Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2016 i Fast Company

Like tens of millions of teens across the world, 15-year-old Emma rarely surfs the web or tries out new apps. Instead, she conducts her digital life through a collection of social apps, from Facebook to iMessage to Instagram to Snapchat. On all of them, she’s messaging. “There are always messages for me to check,” she says. And though she picks up her phone every 15 minutes or so, her friends still complain that she’s slow to respond. We are all becoming like Emma that way: Recent studies show that Americans use their phones to message far more than anything else. Increasinglycompanies eager for our attention online have to be part of these conversations. And increasingly, they’re doing it through chatbots. Computer programs that talk with (and like) humans, chatbots appear as…

In Insecure, you play a young woman who is just starting to deal with the realities of adulthood. What makes her tick? She is complacent and used to doing what is comfortable, which makes her kind of passive-aggressive. She’s always wishing for stuff, but doesn’t take action. Then, there’s a moment where she’s just like, “Ya know what? I’m tired of coasting at my job and in my relationship. I want to be a different person.” It’s about overcoming her own insecurities, and wanting to be . . . more. Is that autobiographical? Your character is named Issa. In my mid-twenties, I was comparing myself to peers, going to these Christmas parties where my Stanford classmates would meet up. I have a friend who was about to be a doctor,…

As a senior studying international health and global development at the University of California, Berkeley, Komal Ahmad noticed that just feet from her school’s dining hall— where leftover food was discarded daily—homeless people were scrounging for their next meal. “I call hunger the [developed] world’s dumbest problem, because with so much talent and innovation, so much abundance, it shouldn’t exist,” she says. Ahmad thought that if the technology industry applied its ingenuity to the issue, food waste could be eradicated. In 2012, she launched Copia, a Bay Area nonprofit turned benefit corporation, to test her theory. The Problem According to the Department of Agriculture, roughly 30% to 40% of food available in the United States—some 133 billion pounds— ends up in landfills each year. A significant portion of it comes…

1Naja From $30 naja.co “Naja is a lingerie brand that defies convention with ethically run factories that provide work for women and ad campaigns like ‘Nude for All’ with seven shades of nude intimates.” Leila Janah Founder and CEO, Sama 2Bone Broth From $7.99 epicbar.com “I’m obsessed with Epic Provisions’ bone broth. Until now, I haven’t found any brands that taste homemade while honoring the slowcooking method to gain the nutritional benefits.” Kate Weiler Cofounder, Drink Maple 3Breather Price varies breather.com “When I’m on the road, it’s hard to find a private room to work. Breather offers interestingly designed spaces to rent.” Richard Copcutt Vice president and general manager, Converse UK 4Taza chocolate From $3 tazachocolate.com “Taza stone-ground chocolate, especially the Wicked Dark variety, paired with almond butter and an…

Sree Sreenivasan Chief digital officer, THE city Of new york As the first-ever chief digital officer at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sree Sreenivasan created the museum’s much-lauded app and redesigned its website, attracting millions of digital visitors and helping increase attendance by young people. But in June 2016, three years after Sreenivasan started, the financially troubled museum eliminated his and several other positions due to budget cuts. Rather than be discouraged, the former Columbia University journalism professor turned to his peers, sharing a survey on his personal website with a single question: “What should I do next?” The response was swift; Sreenivasan received 1,300 suggestions. “Everybody talks about how bad the internet is and how there is so much hate,” he says. “But it felt like I was…

The girl next door breaks the mold Eva Gutowski Age 22 Audience Instagram: 4.6 million; Twitter: 2.2 million; YouTube: 7.1 million Specialty Lifestyle vlogs; fashion ’grams Recent hit A YouTube tutorial on how to up your back-to-school-supplies game using DIY craft techniques (1.4 million views) As comfortable playing a lovelorn nerd in a YouTube sketch as she is modeling a bikini on Instagram, Eva Gutowski dominates on a variety of platforms. Set to star in a YouTube Red script ed comedy next year, Gutowski uses her four-year-old channel, My Life as Eva, to post lighthearted videos on everything from how to create a studded iPhone case (6 million views) to how to survive a high school crush (8.6 million views). “It was all really organic, just stuff that I liked…

On the west side of Manhattan, an armada of cranes and construction workers is building the city’s largest 21st century development. A 28-acre, $25 billion megaproject by Related Companies, Hudson Yards will include six skyscrapers, 17 million square feet of commercial and residential space, a performing-arts center, and a hotel. The project’s scale is impressive, as is its location spanning one of the busiest railways in New York City—an industrial site filled with train cars and a tangle of tracks and tunnels. But when it’s completed in 2025, people won’t see any of that heavy infrastructure. They’ll stroll through 14 acres of open space planted with native flowers and grasses, beneath groves of trees, and along pathways that will link the new neighborhood to the surrounding parks and streets. And…

On a spring day last year, Scott Heiferman, cofounder and CEO of the New York–based networking service Meetup, gathered a group of about 50 colleagues in a capacious bar in Red Hook, Brooklyn. It was the final afternoon of a two-day off-site. In previous sessions, employees armed with whiteboards and markers had discussed ways to boost user growth and solve pain points for their 28 million members, who use the service to start and join interest-based groups that host everything from cocktail hours to writing workshops. As the meeting drew to a close, Heiferman was expecting more brainstorming. His employees, however, were about to stage a coup. Change was already afoot at Meetup: In previous months, Heiferman had replaced his VP of product and expanded the design team from one…

General Motors Ceo Mary Barrawas Walkin Gthesta Geatthe J.P. Morgan Automotive Conference In New York On A Nearly Au Gust Morning,Making A Dramatic Point - By - Point Case For The Company She Leads: That Gm, Despite All Its Challenges And Varied Competitors , Just Might Be The Strongest and most well-positioned business in all of automotive transportation. And how did the audience of investors respond to Barra’s pitch? With seeming indifference. Indeed, many of the attendees appeared to be more engaged with their iPhones than the CEO’s presentation. It wasn’t just that lunchtime was approaching and blood-sugar levels were low, or that the meeting room’s drab brownand-tan decor and muted acoustics had dulled everyone’s senses. No, the bigger obstacle was most likely an instinctive skepticism about GM itself—and, perhaps,…

CHAPTER 1 The Outbreak page 86 CHAPTER 2 Fresh Troubles page 87 CHAPTER 3 Pani c in the Kitchen page 88 CHAPTER 4 A Marketer ’s Dilemma page 90 CHAPTER 5 Farm-to-Table Casualties page 92 CHAPTER 6 “ Smoke and Mirrors” page 93 CHAPTER 7 Is This Classic Cooking? page 96 CHAPTER 8 People Who Matter page 96 CHAPTER 9 The Reckoning page 99 CHIPOTLE’S ANNUAL SHAREHOLDER MEETING ON MAY 11 WAS SET TO BE A DOOZY. ANGRY ACTIVISTS AND INVESTORS WERE POISED TO UNLOAD ON THE RESTAURANT CHAIN’S CO-CEOS, STEVE ELLS AND MONTY MORAN. Just two weeks prior, Chipotle had reported a $26.4 million quarterly loss— its first in a decade as a public company—following a high-profile E. coli outbreak and several subsequent food-safety incidents. Nearly one-third of restaurant…