The pending sale of Fast Company and Inc. feels to me like one of those
business stories where conventional wisdom completely misses the point.
Granted, the fact that these two publications, which were sold four years
ago for a combined $550 million to Bertlesman, are going for $40 million.
Jeeztwo of the hippest business magazines end up not with a bang but a
whimper, not a Google but a Kmart.

Yet I still sense a huge strain of schadenfreude in the business press over
the riches to rag-sale of the two pubs. And this bugs me. Its a bit
personal, yes. I worked at Inc. for about three years in the 90s (loved it,)
and before that worked with the two guys, Bill Taylor and Alan Webber, who
founded FC. So Im rooting for both. But I would argue that each of these
mags still publishes excellent stories, and that the recent event doesnt
mark a total failure. Heres a few random thoughts on the news.

First of all, Fast Companys loss in value is not a proxy for the demise of
the dot-con era. The magazine was never a technology book, and even today
focuses primarily on management. In fact, my biggest gripe with the magazine
has always been its extreme focus on the ultra-business lifeits tag line
for the first four years could easily have been A lifestyle magazine for
people who dont have a life. But its innovation was always about
identifying and reporting on a new way of doing business, one that blended
the personal and the professional, always with an aspirational element of
doing good. While many of the big, branded ideas, such as Free Agent Nation,
and the Brand Called You, feel in retrospect more like iterations of social
trends than grand revolutions, giving them a name helped validate a way of
thinking for people.

Above all, I think the great value of Fast Company has been the way that it
represented a way that people felt about work. The magazine captured a sense
among workers, especially younger workers, that the thing occupying the vast
majority of their waking hours could be hopeful, exciting, full of promise,
even a force for good. And that a convergence of technology, politics, and
simple world events could lead to a more fulfilling work-life, even if that
compound phrase was simply translated to life.

As for Inc..well Inc. has always been closer and dearer to my heart. Inc.
too was founded on a crystalline vision of a type of companya bootstrapped,
home-spun, messy, passionate type of startup, informed by a hippy
sensibility, yet propelled by common sense translated into healthy profits
and a shared enterprise among the troops. The leading players were folks
like Paul Hawken, Ben and Jerry, Anita Roddick, and even Steve Jobs in the
early daysentrepreneurs with a sense of passion, a sense of humor, and a
fervent belief in the power of business.

Inc. also did a great job of recognizing that the line between personal and
professional is quite porous at the startup level, and that one can tell
fantastic stories about growth companies. The magazine perfected a
narrative-management type of tale, told masterfully by folks like Josh Hyatt
or Ed Welles, that shared business lessons in the context of a gripping
story.

Also:

Love it or hate it, for the past half-dozen years Fast Company has been the
biggest supporter of business books anywhere. No other publication has so
consistently written about, excerpted, discussed, and taken seriously the
matter of business books. The magazine has spotlighted Dan Pink, Seth Godin,
Tom Peters, and many many many more, often running cover stories from
notable books. Only the Industry Standard in its heyday devoted as much
serious consideration to business books. I hope this careful attention
continues.

With this purchase, Joe Mansueto may be the only subject of a lengthy
magazine feature to actually purchase the magazine itself. A bit like Victor
Kiam and Remington razors, I suppose.

Have any of the articles said that Inc. is actually losing money? I dont
think so. I have no hard numbers on this, but lets check back on the
performance of the two pubs in five years, and I wager that Mansueto will
have proved the purchase a shrewd one.

And yet both these magazines have consistently lost ad pages and revenue for three years. During that time Business 2.0, whose editorial content has been
stellar for the past year, has gained in both categories, and in fact passed
Fast Company last year.

So how about you readers? What are your thoughts on the sale? Do these
magazines still matter to you? What changes would you like to see?

Ben and Jackie from Church of the Customer (Creating Customer Evangelists) have posted their latest podcast.

The first half is them visiting with Andrea from Learned on Women (Don’t Think Pink).

The second half is devoted to the top ten things would-be authors of business books should know. These are great basics that everyone should know before starting.

You’ll also find John from Brand Autopsy left a comment highly recommending Writing The Breakthrough Business Book by Tom Gorman.