“The Wal-Mart Effect” author Charles Fishman visited USciences for a lecture, Q&A session, book signing, and reception with faculty, staff, and students on Thursday, Sept. 23, 2010. “The Wal-Mart Effect,” which made The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek bestseller lists, was the summer selection for USciences’ One Big Book Club.
An award-wining investigative and magazine journalist, Fishman’s lecture argued that despite its negative reputation, Wal-Mart is becoming the most important and powerful force for environmental change in the United States, doing for sustainability what it did for low prices. Originally a story for Fast Company, a popular business magazine, the piece entitled “The Wal-Mart You Don’t Know” won best business magazine story of 2004 from the New York Press Club. For research, Fishman visited more than a 100 Wal-Mart locations in 23 states.
Fishman has spent the last 20 years trying to get inside, understand, and explain important organizations, from NASA to Wal-Mart. Fishman was the first reporter ever permitted inside a Tupperware factory, and was the first reporter in 30 years allowed inside the nation’s only bomb factory. Since 1996, Fishman has been a senior writer at Fast Company magazine. In 2005, he won a Gerald Loeb Award for distinguished business journalism. Fishman grew up and graduated from high school in Miami, Florida and received a BA from Harvard University. He is married to a journalist and resides in the Greater Philadelphia region.
Established in 2004, the One Big Book Club aims to create a sense of community and a common experience among first-year students, faculty, and staff through group book discussion. The One Big Book Club also sponsors events throughout the year including neighborhood clean-ups, academic lectures, green tree plantings, Earth Day celebrations, and more.