Fast Company Publisher Cuts Jobs, FastCompany.com Looks for Really Cheap Labor

The job cuts have arrived.

Mansueto Digital, the company that publishes the hype-filled magazine Fast Company (and employs Robert Scoble), decided to make some fast cuts Valleywag reports. According to Valleywag, this “economic move” will not impact Fast Company’s print division. Instead, most of the cuts are apparently slated for the Mansueto Digital division.

I found this interesting given that I last week came across a Fast Company posting for “expert bloggers” through PRNewswire’s ProfNet.

The posting:

FastCompany.com is looking for expert bloggers across all eight of our core topic areas: innovation, technology, design, social responsibility, work/life, management, leadership and careers. An expert blogger is someone who has a wealth of continually developing knowledge about his or her particular field, and can write flawlessly and in a compelling yet conversational manner. Candidates do not need to already have a blog or to have experience blogging, so long as they can demonstrate a good grasp over the Web 2.0 tools necessary to attract an audience online. As one of the most well established business magazines in the country, and perhaps the most engaged and dynamic business community online, FastCompany.com is a great platform for someone who is looking to establish themselves as a thought leader and influencer within their particular field. Expert bloggers get high visibility — blogs are featured on Fast Company’s homepage and its relevant topic pages. Using the site as a platform for their name, brand and ideas will enable your clients to build a following, publicize their work and, of course, leverage Fast Company’s brand to establish credibility as an expert on their topic. People can subscribe to feeds of individual expert blogs, and bloggers can build their exposure by linking to their own site, book or company in their blog posts and/or blog description. Although an unpaid position, being an expert blogger is not particularly time-consuming, as our only requirement is that they blog once a week (more frequent posts are encouraged but not mandatory). There are no requirements regarding length, so long as the content is insightful, informative, provocative and interesting. If you have any clients who might be suitable for this opportunity, please contact us. Contact: [Contact information removed]

The short version: Fast Company is looking for individuals who have a “wealth of continually developing knowledge about his or her particular field, and can write flawlessly and in a compelling yet conversational manner” to produce “insightful, informative, provocative and interesting” content for FastCompany.com.

The compensation for all this? You get the opportunity to establish yourself as a thought leader and influencer! That’s a better deal than GOOG at $400 and AAPL at $127!

Mansueto apparently charges CPMs of up to $160 for advertising on FastCompany.com (or at least asks for those CPMs) and when one considers the fact that the content produced by “FC Experts” is played up in the FastCompany.com media kit, anybody considering becoming an “expert blogger” has to wonder: just who is getting the deal here?

The FastCompany.com “platform” may very well be beneficial for professionals looking to promote themselves but frankly, I can’t imagine why any “expert” in any field would jump at the opportunity to produce “flawlessly” written content that is “insightful, informative, provocative and interesting” at least once a week on an ongoing basis for nothing more than some exposure and a pat on the back. After all, aren’t most legitimate “experts” already recognized as thought-leaders and influencers?

In my opinion, Fast Company’s posting on PRNewswire’s ProfNet is the perfect example of everything that’s wrong with “new media.”

Expertise is expertise and expertise usually doesn’t come cheap. It should not matter where that expertise is being demonstrated: experts deserve to be compensated like experts.

I certainly understand that there’s a place for free and low-cost blogging. There are individuals who blog for fun and blogging can be a legitimate promotional tool for some professionals. And, of course, there are those who don’t deserve to be compensated very highly because they are incapable of producing quality content.

But there’s something inherently disingenuous when an established publishing company seeks out “experts” to leverage their “wealth of continually developing knowledge” by pretending that the exposure those experts will receive is fair compensation. Doing this when said company is cutting jobs looks even worse.

Would Fast Company expect “experts” to agree to write articles for its magazine on an ongoing basis without monetary compensation? I doubt it. So why should “experts” agree to write articles for FastCompany.com on an ongoing basis without monetary compensation?

They shouldn’t and self-respecting “experts” won’t, especially when they consider that Fast Company actually pays Robert Scoble and apparently didn’t have the decency to include him in this first round of layoffs.