Voices.com Moves Ahead in Fast Company's Fast 50

The Fast 50 is Fast Company magazine's annual readers' challenge, a worldwide search for ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Our goal is to remind the world of all the good that's created when passionate people with big ideas and strong convictions are determined to make a difference.

Each year, the challenge generates thousands of entries and tens of thousands of comments from around the world, and results in high-profile recognition of 50 leaders, innovators, and technology pioneers. This year's challenge promises to be bigger and better.

This year, Fast Company is looking for unsung heroes and rising stars among our readers: senior executives, in-the-trenches team leaders, engineers, marketers, and other high-impact players from all kinds of backgrounds.

Fast Company: What's your big idea? Please tell us how this Fast 50 Nominee is helping to address the planet's problems.

Voices.com: Voices.com gives organizations the ability to spread their messages using the human voice to persuade others to take notice and inspire action.

Fast Company: Please describe how this nominee is using business as a force of positive change. What technology, idea, or strategy is the nominee using -- and what problem, such as global warming, poverty, or pollution, does it address?

Voices.com: Issues of great international and personal interest are addressed on a daily basis through jobs that are posted to voice-over professionals at Voices.com. Urgency translates directly through vocal performance, and the final product, an audio recording of an important message, is promptly and cost-effectively acquired by people who work to change the world, using the voice-over as a primary agent of change. Studies have proven that voice-overs are extremely effective, that they affect and move people, and also that the unique voice print of an individual cannot be replicated or compared to any other form of communication.

Fast Company: What are the results, both financial and social? How has the nominee's business performed, and what impact has it had on the problem it addresses?

Voices.com: Voices.com achieved a 62 percent increase in gross sales year-over-year as a result of sound business practices and a strong management team.

Going directly to freelance professional voice actors saves companies and organizations money and streamlines the hiring process. Not just any message gets through, however. A part of the job approval process is to seek out projects that are noble, upright and life altering for the betterment of humankind.

The editors at Fast Company will announce the winners of the Fast 50 in January 2008.

Until then, feel free to add your comments to our entry or read and review other entries as they come in at www.fastcompany.com/fast50.