Payback (Sisterhood)

Payback (Sisterhood) Review

I was hooked on Fern Michaels Sisterhood Series from the minute I picked up the first one in the series "Weekend Warriors". Even though "Payback" is only the second book in the series, I just know I am going to love every single book in the series. Fern Michaels is a great story-teller. I can't wait to read #3.

Payback (Sisterhood) Feature

• ISBN13: 9781597375443
• Condition: USED - Very Good
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Payback (Sisterhood) Overview

Meet the Sisterhood - seven very different women who found one another in their darkest days and formed an indelible friendship, strong enough to heal their pasts and bring laughter and joy back into their lives. In Myra Rutledge’s beautiful Virginia home, amid hugs and fresh iced tea, shrimp fritters and shell-pink tulips, the friends have gathered to embark on their second mission of sweet revenge for one of their own. Julia Webster’s husband, a U.S. Senator, has used his wife’s graciousness and elegance to advance his career even as he’s abused her trust at every turn and left her dreams for the future in tatters. Now, on the eve of his greatest political victory, he’s about to learn a serious lesson in payback. Because the senator crossed the wrong woman…and there are six more where she came from…

“Revenge is a dish best served with cloth napkins and floral centerpieces…fast-paced…puts poetic justice first.” - Publishers Weekly

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Financial Accounting: Tools for Business Decision Making

Financial Accounting: Tools for Business Decision Making Review

the book is in great shape, and it also came with the thoughtful inclusion of about 100 pages of relevant course materials that i can also learn from. very satisfied with the price & quality. :)

Financial Accounting: Tools for Business Decision Making Overview

Financial Accounting, 5^th Edition provides students with an understanding of fundamental concepts necessary to use accounting effectively. Starting with a “macro” view of accounting information, the authors present real financial statements. They establish how a financial statement communicates the financing, investing, and operating activities of a business to users of accounting information. Kimmel, Weygandt and Kieso motivate students by grounding the discussion in the real world, showing them the relevance of the topics covered to their future.

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The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It

The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It Review

The Catastrophe of Certainty

In his fascinating book entitled "On Being Certain - Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not," neuroscientist Dr. Robert A. Burton concludes the work with this poignant phrase: "We do not need and cannot afford the catastrophes born out of a belief in certainty."(pp.223-224).

Well, the Wall Street Journal's Scott Patterson chronicles the catastrophe that Dr. Burton's conclusion alludes to in this riveting volume entitled, THE QUANTS - How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It. Patterson states his case bluntly: "In other words, there is no single truth in the chaotic world of finance, where panics, manias, and chaotic crowd behavior can overwhelm all expectations of rationality. Models designed on the premise that the market is predictable and rational are doomed to fail. When hundreds of billions of highly leveraged dollars are riding on those models, catastrophe is looming." (P. 294).

Human history appears to be replete with disasters wherein one group seems `certain' they have captured the `truth.' The ongoing U.S. and global economic crisis is no different. Listen to Patterson:
The Truth was a universal secret about the way the market forked that could only be discovered through mathematics. Revealed through the study of obscure patterns in the market, the Truth was the key to unlocking billions in profits. The quants built giant machines - turbocharged computers linked to financial markets around the globe- to search for the Truth, and to deploy it in their quest to make untold fortunes. (p.8).

"It was about money, of course, but it was also about proof. Each added dollar was another tiny step toward proving they had fulfilled their academic promise and uncovered the Truth (p.8)

To the quants, beta is bad, alpha is good. Alpha is the Truth. If you have it, you can be rich beyond your wildest dreams." (p.8).

What happened? Patterson's perspective on this historical epoch is essential reading for those interested in economics, culture and human behavior. It is also a treatise about man and machine. He writes, "Always trust the machine" was the mantra." (P.128). It's also about our human appetite for order and predictability, as well as our propensity to become victims of the illusory: "The model created an illusion of order where none existed." (P.196). "To quants, unprecedented is perhaps the dirtiest word in the English language. Their models are by necessity backward-looking, based on decades of data about how markets operate in all kinds of conditions. When something is unprecedented, it falls outside the parameters of the models. In other words, the models don't work anymore." (Pp. 271-272).

Patterson does an absolutely spectacular job profiling the key players, organizations and belief systems that fueled the growth in hedge funds from billion in assets in 1990 to 0 billion in 2000, and trillion in 2007. How? How could such a rate of growth be sustained? Patterson's take: "the model was a jury-rigged formula based on the irrationally exuberant, self-reinforcing, and ultimately false wisdom of the crowd that assigned make-believe prices to an incredibly complex product. For a while it worked, and everyone was using it. But when the slightest bit of volatility hit in early 2007, the whole edifice fell apart. The prices didn't make sense anymore. Since nearly every CDO manager and trader used the same formula to price the fizzing bundles yet another instance of crowding that results from popular quant methodologies-they all imploded at once." (P.195).

I can't wait for the next book by Scott Patterson. THE QUANTS - How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It is distinctly a five star work of art. Essential reading. You'll love it. Spellbinding!

The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It Feature

• ISBN13: 9780307453372
• Condition: New
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The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It Overview

“Beware of geeks bearing formulas.”
--Warren Buffett
 
In March of 2006, the world’s richest men sipped champagne in an opulent New York hotel.  They were preparing to compete in a poker tournament with million-dollar stakes, but those numbers meant nothing to them.  They were accustomed to risking billions.  
 
At the card table that night was Peter Muller, an eccentric, whip-smart whiz kid who’d studied theoretical mathematics at Princeton and now managed a fabulously successful hedge fund called PDT…when he wasn’t playing his keyboard for morning commuters on the New York subway.  With him was Ken Griffin, who as an undergraduate trading convertible bonds out of his Harvard dorm room had outsmarted the Wall Street pros and made money in one of the worst bear markets of all time.  Now he was the tough-as-nails head of Citadel Investment Group, one of the most powerful money machines on earth. There too were Cliff Asness, the sharp-tongued, mercurial founder of the hedge fund AQR, a man as famous for his computer-smashing rages as for his brilliance, and Boaz Weinstein, chess life-master and king of the credit default swap, who while juggling billion worth of positions for Deutsche Bank found time for frequent visits to Las Vegas with the famed MIT card-counting team.  
 
On that night in 2006, these four men and their cohorts were the new kings of Wall Street.  Muller, Griffin, Asness, and Weinstein were among the best and brightest of a  new breed, the quants.  Over the prior twenty years, this species of math whiz --technocrats who make billions not with gut calls or fundamental analysis but with formulas and high-speed computers-- had usurped the testosterone-fueled, kill-or-be-killed risk-takers who’d long been the alpha males the world’s largest casino.  The quants believed that a dizzying, indecipherable-to-mere-mortals cocktail of differential calculus, quantum physics, and advanced geometry held the key to reaping riches from the financial markets.  And they helped create a digitized money-trading machine that could shift billions around the globe with the click of a mouse.  
 
Few realized that night, though, that in creating this unprecedented machine, men like Muller, Griffin, Asness and Weinstein had sowed the seeds for history’s greatest financial disaster.  
 
Drawing on unprecedented access to these four number-crunching titans, The Quants tells the inside story of what they thought and felt in the days and weeks when they helplessly watched much of their net worth vaporize – and wondered just how their mind-bending formulas and genius-level IQ’s had led them so wrong, so fast.  Had their years of success been dumb luck, fool’s gold, a good run that could come to an end on any given day?  What if The Truth they sought -- the secret of the markets -- wasn’t knowable? Worse, what if there wasn’t any Truth?
 
In The Quants, Scott Patterson tells the story not just of these men, but of Jim Simons, the reclusive founder of the most successful hedge fund in history; Aaron Brown, the quant who used his math skills to humiliate Wall Street’s old guard at their trademark game of Liar’s Poker, and years later found himself with a front-row seat to the rapid emergence of mortgage-backed securities; and gadflies and dissenters such as Paul Wilmott, Nassim Taleb, and Benoit Mandelbrot.  
 
With the immediacy of today’s NASDAQ close and the timeless power of a Greek tragedy, The Quants is at once a masterpiece of explanatory journalism, a gripping tale of ambition and hubris…and an ominous warning about Wall Street’s future.
  

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The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century

The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century Review

George Friedman, geopolitical forecaster and founder of the Austin, Texas based private intelligence firm, Strategic Forecasting (Stratfor) delivers a fascinating list of future political, military, and economic scenarios in his new book, The Next 100 years: A Forecast for the 21st Century.

Friedman claims the current Islamic assault on the West is failing, and will cease to be a factor on the international scene within the decade. Russia will take another run at becoming a superpower, which will fail by 2020, and leave the country even more diminished than it is today. When standards of living in China level off or reverse in the 2020's, chronic resource shortages could cause the Middle Kingdom to implode and break up. China is far more fragile than we realize.

Japan may deal with stagnant economic and population growth the same way it did during the 1930's by invading China as early as 2030. Japan may also take a bite out of indefensible Siberia when it remilitarizes. Poland, a unified Korea, and Turkey will develop into regional military and economic powers in their own right.

Friedman then describes a theoretical war by a coalition of Turkey and Japan against the US in 2050, resulting in an American victory, which leads to a new US golden age in the second half of the century. Scramjet engines make possible the development of unmanned hypersonic aircraft which can launch a precision attack any place on the planet in 30 minutes. Warfare will move into space and be fought from "battle stars," which will also become major energy sources for earth. Friedman kind of lost me when he predicted that the next Pearl Harbor could come from Japan, but not from the sea going aircraft carriers of old, but from caves on the moon.

The big challenge towards the end of the 21st century will be the emergence of a Hispanic nation in the Southwest, which is culturally isolating itself by not integrating with the rest of the country. This could lead to the secession of several states, or a new war with Mexico, which by then, will develop into a major power in its own right. I think to avoid a second Civil War and offload some huge state deficits, Washington just might say "¡Adios!"

You can argue that someone making many of these predictions is looney. But if you had anticipated in 1970 that China would become America's largest trading partner, the Soviet Union would collapse, Eastern Europe would join NATO, the US would enter a second Vietnam War in Afghanistan, and oil would hit 0 a barrel, you would have been considered equally nutty. I know because I was one of those people. It does seem that long term forecasters have terrible track records.

All in all, the book is a great armchair exercise in global realpolitics, and an entertaining contemplation of the impossible. More than once, I heard myself thinking "He's got to be kidding."

-The Mad Hedge Fund Trader

The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century Overview

Mexico making a bid for global supremacy? Poland becoming America's closest ally? World War III taking place in space? It might sound fantastic but all these things can happen. In "The Next 100 Years", George Friedman, author of the huge bestseller "America's Secret War" offers a lucid, highly readable forecast of the changes we can expect around the world during the 21st century. He predicts where and why future wars will erupt, and how they will be fought; which nations will gain and lose economic and political power; and how new technologies and cultural trends will alter the way we live in the new century.

The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century Specifications

Amazon Best of the Month, January 2009: "Be Practical, Expect the Impossible." So declares George Friedman, chief intelligence officer and founder of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. (Stratfor), a private intelligence agency whose clients include foreign government agencies and Fortune 500 companies. Gathering information from its global network of operatives and analysts (drawing the nickname "the Shadow CIA"), Stratfor produces thoughtful and genuinely engrossing analysis of international events daily, from possible outcomes of the latest Pakistan/India tensions to the hierarchy of Mexican drug cartels to challenges to Obama's nascent administration. In The Next 100 Years, Friedman undertakes the impossible (or improbable) challenge of forecasting world events through the 21st century. Starting with the premises that "conventional political analysis suffers from a profound failure of imagination" and "common sense will be wrong," Friedman maps what he sees as the likeliest developments of the future, some intuitive, some surprising: more (but less catastrophic) wars; Russia's re-emergence as an aggressive hegemonic power; China's diminished influence in international affairs due to traditional social and economic imbalances; and the dawn of an American "Golden Age" in the second half of the century. Friedman is well aware that much of what he predicts will be wrong--unforeseeable events are, of course, unforeseen--but through his interpretation of geopolitics, one gets the sense that Friedman's guess is better than most. --Jon Foro

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The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World

The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World Review

Authors Ron Heifetz & Marty Linsky have used their 60+ years of combined teaching & leadership experience to compile a wonderful guide for anyone in a leadership capacity in any sized organization, to maximize their skills. It's consise, well-written & compelling; and quite possibly, could help some of the financially distressed organizations clean up their messes, without having to use taxpayers' money to help bail them out.

"Adaptave Leadership" has a Darwinian edge to it; and in fact, it is those leaders who are the strongest in the jungle of 21st century business, who stand the best chance for long term survival. In a free market economy, that's the way it should be; either lead the organization to become competitive, or go away. If I hear Stimulis Package one more time, I'm going to lose it.

Certainly, business needs to develop a more adaptive & flexible approach to running its operations; the leaders who are able to not only survive, but thrive in the real world will be deemed the fittest and reap the rewards.

The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World Feature

• ISBN13: 9781422105764
• Condition: New
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World Overview

We live in a time of danger and opportunity. Individuals, organizations, communities and countries must continuously adapt to new realities to simply survive. Wanting more, wanting to thrive even under constantly shifting and often perilous conditions, people in all sectors are called upon to lead with the courage and skill to challenge the status quo, deploy themselves with agility, and mobilize others to step into the unknown.

Ron Heifetz first mapped a groundbreaking theory of leadership in the seminal book, Leadership Without Easy Answers. Followed by the bestselling Leadership on the Line, he and long-time Harvard colleague Marty Linsky offered a compelling set of arguments and stories to show how to lead and stay alive through the dangers of change.

Now Heifetz and Linsky, joined by Alexander Grashow, have distilled the learning from their combined sixty-plus years of leadership consulting, teaching and training around the globe into a practical hands-on guide to making your leadership both more effective and more powerful.

The Practice of Adaptive Leadership will help you think and execute amidst profoundly changing complexity. With its comprehensive and systemic approach to assessing candidly the situation and yourself, and then taking action, its wisdom and advice are drawn also from the experiences of people like you, committed to advancing what you care about most.

The book is anchored in the framework of Adaptive Leadership, but goes beyond the theory to provide a practical set of stories, diagrams, techniques, and activities that will help you both assess and address the toughest challenges that lie ahead. Dozens of tools and tactics are presented in an exciting, clear, and reader-friendly design.

The Practice of Adaptive Leadership is your handbook to meeting the challenges of leadership in a complex and rapidly changing world.

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The Lords of Discipline (Library Edition)

The Lords of Discipline (Library Edition) Review

A frequent Audie finalist and Earphones award winner Dan John Miller delivers a riveting narration of the book many have called an American classic. Also a film actor and songwriter Miller gives eloquent voice to protagonist Will McLean who attends the South Carolina Military Institute, which is a fictional military school and said to be inspired by Conroy's personal experiences at The Citadel.

Not only is THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINE extremely well performed but a new introduction read by Pat Conroy is included in this edition.

As compelling today as it was when it was first penned in 1980 this is the story of four young men, cadets at the Institute who have become blood brothers. Despite hazing, threats, mental duress, and violence Will McLean has reached his senior year. He has met and fallen in love with a beautiful young woman. Yet despite the challenges he has faced and the changes in his life Will remains very much his own person with a code of honor developed in his own mind and heart.

However, when the first black enters the Institute and Will is instructed to look after him Will discovers even more than he had ever imagined exists not only at the Institute but in Charleston.

With THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINE Conroy, who also authored The Great Santini and The Prince of Tides, wrote a brilliant scenario, a vivid commentary, true and bold. This is a book that stands tall in the annals of American literature.

Enjoy!

- Gail Cooke

The Lords of Discipline (Library Edition) Overview

This is the powerful story of four cadets who have become blood brothers. Together, they will encounter the hell of hazing and the rabid, raunchy, and dangerously secretive atmosphere of an arrogant military institute. Pat Conroy sweeps us into the turbulent world of these four friends and deep into the heart of his rebellious hero, Will McLean. Immersed in a poignant love affair with a haunting beauty, Will must boldly confront the terrifying injustice of a corrupt institution as he struggles to expose a mysterious group known as 'The Ten.' Together, the four friends brace themselves for the brutal transition to manhood, which one of them will not survive. They will experience violence, passion, rage, friendship, loyalty, and betrayal.

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Looking Out, Looking In

Looking Out, Looking In Review

I needed this book for the class I am taking in Interpersonal Communication...It is a good textbook with nice little side stories and quotes. I received it in excellent condition for the price.

Looking Out, Looking In Overview

Used by more than a million readers, LOOKING OUT/LOOKING IN,Thirteenth Edition, is the leading interpersonal communication book in print. Written in a reader-friendly voice that links scholarship to users' everyday lives, this popular book motivates readers to improve their interpersonal skills and sharpen their critical understanding of the process of communication. Through thoughtful, diverse examples that include fine art, music, poetry, film, and more, users can consistently see the importance of interpersonal communication and how it affects their society and their lives.

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Leading in a Culture of Change

Leading in a Culture of Change Review

Michael Fullan, the dean of the Ontario Institute of Studies in education, in this work addresses the common challenges facing business, nonprofit, and educational sectors. He presents an approach for varied settings to leaders to help them navigate the change process. Fullan integrates these five core competencies...
1- attending to a broader moral purpose,
2- keeping on top of the change process,
3- cultivating relationships
4- Sharing knowledge
5- Setting a vision and context for creating coherence
These 5 competencies are intended to empower leaders to deal with factors that are difficult and ever changing. These disciplines were well explained and were accompanied with real life illustrations from schools and businesses to validate and clarify each component. My absolute favorite part of the book came in the end of the book. Fullan explains, through Fontaine's The Tortoise and the Hare fable, how learning to be a great leader is much more like the tortoise than the hare. These disciplines are slower (long haul) lessons. The three identified were slow learning, learning in context, and comprehensive internal commitment from leadership. These are tortoise lessons because the better leaders will take time to assess/reassess current status, listen to input, win over resistant members, and learning what is the right thing for each work setting. The author even goes as far as to suggest a ten year " rule of thumb" to really build relationships, strive for coherence, cultivate one' own moral purpose. It is apparent that this process challenges one's own personal practices as well as those of the organization. Sometimes educational institutions can "jump on the band" wagon with new approaches instead of staying the course for what will bring sustained change and improvement for all levels of the organization.
Melba Hooker

Leading in a Culture of Change Feature

• ISBN13: 9780787987664
• Condition: New
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Leading in a Culture of Change Overview

"At the very time the need for effective leadership is reaching critical proportions, Michael Fullan's Leading in a Culture of Change provides powerful insights for moving forward. We look forward to sharing it with our grantees."
--Tom Vander Ark, executive director, Education, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

"Fullan articulates clearly the core values and practices of leadership required at all levels of the organization. Using specific examples, he convinces us that the key change principles are equally critical for leadership in business and education organizations."
--John Evans, chairman, Torstar Corporation

"In Leading in a Culture of Change, Michael Fullan deftly combines his expertise in school reform with the latest insights in organizational change and leadership. The result is a compelling and insightful exposition on how leaders in any setting can bring about lasting, positive, systemic change in their organizations."
--John Alexander, president, Center for Creative Leadership

"Michael Fullan's work is remarkable. He masterfully captures how leaders can significantly improve their learning and performance, even in the uncontrollable, chaotic circumstances in which they practice. A tour de force."
--Anthony Alvarado, chancellor of instruction, San Diego City Schools

"Too often schools and businesses are seen as separate and foreign places. Michael Fullan blends the best of knowledge from each into an exemplary template for improving leadership in both."
--Terrence E. Deal, coauthor of Leading with Soul

Business, nonprofit, and public sector leaders are facing new and daunting challenges--rapid-paced developments in technology, sudden shifts in the marketplace, and crisis and contention in the public arena. If they are to survive in this chaotic environment, leaders must develop the skills they need to lead effectively no matter how fast the world around them is changing.

Leading in a Culture of Change offers new and seasoned leaders' insights into the dynamics of change and presents a unique and imaginative approach for navigating the intricacies of the change process. Michael Fullan--an internationally acclaimed expert in organizational change--shows how leaders in all types of organizations can accomplish their goals and become exceptional leaders. He draws on the most current ideas and theories on the topic of effective leadership, incorporates case examples of large scale transformation, and reveals a remarkable convergence of powerful themes or, as he calls them, the five core competencies.

By integrating the five core competencies--attending to a broader moral purpose, keeping on top of the change process, cultivating relationships, sharing knowledge, and setting a vision and context for creating coherence in organizations--leaders will be empowered to deal with complex change. They will be transformed into exceptional leaders who consistently mobilize their compatriots to do important and difficult work under conditions of constant change.

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The Gregg Reference Manual: A Manual of Style, Grammar, Usage, and Formatting Tribute Edition

The Gregg Reference Manual: A Manual of Style, Grammar, Usage, and Formatting Tribute Edition Review

When I was in college, The Gregg Reference Manual was referred to by the professors as "The Bible". Just like the title says, it covers all the bases for all your writing needs at least on the business level of Style, Grammar, Usage, and Formatting. The book gets better with each edition adding new things to keep up with the technology of today's world. My favorite section of the book it the words that sound alike but spelled differently. Whenever I am not sure which word to use, like "Affect" and "Effect", I head to the GRM. If I am not sure on term papers or reports, I head to the GRM. It is a great book for secretaries and administrative assistants. They have added new sections to keep up with computer usage as in my days of high school and college, we were using manual and electric typewriters and computers are now the basic source for typing correspondence, reports, and all the computer software used in today's business world. I will always buy the latest edition, even though earlier editions, they only change a few words or things, but this is the best reference book to have in your library like a dictionary and thesaurus is.

The Gregg Reference Manual: A Manual of Style, Grammar, Usage, and Formatting Tribute Edition Overview

Features of the New Edition
The eleventh edition of The Gregg Reference Manual has been revised and enhanced to satisfy the continually evolving demands of business and academic writers. In addition, this special four-color edition of GRM pays tribute to the author Bill Sabin with personal photographs and a new biographical essay, “About the Book and the Author” (pages viii–ix); “A Personal Tribute,” remarks given by Bill’s sister-in-law, Mary Lee Noonan, at his Memorial (pages x–xi); and a selection of tributes from Bill’s colleagues in the world of business writing, “Professional Tributes” (page xii). Here are some of the other key features of this new edition of The Gregg Reference Manual.

Visit The Gregg Reference Manual Information Center
www.mhhe.com/grm11

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The Back of the Napkin (Expanded Edition): Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures

The Back of the Napkin (Expanded Edition): Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures Review

It must be great to be in the audience when Dan Roam gives a presentation and when you in the audience share the same kind of visual sense. On the other hand, if you do not share that sense, that way of structuring the topic under consideration, then you might well want to be beamed somewhere else.

This is a great book, extremely useful and thought provoking. The structuring of problem-solving into a six by five visual codex makes enormous sense; you can literally see the evolution of the thought processes and the development of the insights take shape through the pages. It is not the kind of book that you can dip into. There is a structure and that structure has to unfold and be assimilated by the reader before there can be any translation into action and effect. I think that there is no "quick fix" for someone who wants to animate or rejuvenate their presentations with a rapid read. The art of solving problems has to be developed through the acquisition of the skills protrayed in these pages. And that takes time and effort. And it also needs a sense of congruity between the visual sense of the author and that of the reader. Pictures can convey so much that words cannot evoke. But some pictures and representations succeed and others fail, otherwise there would be no evolution of art and expression.

Be wary of this book on face value. The editorial recommendations of the book do not necessarily reflect the content. Simply to say, as does one commentator, "So if you want to make a point, do it with images, pictures or graphics.", is true only to a point. It is not necessarily the case for all readers, all viewers and certainly not for all people who need to make a presentation. The person who gives the presentation with pictures that reflect their own representation of the topic without engaging the representation or ability of the audience will fail. The presentation must be expressive, not merely reflective.

But that aside, if after searching through this book you get a sense of affiliation with the ideas and concepts, then I have no doubt that you will gain enormously in quality of communication with your audiences. This book is a challenge that can lead to greater insight. But the dictum "caveat emptor" applies, as always. But also remember, books such as this always present the ideas as though they were tried and true. There is rarely evidence as to the efficacy of the methods in getting the message across, as against the satisfaction that an audience may gain. Roam does list references in an appendix to other works that are based on empirical evidence (for example Wainer's Graphic discovery and Tufte The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edition, but there is nothing about his own evidence. A reading of this excellent book benefits from a parallel reading, and reality check, of Tufte's little monograph on the dangers of Powerpoint (The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within, Second Edition.

The Back of the Napkin (Expanded Edition): Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures Feature

• ISBN13: 9781591843061
• Condition: New
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

The Back of the Napkin (Expanded Edition): Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures Overview

The acclaimed bestseller about visual problem solving-now bigger and better

"There is no more powerful way to prove that we know something well than to draw a simple picture of it. And there is no more powerful way to see hidden solutions than to pick up a pen and draw out the pieces of our problem."

So writes Dan Roam in The Back of the Napkin, the international bestseller that proves that a simple drawing on a humble napkin can be more powerful than the slickest PowerPoint presentation. Drawing on twenty years of experience and the latest discoveries in vision science, Roam teaches readers how to clarify any problem or sell any idea using a simple set of tools.

He reveals that everyone is born with a talent for visual thinking, even those who swear they can't draw. And he shows how thinking with pictures can help you discover and develop new ideas, solve problems in unexpected ways, and dramatically improve your ability to share your insights.

Take Herb Kelleher and Rollin King, who figured out how to beat the traditional hub-and-spoke airlines with a bar napkin and a pen. Three dots to represent Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. Three arrows to show direct flights. Problem solved, and the picture made it easy to sell Southwest Airlines to investors and customers.

Now with more color, bigger pictures, and additional content, this new edition does an even better job of helping you literally see the world in a new way. Join the teachers, project managers, doctors, engineers, assembly-line workers, pilots, football coaches, marine drill instructors, financial analysts, students, parents, and lawyers who have discovered the power of solving problems with pictures.

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You Can Read Anyone

You Can Read Anyone Review

YOU CAN READ ANYONE HAS Advanced and enhanced body language techniques. If you really want to know how to read people, then this is the best book on non-verbal behavior I have ever come across.

I've read the textbooks on interview and interrogation that Lieberman has written and the books written for law enforcement and this book gives you everything in one place, plus it's extremely easy to understand. He doesn't talk over your head which I appreciate. You can find out if someone is lying or if someone is attracted to you, or interested in your product if you are sales person. I loved Never Be Lied to Again for the same reason and I am going to be reading Find Out Who's Normal and Who's Not on my Kindle.

You Can Read Anyone Overview

Have you ever wished you could peer into someone’s mind to find out what he or she is really thinking? Now you can . . . really. This book is not a collection of recycled ideas about body language. It does not suggest that a woman’s hairstyle will give us unprecedented access into her soul, neither does it draw wildly ambiguous generalities about people based on our intuition or gut instinct, nor does it reach conclusions based on how she folds her hands or he ties his shoelaces. This book contains specific, proven psychological techniques that can be applied instantly to any person in just about any situation. Dr. Lieberman has demonstrated the ease and accuracy of these techniques on hundreds of television and radio programs. In a special report for FOX News, host Jeff Rosin declared, “It’s simply amazing! I was with him and he was never wrong . . . not even once. I even learned how to do it and that’s saying something.” In fact, Dr. Lieberman has gone “head-to-head” on live television, with skilled polygraph examiners and scored just as well—every time. You Can Read Anyone shows step-by-step exactly how to tell what someone is thinking and feeling in real-life situations. For example, you will see precisely how to determine whether another poker player will stay in or fold, whether a salesperson is trustworthy, or whether or not a first date is going your way or the other way. And when the stakes are high—negotiations, interrogations, questions of abuse, theft, or fraud-- knowing who is out for you, and who is out to get you (or a loved one) can save you time, money, energy, and heartache.

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Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1)

Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) Review

Interesting, with a quirky wit, the book starts very strong. It's told in first-person, from the perspective of Dresden himself. Dresden is a hardened wizard, and Chicago resident, openly advertising his services in the phone book.

At 322 pages I flew through the book. This was its one weak point. At least for me. I'm of the class of readers that enjoys reading strongly developed magic systems in my fantasy, which are therefore complicated and can be time-consuming to absorb. Yes, I loved Lord of the Rings--which has no apparent rules--but that is because of how well developed everything else is. Not because of magic. Dresden's magic is what my ill-informed mind conceives of as "typical" magic. (Feel free to correct me, my esteemed witches and wizards.) Using circles, blood, potions made of strange concoctions (including motor oil and bus tickets... Huh?), talismans, and of course force of will. I won't say that it wasn't enjoyable, in fact some of the battles rocked the cool element, but there were other times where the use of bread and honey to catch a faery was cute, but just didn't seem to catch my interest. (However the following, interplay of dialogue was fantastic.) Yes, it is a current day book, so it probably works well within that context, and for at least the first book, magic was not the driving factor...it was the murder mystery.

With some interesting characters in the form of an animated skull possessed of an air spirit and a ridiculously amusing faery by the name of Toot (short for a beautifully long rolling of syllables that, by Harry's own admission, he would not share--names are power and he wouldn't share without good reason. Yeah, I know, it's an excuse. But it WAS funny.).

Butcher really sticks it to Dresden in this first novel: he has to deal with smooth, business-minded mafia, a haunted past, juiced-up magical law enforcers, a seductive vampire, a black mage that walks in the shadows, and to top it off: Dresden gets his apartment trashed and has to fight off a demon--naked! All the while with overdue rent.

As Butcher's first published novel, this doesn't read like a first book...so something went obviously right. Go check it out.

What did you think? Have you read the book? I'm onto the 2nd one now, but it's not catching my attention as much as the 1st did. Come visit me on my blog: [...]

Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) Overview

Storm Front
Unabridged CD-MP3 Audio
Written By Jim Butcher
Read By James Marsters/Spike of Buffy and Angel

PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING:

YOUR CD PLAYER MUST BE MP3 COMPATIBLE TO PLAY THIS CD!

MP3 audiobooks on compact disc can be played on CD players that support MP3 technology and on any personal computer that has Microsoft's Media Player or similar software

My name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Conjure by it at your own risk. I'm a wizard. I work out of an office in midtown Chicago. As far as I know, I'm the only openly practicing professional wizard in the country. You can find me in the yellow pages, under Wizards. Believe it or not, I'm the only one there.
My ad looks like this:

HARRY DRESDEN--WIZARD
Lost Items Found.
Paranormal Investigations.
Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates.
No Love Potions, Endless Purses,
Parties or Other Entertainment

With rent past due and a decent meal becoming an issue of some importance, Harry needs work, and soon. A call from a distraught wife, and another from Lt Murphy of the Chicago PD Special Investigation Unit makes Harry believe things are looking up, but they are about to get worse, much worse.

Someone is harnessing immense supernatural forces to commit a series of grisly murders. Someone has violated the first law of magic: Thou Shalt Not Kill. Tracking that someone takes Harry into the dangerous underbelly of Chicago, from mobsters to vampires, while he himself is under suspicion of the crimes. One thing is certain, if he can't stop whoever is on this killing spree, Harry will be the next victim

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The Successful Business Plan, 4th Edition: Secrets and Strategies (Successful Business Plan Secrets and Strategies)

The Successful Business Plan, 4th Edition: Secrets and Strategies (Successful Business Plan Secrets and Strategies) Review

Ms. Abrams has done an excellent job of putting it all together and imparting concrete business wisdom. The book is up-to-date and a great resource for anyone in business be it a small or large business. She hit the nail on the head in the Financial chapter. She is correct in strongly asserted that you DON'T ignore your finances if you're having a bad month. I wish I had been taught from this book when I was in College!

The Successful Business Plan, 4th Edition: Secrets and Strategies (Successful Business Plan Secrets and Strategies) Feature

• ISBN13: 9780966963564
• Condition: New
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

The Successful Business Plan, 4th Edition: Secrets and Strategies (Successful Business Plan Secrets and Strategies) Overview

Named by Inc. and Forbes magazines as one of the top ten essential books for small business, this fully revised and updated fourth edition of The Successful Business Plan: Secrets & Strategies is a complete, step-by-step guide to researching and writing a fool-proof, perfectly formatted, knock-'em-dead business plan.

Required reading at America's top business schools, it's been called "the entrepreneur's bible," having helped hundreds of thousands of successful business people get the funding they need to launch their businesses.

With a foreword by legendary venture capitalist Eugene Kleiner, The Successful Business Plan is packed with insider tips and insightful advice on writing and formatting a business plan that will stand out from the crowd.

Book features:

99 worksheets to help you get started quickly, taking you through every critical section of a successful business plan

Sample business plan offering guidance on length, style, formatting and language

The Abrams Method of Flow-Through Financials, which makes easy work of number crunching — even if you're a numbers novice

Special chapters addressing issues of concern for service, manufacturing, retail, and Internet companies

Added help for teams and students preparing business plans for classes or competitions

Nearly 200 real-life insider secrets from top venture capitalists and successful CEOs – learn what truly impresses funders

New chapter on starting a business in a challenging economy

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Rule #1: The Simple Strategy for Successful Investing in Only 15 Minutes a Week!

Rule #1: The Simple Strategy for Successful Investing in Only 15 Minutes a Week! Review

I have read over 150 book in the last 14 years, all kind and all subjects, and this book Rule#1 by Phil Town is the best of the best, Is the very first book that bring something I have being missing in my life, "Controlling My Own Future" that tells me how to make money step-by-step, he doesn't use complicated and impossible to follow suggestions, instead he write in a very simple and easy to understand manner than even a English as a second language like me can understand, I'm 53, I have being around, and believe me this book will change your mind regarding your own finance and your own future, then after reading this wonderful book you'll make a bee line and buy his second book "Payback Time". My wife and I are so grateful found Phil's books.

Rule #1: The Simple Strategy for Successful Investing in Only 15 Minutes a Week! Feature

• ISBN13: 9780307336842
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Rule #1: The Simple Strategy for Successful Investing in Only 15 Minutes a Week! Overview

Phil Town is now a very wealthy man, but he wasn't always. In fact, he was living on a salary of 00 a year when some well-timed advice launched him down a highway of investing self-education that revealed what the true "rules" are and how to make them work in one's favor. Chief among them, of course, is "rule #1": "don't lose money." Other rules are: don't diversify...think like an owner, not an investor ... never, ever be seduced into thinking the market is efficient. Town also believes strongly in "betting on the jockey," putting your faith in managers who've proven their financial mettle. Not only does Town reveal fresh methods for identifying who the truly reliable managers are, but he shows you how to test whether they really have faith in the businesses they're running.

By far, the most controversial of the audiobook's assertions will be that giant 401(k) type mutual funds can't help but regress to the mean, and in the next twenty years, the mean could be very disappointing indeed. There's a very real chance that a 401(k) investor could see his holdings not grow at all in the next few decades. Fortunately, Town's stockpicking techniques are meant to walk investing phobes through the do-it-yourself process, equipping them with the tools they need to make quantum leaps toward financial security.

Rule #1 says something new, and it says it in a way that every listener can understand.


From the Compact Disc edition.

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Seduction in Death (In Death #13)

Seduction in Death (In Death #13) Review

Well, last time I read this, I gave it 5 stars, but I didn't write any notes about it, so I'm not really sure if I liked it more, or if it's just a case of ratings inflation that happens once in a while.

NYPSD homicide lieutenant Eve Dallas is up against a pair of killers this time, loosely based, I believe, on a real story from some years ago. It's two privileged young men (this isn't a spoiler--we know this from the beginning) who are playing a game, seducing and killing women they've selected through internet chat rooms.

Because we know whodunit from the beginning, it's not so much a mystery as it is horror. It's horrifying because it seems so real, and because you know there are people out there whose minds work the way these killers' minds do. Eve also twigs to the two-killer thing right away, so it's more like watching a chase than watching the slow unraveling of clues. It's an effective story, don't get me wrong--it's just different. Which is a good thing in a series as long-running as this one. Seduction in Death, by the way, is the 15th in the series, if you include the 2 novellas.

There are also interesting developments in the ongoing series story--Peabody and McNab in particular, and a somewhat startling new romantic attraction between Dr. Dimatto and LC Charles that was very thought-provoking.

Seduction in Death (In Death #13) Overview

Dante had been courting his victim in cyberspace for weeks before meeting her in person. A few sips of wine and a few hours later, she was dead. The murder weapon: a rare, usually undetectable date-rape drug with a street value of a quarter million dollars.

Detective Eve Dallas is playing and replaying the clues in her mind. The candlelight, the music, the rose petals strewn across the bed - a seduction meant for his benefit, not hers. He hadn't intended to kill her. But now that he has, he is left with only two choices: to either hole up in fear and guilt or start hunting again. . .

Seduction in Death (In Death #13) Specifications

New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts, writing as J.D. Robb, continues her prolific string of hits with her latest installment in the In Death series of futuristic thrillers starring hard-boiled detective Eve Dallas and a quirky cast of characters, including Eve's husband, Roarke, who owns most of Manhattan and can be relied upon to bring all his considerable resources to bear to help his wife solve the case whether she wants him to or not, and Peabody, Eve's uptight assistant, who has an off-again, on-again thing going with the irreverent Officer McNab. This time Eve is on the trail of a serial killer--or maybe killers--who stalks young women looking for love in online poetry chat rooms. Once a romantic date has been arranged, the murderer sets the scene with roses, champagne, and candlelight, then serves his unsuspecting victims a lethal combination of date-rape drugs that takes them to the height of pleasure and too far beyond. But this killer is really clever, altering his look to become each victim's dream date. What a nightmare! Detective Dallas is on the case, chasing an anonymous psychopath with a twisted taste in romance. But Eve seems a little more fragile this time around, still plagued by the nightmare of childhood abuse. Is retirement from the business of crime solving in the near future for Detective Dallas? Robb has found a winning formula in the genre, so hopefully we'll see a lot more of peppery Eve Dallas. --Alison Trinkle

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Fundamentals of Corporate Finance Standard Edition

Fundamentals of Corporate Finance Standard Edition Review

I purchased this book for school. So far, I like the shorter chapters, including the explanations. It is one of the better Financial books that I've seen.

Shipping and product quality was great. Would buy from this seller again.

Fundamentals of Corporate Finance Standard Edition Overview

The best-selling Fundamentals of Corporate Finance (FCF) is written with one strongly held principle– that corporate finance should be developed and taught in terms of a few integrated, powerful ideas. As such, there are three basic themes that are the central focus of the book: 1) An emphasis on intuition—underlying ideas are discussed in general terms and then by way of examples that illustrate in more concrete terms how a financial manager might proceed in a given situation. 2) A unified valuation approach—net present value (NPV) is treated as the basic concept underlying corporate finance. Every subject covered is firmly rooted in valuation, and care is taken to explain how particular decisions have valuation effects. 3) A managerial focus—the authors emphasize the role of the financial manager as decision maker, and they stress the need for managerial input and judgment.

The Ninth Edition continues the tradition of excellence that has earned Fundamentals of Corporate Finance its status as market leader. Every chapter has been updated to provide the most current examples that reflect corporate finance in today’s world. The supplements package has been updated and improved, and with the new Excel Master online tool, student and instructor support has never been stronger.

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The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage

The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage Review

The Design of Business: Why design thinking is the next competitive advantage, by Roger Martin was a positive surprise as it was a quick read, well structured, delivered several interesting concepts and some in depth cases on business model innovation. Even though several of the cases are familiar for many readers (such as P&G, Apple, Cirque du Soleil, McDonalds and RIM) Roger, who is dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, professor of strategic management, and author of the book The Opposable Mind, adds interesting perspectives and sometimes information from behind the scenes working as a consultant and advisor. The book is an extension of Roger's popular article (free download via [...]) from 2004 with the same name.

The book in three bullet points:

* It introduces and explores the concept of the "Knowledge Funnel" describing how knowledge advances from mystery to heuristic, to algorithm for businesses to gain efficiency and lower costs, and the activities of moving across the knowledge stages (exploration) and operating within each knowledge stage (exploitation).

* To accelerate the pace at which knowledge advances through the Knowledge Funnel, it presents the concept of design thinking as the necessary balance between analytical thinking using deductive and inductive reasoning (with the need for reliability and the ability to produce consistent and predictable outcomes), and intuitive thinking (with the need for validity and to produce outcomes that meet a desired objective).

* It discusses challenges (primarily the results of proof-based analytical thinking) faced by organizations, CEOs and individuals within organizations, to build structures and processes that foster, support and reward a culture of design thinking, and how different CEOs have used different approaches to generate successful outcomes.


A brief summary of the different chapters:

1. The knowledge funnel: How discovery takes shape
The introductory chapter starts with a story about McDonalds journey from mystery (how and what did Californians want to eat) to algorithm (stripping away uncertainty, ambiguity, and judgment from almost all processes). It briefly discusses analytical thinking, intuitive thinking and design thinking, to solve mysteries and advance knowledge, and the fine balance between exploring new knowledge and exploiting existing one.

It introduces and explores the concept of the "Knowledge Funnel" describing how knowledge advances from mystery to heuristic, to algorithm for businesses to gain efficiency and lower costs. This is explored also in later chapters: "Mysteries are expensive, time consuming, and risky; they are worth tackling only because of the potential benefits of discovering a path out of the mystery to a revenue-generating heuristic", "The algorithm generates savings by turning judgment... ...into a formula or set of rules that, if followed, will produce a desired solution" and "Computer code - the digital end point of the algorithm stage - is the most efficient expression of an algorithm".

It also addresses the need for organizations to re-explore solved mysteries, even the founding ideas behind the business, and not get too comfortable focusing on the "administration of business" running an existing algorithm.

In addition, the first chapter presents abductive logic, and some ideas originated by philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce; that it is not possible to prove a new thought concept, or idea in advance and that all new ideas can be validated only through the unfolding of future events. To advance knowledge we need to make a "logical leap of the mind" or an "inference to the best explanation" (or "Leaps of Faith" that John Mullins and Randy Komisar calls it in the book Getting to plan B see review/summary at[...]) to imaging a heuristic for understanding a mystery. Free preview of Chapter 1 (link at [...])

2. The reliability bias: Why advancing knowledge is so hard
The second chapter focus on the distinction between reliability (produce consistent, predictable outcomes by narrowing the scope of a test to what can be measured in a replicable, quantitative way) and validity (produce outcomes that meet a desired objective, that through the passage of time will be shown to be correct, often incorporating some aspects of subjectivity and judgment to be achieved). Roger's main point in the chapter (or even in the book) is that today's business world is focusing too much on reliability (due to three forces: demand for proof, an aversion to bias and the constraints of time), with algorithmic decision-making techniques using various systems (such as ERP, CRM, TQM, KM) to crunch data objectively and extrapolate from the past to make predictions about the future. "What organizations dedicated to running reliable algorithms often fail to realize is that while they reduce the risk of small variations in their businesses, they increase the risk of cataclysmic events that occur when the future no longer resembles the past and the algorithm is no longer relevant or useful" With the turbulent times we live in, where new mysteries constantly spring up that reliable systems won't address or even acknowledge, businesses risk being outflanked by new entrants solving old and new mysteries developing new heuristics and algorithms. "Without validity, an organization has little chance of moving knowledge across the funnel. Without reliability, an organization will struggle to exploit the rewards of its advances... the optimal approach... is to seek a balance of both"

3. Design thinking: How thinking like a designer can create sustainable advantage
Chapter three starts with an interesting case of Research In Motion (RIM) that leads into the discussion of what is really design thinking. Roger uses the quote by Tim Brown of IDEO, "a discipline that uses the designer's sensibility and methods to match people's needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity" and adds himself "a person or organization instilled with that discipline is constantly seeking a fruitful balance between reliability and validity, between art and science, between intuition and analytics, and between exploration and exploitation". That designers live in the world of abductive reasoning, actively look for new data points, challenge accepted explanations to posit what could possibly be true (in contrast to the two dominant forms of logic - deduction and induction, with the goal to declare a conclusion to be true or false).

The chapter ends with the first discussion on roadblocks to design thinking (many more to come), with one being the corporate tendency to settle at the current stage in the knowledge funnel, and another how "highly paid executives or specialists with knowledge, turf and paychecks to defend" has the company's heuristics in their heads with no interest in advancing to the algorithm stage, making the executives less important. This leads nicely into the forth chapter about the transformation of Procter & Gamble.

4. Transforming the corporation: The design of Procter & Gamble
A.G. Lafley's transformation of Procter & Gamble from an incumbent in crisis to an innovative and efficient organization in just a few years has been widely covered in the business literature. As a student some years back I made an internship in P&G's Connect & Develop (connect with innovators outside the company and develop their ideas for P&G products), and have since been reading up on everything I can find about the transition and why other companies have not been able to make the same transition. Roger adds interesting perspectives, from his work with the company and its first vice president of innovation strategy and design, Claudia Kotchka, to develop "a comprehensive program that would provide practical experience in design thinking to P&G leaders". One of the top-down efforts being to drive brand-building from heuristic (in the minds of scarce and costly senior executives) toward algorithm, providing less senior employees the tools needed to do much of the work previously done by high-cost elites who then could then focus on the next mystery in order to create the next brand experience. The chapter also covers the Connect & Develop initiative and how it bulked up P&G's supply of ideas in the mystery-heuristic transition where it was thin, enabling it to feed more opportunities into its well-developed heuristics and algorithms of development, branding, positioning, pricing and distribution.

Another highly interesting topic covered in the chapter is the change of processes within P&G, including the strategy review, at P&G. Lafley recognized that the existing processes was a recipe for producing reliability, not validity, "so risky creative leaps were out of the question". A transition from annual reviews with category managers pitching, "with all the inductive and deductive proof needed to gain the approval of the CEO and senior management" to "forcing category managers to toss around ideas with senior management... to become comfortable with the logical leaps of mind needed to generate new ideas".

5. The balancing act: How design-thinking organizations embrace reliability and validity
The chapter focuses on the need to balance reliability and validity, and the challenges to do so (foremost all structures, processes and cultural norms tilted towards reliability). "Financial planning and reward systems are dramatically tilted toward running an existing heuristic or algorithm and must be modified in significant ways to create a balance between reliability and validity". Roger presents a rough rule of thumb "when the challenge is to seize an emerging opportunity, the solution is to perform like a design team: work iteratively, build a prototype, elicit feedback, refine it, rinse, repeat... On the other hand, running a supply chain, building a forecasting model, and compiling the financials are functions best left to people who work in fixed roles with permanent tasks". The chapter feels somewhat repetitive, in the uphill battle for validity, and more obstacles of change are presented:

* Preponderance of Training in Analytical Thinking
* Reliability orientation of key stakeholders
* Ease of defending reliability vs. validity

In this chapter, Roger also discusses how design-thinking companies have to develop new reward systems and norms, with an example of how to think about constraints. "In reliability-driven, analytical-thinking companies, the norm is to see constraints as the enemy", whereas when validity is the goal "constraints are opportunities" and "they frame the mystery that needs to be solved".

6. World-class explorers: Leading the design-thinking organization
In chapter six several interesting cases, and approaches of different CEOs, are presented, one being the widely covered case of Guy Laliberté, and his Cirque du Soleil. Again Roger adds to the existing body of knowledge with the twist of reliability vs. validity in creating a new market, and the knowledge funnel taking a one-off street festival into an unstoppable international 0 million-a-year business with four thousand employees. Laliberté has reinvented Cirque's creative and business models time and time again, "usually over protests that he was fixing what was not broken and that he could destroy the company". Other CEOs and cases covered in the chapter are James Hackett of Steelcase, Bob Ulrich of Target, and Steve Jobs of Apple.

The role of the CEO and different approaches to build design-friendly organizational processes and norms into companies are discussed referring to the different cases presented.

Again, Roger returns to the reliability vs validity battle, now from a CEO perspective with terms such as "resisting reliability", "those systems-whether they are for budgeting, capital appropriation, product development...", and "counter the internal and external pressures toward reliability".

7. Getting personal: Developing yourself as a design thinker
In the final chapter the focus is on how a non-CEO can function as a design thinker and develop skills to individually produce more valid outcomes even in reliability-oriented companies. Roger refers back to his previous book The Opposable Mind, and the concept of a personal knowledge system as a way of thinking about how we acquire knowledge and expertise. The knowledge system has three components:

* Stance: "Who am I in the world and what am I trying to accomplish?"
* Tools: "With what tools and models do I organize my thinking and understand the world?"
* Experiences: "With what experiences can I build my repertoire of sensitivities and skills.

Roger then presents the design thinker's stance, key tools (observation, imagination, and configuration), and how to obtain experiences by trying new things and test their boundaries.

Roger also presents five things that the design thinker needs to do to be more effective with colleagues at the extremes of the reliability and validity spectrum:

* Reframe extreme views as a creative challenge
* Empathize with your colleagues on the extremes
* Learn to speak the languages of both reliability and validity
* Put unfamiliar concepts in familiar terms
* When it comes to proof, use size to your advantage


This is a great book and I recommend business developers and business model innovators to buy it, as it is a quick read with several important concepts and interesting cases to learn from. I believe design thinking has the potential to help managers break out from the Matrix they live in and again realize the real world behind the existing algorithms.


Disclaimer:
I read the book at the beautiful cliffs of Vernazza in Italy, and was in a very good mood. I actually read the book twice.

The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage Feature

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• Condition: New
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The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage Overview

Most companies today have innovation envy. They yearn to come up with a game-changing innovation like Apple's iPod, or create an entirely new category like Facebook. Many make genuine efforts to be innovative-they spend on R&D, bring in creative designers, hire innovation consultants. But they get disappointing results.


Why? In The Design of Business, Roger Martin offers a compelling and provocative answer: we rely far too exclusively on analytical thinking, which merely refines current knowledge, producing small improvements to the status quo.

To innovate and win, companies need design thinking. This form of thinking is rooted in how knowledge advances from one stage to another-from mystery (something we can't explain) to heuristic (a rule of thumb that guides us toward solution) to algorithm (a predictable formula for producing an answer) to code (when the formula becomes so predictable it can be fully automated). As knowledge advances across the stages, productivity grows and costs drop-creating massive value for companies.

Martin shows how leading companies such as Procter & Gamble, Cirque du Soleil, RIM, and others use design thinking to push knowledge through the stages in ways that produce breakthrough innovations and competitive advantage.

Filled with deep insights and fresh perspectives, The Design of Business reveals the true foundation of successful, profitable innovation.

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