its AI-powered traffic monitoring system lives up to such expectations. Using existing traffic cameras capable of reading signs and lights, it tracks not just crashes but also near misses. And it suggests solutions to managers, like rethinking a turn lane or moving a stop line. But this AI technology wasn’t born out of Microsoft and its big OpenAI partnership. It was developed by a startup called Archetype AI. You might think of the company as OpenAI for the physical world. [Image: Archetype AI]“A city will report an accident after an accident happens. But what they want to know is, like, where are the…

Welcome to Pressing Questions, Fast Company’s work-life advice column. Every week, deputy editor Kathleen Davis, host of The New Way We Work podcast, will answer the biggest and most pressing workplace questions. Q: Help! None of my coworkers have kids and don’t understand what it’s like. A: No two people’s lives are the same and people with all kinds of family structures have issues that pull their time and attention away from work. That said, few things in life are as schedule-disrupting as being a parent. In an ideal world, your boss and coworkers wouldn’t need to be parents themselves to understand things like needing to miss work when you have a sick kid or hav…

Don’t let Canva’s rainbow gradients fool you. The Aussies are relentless, and their global conquest through easy-to-use design software continues as they set their sights on markets owned by Adobe and Microsoft. Even after a controversial price increase last year, growth is still explosive. Canva has added 50 million active users over the past 12 months, bringing its total to 230 million, with $3 billion in annual revenue. But despite this success, Canva decided it was time for a redesign. And it’s launching what the company considers its biggest overhaul since the app launched in 2012. It includes a Teams-crushing approach to file collaboration, a powerful AI-fueled spre…

Nvidia indulged all your artificial intelligence fantasies on Tuesday at what was being called the “Super Bowl of AI.” The chip giant’s GPU Technology Conference (GTC) was held at the SAP Center in San Jose on Tuesday, and it was—you guessed it—all about AI. Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang made several large announcements during a two-hour keynote, with plenty of meat to keep AI-hungry consumers and businesses happy. That includes partnerships with large automakers to build autonomous vehicles and even personal AI supercomputers that sit right on your desktop. Here are some of the key announcements from Huang’s keynote: GM partnership: General Motors…

When the House of Cinema in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, was demolished in 2017, it was an architectural awakening for the city. A large circular concrete building completed in 1982, the House of Cinema was an instant cultural and architectural landmark in the city, then part of the Soviet Union. Its demolition, to make way for a controversial commercial development project, spurred many in the city to worry about which landmark would fall next. That led the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation to launch a citywide research project to document endangered buildings. Most were built between the late 1960s and early 1980s when the Soviet Union sought to frame its a…

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…

One recent rainy afternoon, I found myself in an unexpected role—philosophy teacher to a machine. I was explaining the story of the Bhagavad Gita to a leading large language model, curious to see if it could grasp the lessons at the heart of one of the world’s most profound philosophical texts. The LLM’s responses were impressively structured and fluent. They even sounded reflective at times, giving a sense that the AI model knew that it was itself part of this millennia-long conversation. Yet there was something fundamental that was missing from all the answers the machine gave me—the lived experience that gives wisdom its true weight. AI can analyze the Gita, but i…

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. This year, I launched my first direct-to-consumer product: Scribbly, an AI-powered children’s book company that puts your kid right into the story. Until now, I’ve mostly built apps for businesses, and collecting user feedback for those projects has been straightforward and structured. The D2C world is different. Read the Google reviews of any hotel or restaurant, and you’ll get a feel for…

Recently, after decades of paying high fees for the aging photo-sharing site Flickr, I finally moved all my images to Google Photos. It saved money and offered advanced features, like very accurate search results. But uploading years of pictures triggered the dreaded warning that I was approaching the storage limit of my Google account, which also holds Gmail, documents, spreadsheets, and other files. Cloud storage (be it Google Drive, iCloud, or Dropbox) is just one more in a growing list of subscriptions we all face, such as video and music streaming services, online magazines or newspapers, newsletters, Patreon sponsorship, and often just the right to keep using so…

Chili’s Grill & Bar turned 50 this year. But as a new generation of diners is learning, it’s still got it. Thanks to a series of well-timed marketing efforts—and at least one viral hit appetizer—diners are flocking to the restaurants, which just posted a same-store sales increase of more than 30 percent in its last fiscal quarter. Traffic is up more than 20 percent. Kevin Hochman, CEO of Chili’s parent Brinker International, credits some of this success to operational adjustments: better kitchen technology, better cook training, and a recent dishwasher-listening tour in which the often invisible, but absolutely vital, employees who clean the chain’s dishes were as…

A study has confirmed what we all suspected: “K” is officially the worst text you can send. It might look harmless enough, but this single letter has the power to shut down a conversation and leave the recipient spiraling. According to a study published in the Journal of Mobile Communication, “K” was ranked as the most negatively received response in digital conversations—worse than being left on read or even a passive-aggressive “sure.” The study found that the single-letter reply often signals emotional distance, passive-aggressiveness, or outright disinterest. Despite its brevity, “K” carries surprising emotional weight. Adding an extra letter—making it “kk”—so…

Between the rise of quiet quitting, the evolution of hybrid work, and concerns about artificial intelligence, we live in tumultuous times. In order to retain talent, it’s important for leaders to adapt to the changing needs of their employee population. This is a particularly large challenge at the moment since it requires understanding and supporting very different groups. There are currently five different generations from all walks of life in the workplace. They have a wide range of preferences when it comes to money management, lifestyle, and retirement goals. Finding ways to better understand and engage with the needs of unique employee segments can enhance …

I was taught that hard work would get me ahead, would ultimately pay off, and would get me promoted. But several years ago, when I was passed up for yet another promotion, I was angry and devastated because I was convinced that I had deserved that promotion. How could I not have been promoted after all the hard work I had been doing? A mentor I reached out to finally confided this to me, “Yes, you are working hard. But you are working on the wrong things. You need to be working on things that get you visibility.” I was doing lots of work, but with little visibility. I didn’t realize that only focusing on working hard was the quickest way to not get promoted. Even…

Three years after suing to block Microsoft from buying one of the biggest names in video games, the U.S. government is finally giving up. The FTC announced plans Thursday to drop a Biden-era case against Microsoft over its $69 billion acquisition of game maker Activision Blizzard, a decision the regulator said now best serves the public interest. In 2022, the FTC first announced that it would try to kill Microsoft’s planned acquisition of the gaming giant, which makes hit games like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. The following year, after the FTC failed to secure a preliminary injunction to stop it, Microsoft actually finalized the massive deal, but the regu…

Imagine two interns. The first follows instructions to the letter—compiling research, scheduling social media posts, and managing your calendar. The second completes the same tasks but takes it a step further—finding additional research sources, streamlining the social media workflow, and proactively suggesting optimal meeting times based on past interactions and behaviors. These two interns, with their overlapping but distinct capabilities, capture the essence of automation versus AI. Both liberate users from tedious manual work, but only one, with its built-in autonomy, is changing the nature of how we interact with technology. At Jotform, we’ve incorporat…

The death of Pope Francis has been announced by the Vatican. I first met the late Pope Francis at the Vatican after a conference called Saving Our Common Home and the Future of Life on Earth in July 2018. My colleagues and I sensed something momentous was happening at the heart of the church. At that time, I was helping to set up the new Laudato Si’ Research Institute at the Jesuit Hall at the University of Oxford. This institute is named after the pope’s 2015 encyclical (a letter to bishops outlining church policy) on climate change. Its mission is rooted in the pope’s religiously inspired vision of integral ecology—a multidisciplinary approach that addresses soc…

A video game once synonymous with one of the most disastrous launches in history has not only redeemed itself, but will be getting a proper second act. Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red announced in an earnings call Wednesday that the company is at work on a follow-up to the futuristic role-playing title, which was released in late 2020 and universally criticized for being unfinished, glitchy and at times unplayable. CD Projekt Red said that the conceptual phase is complete and pre-production has begun on the “next big game set in the Cyberpunk universe,” which it is calling Cyberpunk 2 for now. The company expects the game’s development to take four to five…