Book Reviews and Bargain reads for the Amazon Kindle, nook, Kobo, Sony and other ereaders, Kindle Fire, nookColor, Kobo Vox, and other tablets, along with some games, music, technology and computers tossed in now and then.
Benjamin Franklin in Paris, by Thomas Fleming, is free in the Kindle store courtesy of publisher New Word City; it's only likely to be free for today and possibly tomorrow.Book Description
Here’s New York Times bestselling historian and novelist Thomas Fleming on how 70-year-old Benjamin Franklin charmed Paris and pulled off a diplomatic miracle that led to the British defeat in the American Revolution.
Ronald Reagan's Leadership Lessons is free in the Kindle store courtesy of publisher New Word City; it's only likely to be free for today and possibly tomorrow.Book Description
Ronald Reagan was a product of America’s heartland, a kid who had a Huck Finn childhood and never lost his aw-shucks, all-American optimism. He moved to Hollywood, became a minor film star, and got involved in politics -- at first on the left. But in the shadow of the 1950s’ anti-communism furor, he moved to the right and began a steady rise to the pinnacle of power. Initially derided as a lightweight, a not-too-bright actor incapable of leading a nation, he proved his detractors wrong. Using extraordinary charm, conviction, communication skills, and stagecraft, Reagan became one of the most beloved, admired, and influential presidents in American history. Here, in this brief eBook, is what you can learn from his story.
Leadership: The West Point Lecture, by William Deresiewicz, is free in the Kindle store, courtesy of New Word City. It's likely to only be free today, as seems to be their new marketing scheme this month.Book DescriptionNote: The synopsis the publisher has used at Amazon seems to have little to do with the actual book, which isn't on friendship, but is a lecture on leadership delivered at West Point.
When former Yale University professor William Deresiewicz delivered a lecture at the United States Military Academy at West Point in 2009, he never anticipated the response it would generate. Since then, he has received requests to use his lecture from the Army Command and General Staff College; the Naval War College; the Air Force Weapons School; the Defense Department’s Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation; the Army’s University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies; the business schools at Stanford, the University of Chicago, the University of California, San Diego, and the University of California, Irvine; the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health; King Saud University; Zayed University in Abu Dhabi; the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad; and Whirlpool, Boeing, Verizon, Alcatel-Lucent, and United Technologies. The speech even elicited a note of appreciation from General David Petraeus. Here are the words that inspired so many.
Winston Churchill's Leadership Lessons, from The Editors of New Word City, is free in the Kindle store.Book Description
Sir Winston Churchill’s particular blend of talents made him uniquely fitted to carry Great Britain through the ordeal of World War II. It was his determination to rally his fellow citizens that not only saved his country but, in all likelihood, all free peoples. Leaders everywhere can profit by emulating him.
7 Bad Habits of Unsuccessful Peopl, by Sydney Finkelstein, is free in the Kindle store.Book Description
Talented leaders can be brought low by their own success. Self-confidence slides into over-confidence. Good press leads to prideful thinking. Obstinacy, fanaticism, and feelings of invincibility push a competent leader into a hubristic fog. In this brief eBook, Sydney Finkelstein, a Dartmouth professor who has studied bad decisions and business failures for more than 15 years, tells how to avoid the seven bad habits of unsuccessful people.
Create Competitive Advantage with Innovation, a collection of titles by Michael Lord, Donald deBethizy, Jeffrey Wager, Luke Williams, Inder Sidhu, Alpheus Bingham and Dwayne Spradlin, is free in the Kindle storeand from Barnes & Noble.Book DescriptionGet the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.
Four remarkable books help executive decision-makers and strategists overcome the stubborn obstacles to business innovation, and implement innovation strategies that really work. In Innovation that Fits: Moving Beyond the Fads to Choose the RIGHT Innovation Strategy for Your Business, three leading experts on commercializing innovation systematically teach the lessons of 250+ corporate innovation programs, defining a focused, integrated model for innovation that's more well-grounded, more durable, and far more effective. Drawing on the failures of many innovation initiatives, they reveal the right time to use each approach, how to account for contingencies and risks, and how to focus on the core innovation challenges that matter most. In Doing Both: Capturing Today's Profit and Driving Tomorrow's Growth, Cisco Senior VP Inder Sidhu presents the "doing both" strategy that has helped Cisco double revenue, triple profits, and quadruple EPS through the most unstable global business environment in generations. Sidhu shows how to focus on innovation and core businesses; discipline and flexibility; customers and partners. You'll learn how to avoid false choices, reduced expectations, and weak compromises—and find ways to make each option mutually reinforce the other. In The Open Innovation Marketplace, Alpheus Bingham and Dwayne Spradlin introduce groundbreaking strategies for leveraging a world of innovators to develop breakthrough products faster, with lower cost and risk. Drawing on their experience pioneering the InnoCentive open innovation platform, they show how to dramatically increase the flow of high-value innovations you can discover—and deliver. Disrupt introduces a complete five-step program for identifying disruptive business opportunities—and successfully executing on them! frog design's Luke Williams combines the design industry's most powerful creativity techniques with true business implementation discipline. Using case studies, you'll walk through defining and brainstorming ideas, crafting coherent solutions, getting buy-in, and more.
Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, by Dev Patnaik, is a repeat freebie in the Kindle store and from Barnes & Noble (careful ordering from your device, as there is also a full price edition).Book DescriptionGet the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.
In this essential and illuminating book, top business strategist Dev Patnaik tells the story of how organizations of all kinds prosper when they tap into a power each of us already has: empathy, the ability to reach outside of ourselves and connect with other people. When people inside a company develop a shared sense of what’s going on in the world, they see new opportunities faster than their competitors. They have the courage to take a risk on something new. And they have the gut-level certitude to stick with an idea that doesn’t take off right away. People are "Wired to Care," and many of the world’s best organizations are, too.
In pursuit of this idea, Patnaik takes readers inside big companies like IBM, Target, and Intel to see widespread empathy in action. But he also goes to farmers' markets and a conference on world religions. He dives deep into the catacombs of the human brain to find the biological sources of empathy. And he spends time on both sides of the political aisle, with James Carville, the Ragin’ Cajun, and John McCain, a national hero, to show how empathy can give you the acuity to cut through a morass of contradictory information.
Wired to Care is a compelling tale of the power that people have to see the world through each other’s eyes, told with passion for the possibilities that lie ahead if leaders learn to stop worrying about their own problems and start caring about the world around them. As Patnaik notes, in addition to its considerable economic benefits, increasing empathy for the people you serve can have a personal impact, as well: It just might help you to have a better day at work.
Business and Competitive Analysis Methods, by Craig S. Fleisher and Babette E. Bensoussan, is a repeat freebie in the Kindle store that is also free from Barnes & Noble.Book DescriptionGet the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.
Business success begins with deep clarity about your competition and your business environment. But, even as data gathering has improved dramatically, few business professionals know the state-of-the-art techniques for analyzing their data. Now there’s a comprehensive, immensely practical guide to today’s best tools and techniques for answering tough questions and making actionable recommendations.
Business and Competitive Analysis begins with end-to-end guidance on the analysis process, including defining problems, avoiding analytical pitfalls, choosing tools, and communicating results. Next, the authors offer detailed guides on 24 of today’s most valuable analysis models: techniques that have never been brought together in one book before.They offer in-depth, step-by-step guidance for using every technique–along with realistic assessments of strengths, weaknesses, feasibility, and business value.
You are flooded with data. This book will help you transform that data into actionable insights and recommendations that enterprise decision makers cannot and will not ignore. Craig S. Fleisher and Babette E. Bensoussan begin with a practical primer on the process and context of business and competitive analysis: how it works, how to avoid pitfalls, and how to communicate results. Next, they introduce their unique FAROUT method for choosing the right tools for each assignment. The authors then present 24 of today’s most valuable analysis methods.They cover “classic” techniques, such as McKinsey 7S and industry analysis, as well as emerging techniques from multiple disciplines:economics,corporate finance, sociology, anthropology, and the intelligence and futurist communities. For each, they present clear descriptions, background context, strategic rationales, strengths, weaknesses, step-by-step instructions, and references. The result is a book you can rely on to meet any analysis challenge, no matter how complex or novel.
Sell Now!: Adaptive Strategies for Today's Changing Marketplace, by Stacia Skinner, is free in the Kindle store and from Sony.Book DescriptionGet the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.
With the volatile economy, budgets are tight and expectation for increased revenue is higher than ever. Old sales strategies aren’t cutting it in this tough market. Veteran sales trainer Stacia Skinner and Brandon Toporov provide game-changing techniques proven effective for getting and keeping new business and expanding the business in your existing client base.
ETF Trading and Investing Strategies Book DescriptionGet the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.
Breakthrough ETF trading and investing strategies: 3 eBooks packed with techniques for reducing your risks and costs—and supercharging your returns!
Three remarkable eBooks help you use the latest ETF strategies to cut your investing costs, control your risks, and improve your returns! In The ETF Trend Following Playbook, Tom Lydon helps you drive superior performance by combining proven trend following strategies, low-cost ETFs, and fully-proven technical analysis methods. You'll discover how to quickly identify markets that are about to plummet, so you can get out of the way... and how to identify markets that are headed up, so you can capture all of their profits. In Buy—Don't Hold, Leslie Masonson shows how to avoid the massive stock-market drops that destroy "buy and hold" investors, and offers specific, easy-to-use investing strategies for investors with each risk profile: conservative, moderate and aggressive. Finally, in Investing with Exchange Traded Funds Made Easy, Marvin Appel cuts through today's ETF marketing hype, helping you choose the right ETFs from the hundreds now available. Drawing on objective data and proven, backtested strategies, Appel reveals what ETFs can and can't do, and shows exactly how to use them to consistently beat the market.
Marketing Metrics: The Definitive Guide to Measuring Marketing Performance , by Paul W. Farris, Neil T. Bendle, Phillip E. Pfeifer and David J. Reibstein, is a repeat freebie in the Kindle store and from Barnes & Noble, courtesy of Pearson Prentice Hall. Be careful trying to order from the nook (or doing a search on the web), as there are two editions and the one that was free last time (and shows up in searches) is over $25.Book DescriptionGet the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.
Marketing Metrics, Second Edition, is the definitive guide to today’s most valuable marketing metrics. In this thoroughly updated and significantly expanded book, four leading marketing researchers show exactly how to choose the right metrics for every challenge.
The authors show how to use marketing dashboards to view market dynamics from multiple perspectives, maximize accuracy, and “triangulate” to optimal solutions. You’ll discover high-value metrics for virtually every facet of marketing: promotional strategy, advertising, and distribution; customer perceptions; market share; competitors’ power; margins and pricing; products and portfolios; customer profitability; sales forces and channels; and more.
This edition introduces essential new metrics ranging from Net Promoter to social media and brand equity measurement. Last, but not least, it shows how to build comprehensive models to support planning--and optimize every marketing decision you make.
You’ll find practical, up-to-the-minute techniques for measuring everything from brand equity to social media, market share to web engagement. For every metric, the authors present real-world pros, cons, and tradeoffs--and help you understand what the numbers really mean. You’ll learn how to design and interpret marketing dashboards to identify emerging opportunities and risks and use powerful new modeling techniques to optimize every decision you make. In this second edition the authors expand their treatment of social marketing, web metrics, and brand equity. They also give readers new systems for organizing marketing metrics into models and dashboards that translate numbers into management insight.
Disrupt: Think the Unthinkable to Spark Transformation in Your Business, by Luke Williams, is repeat freebie in the Kindle store and from Barnes & Noble, courtesy of FT Press.Book DescriptionGet the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.
In a business world of nonstop change, there's only one way to win the game: Transform it entirely. This requires a revolution in thinking--a steady stream of disruptive strategies and unexpected solutions. In Disrupt, Luke Williams shows exactly how to generate those strategies and deliver those solutions.
This book reflects Williams' immense experience creating breakthrough solutions at frog design, one of the world's leading innovation firms. Williams shows how to combine fluid creativity with analytical rigor in a simple, complete, five-stage process for successfully disrupting any market.
You'll learn why the most unexpected ideas draw the least competitors--and offer the greatest potential. Then, using many examples and a case study, you'll walk through every step of transforming disruptive ideas from conception to breakthrough business strategy.
Buy and Hedge: The 5 Iron Rules for Investing Over the Long Term, by Jay Pestrichelli and Wayne Ferbert, is free in the Kindle store and from Barnes & Noble.Book DescriptionGet the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.
If you're trying to build wealth, sharp market downturns are your worst enemy. And nowadays, they're happening far more often: in the last 18 years, the S&P 500 has experienced sixteen violent declines. Institutions and professional investors have mastered powerful hedging techniques for dramatically reducing the risks of market volatility. Now, you can do it, too--and you can't afford not to. In Buy and Hedge, two leading investment experts show how to apply hedging as part of a long-term program for growing and preserving your assets. CNBC Fast Money guest Jay Pestrichelli and seasoned financial industry veteran Wayne Ferbert show how to systematically protect yourself against violent downward moves while giving your portfolio maximum room to run in upward markets. The authors' techniques are easy to use, can be applied to most investment vehicles, and--once implemented--require surprisingly little "care and feeding." You'll discover how to take advantage of the hedge-building mechanisms built into low-cost index funds… invest in your ideas with confidence, because you've hedged the downside… systematically manage portfolios for risk as well as return… master and apply the "5 Iron Rules of Buy & Hedge"… use options to manage risk, not to create excess leverage… generate more dividends… effectively manage cash… and much more!
Split-Second Negotiation: Winning Maneuvers for the Digital Age, by Angelique Pinet, is free in the Kindle store and from Barnes & Noble.Book DescriptionGet the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.
The days of coming to terms over endless meetings and martinis are over. Now it's a brave new hi-tech negotiating world--where big deals go down in lightning-fast text exchanges and a misplaced acronym can cost you your contract--and your career.
But with Split-Second Negotiation, you learn how to use technology to help you win the deal--every time. From exploiting online resources and leveraging social media to adapting classic negotiation strategies to the new paradigm, you'll find everything you need to anticipate your adversaries' moves, outwit them at every turn, and resolve every impasse to your advantage. Split-Second Negotiation: Because it's not enough to win. You have to win now. The days of coming to terms over endless meetings and martinis are over. Now it's a brave new hi-tech negotiating world--where big deals go down in lightning-fast text exchanges and a misplaced acronym can cost you your contract--and your career. But with Split-Second Negotiation, you learn how to use technology to help you win the deal--every time. From exploiting online resources and leveraging social media to adapting classic negotiation strategies to the new paradigm, you'll find everything you need to anticipate your adversaries' moves, outwit them at every turn, and resolve every impasse to your advantage. Split-Second Negotiation: Because it's not enough to win. You have to win now.
Essential Rules from Richard Templar ($19.24 Kindle), by Richard Templar, is free from Barnes & Noble.Book DescriptionGet the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.
Discover the simple, easy-to-follow rules that can supercharge your career, optimize your management effectiveness, and transform your life!
In three remarkable eBooks, international best-selling author Richard Templar shares a complete, 100% practical “code” for personal success in management, work, and life! The Rules of Management, Expanded Edition covers everything from setting realistic targets to holding effective meetings; finding the right people to inspiring loyalty. You’ll learn when and how to let your people think they know more than you (even if they don't) – and recognize when they really do. Next, in The Rules of Work, Expanded Edition, Templar reveals the “secrets” of people who seem naturally great at their job: those rare individuals who always seem to say and do the right thing, get raises, get promoted – without compromising their principles, or even seeming to break a sweat. Finally, in The Rules of Life, Expanded Edition, Templar uncovers yet another vital set of secrets: the learnable attitudes and easy-to-use techniques that make some people more contented, more fulfilled, more enthusiastic about life. These are the simple, common-sense, easy-to-follow rules that happy, successful people follow: the rules that can change your life!
Deliver!: How to Be Fast, Flawless, and Frugal (Main/UK), by Jim Champy (FT Press), is a repeat freebie for UK Kindle customers and likely to be free for US customers by morning.Book DescriptionGet the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.
Jim Champy revolutionized business with Reengineering the Corporation. Now, in Deliver!, the third book in a series about what's new and really works in business, he shows how to leverage the rich treasure of potential competitive advantage that's hiding in plain view: your operations. Deliver! presents five original, chapter-length case studies of organizations performing at levels that were once viewed as impossible. They range from Campbell's Soup to the US Navy. Their offerings range from industrial tools to premium California wine. What do they share in common? Their success hasn't been grounded in breakthrough strategy: it's built on goals, discipline, details… the grittiness of everyday execution. In an era of highly constrained resources, these organizations offer you the most realistic path to sustainable success: Increase operational efficiency. Drive real savings. And use those savings not merely to maintain your competitive position, but to drive it forward.
The Art of Asking: Ask Better Questions, Get Better Answers, by Terry J. Fadem, is a repeat freebie on Kindle, courtesy of FT Press.
Winners Never Cheat: Even in Difficult Times, New and Expanded Edition, by Jon M. Huntsman, is a repeat freebie on Kindle and from Barnes & Noble, courtesy of Pearson Prentice Hall.Book DescriptionGet the free ebook from Barnes & Noble.
“Everyone does it.” Everyone cheats. Cuts corners. Tells lies. Maybe it was different once. Not today. If you want to succeed in this economic climate, you simply have to make compromises. Right?
Wrong. You can succeed at the highest levels, without sacrificing the principles that make life worth living. The proof? You’re holding it.
Jon M. Huntsman built a $12 billion company from scratch, the old-fashioned way: with integrity. There were short-term costs and difficult decisions. There were tough times. Times just like today. But ultimately, leading with integrity wasn’t just personally right for Huntsman, it also proved to be the best business strategy.
In Winners Never Cheat, Huntsman tells you how he did it, and how you can, too. This book is about remembering why you work, and why you were chosen to lead. It’s about finding the bravery to act on what you know is right, no matter what you’re up against.
It’s about winning. The right way.
Think about the kind of person you want to do business with. Then, be that person--and use this book to get you there.
Five Minutes on Mondays: Finding Unexpected Purpose, Peace, and Fulfillment at Work (US/UK), by Alan Lurie, is a repeat freebie the Kindle store. So far, it is free for for UK customers only, but I expect it to be free for US customers and from Barnes & Noble sometime tomorrow morning.Book Description
Imagine the leaders of one of New York City’s top real-estate firms coming together every Monday morning to hear…the moral and spiritual thoughts of a Rabbi.
Imagine them returning, week after week…coming to eagerly anticipate those five minutes as a moment of uncommon peace in the world’s most brutally competitive environment.
Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall? To hear the paths Alan Lurie traced for his listeners, how he helped them bring together their spiritual and business lives, the sacred and the profane? Five Minutes on Mondays compiles these talks for the first time, sharing Lurie’s deep and profound inspiration on the challenges we all face—at work, and in life.
Lurie draws on millennia of philosophy, theology, and science to help us answer our deepest questions, comfort our deepest yearnings, and become better people—more connected to each other, and to the Greater Purpose.
The Rules of Management, Expanded Edition: A Definitive Code for Managerial Success (US/UK), by Richard Templar, is a repeat freebie the Kindle store. So far, it is free for for UK customers only, but I expect it to be free for US customers and from Barnes & Noble sometime tomorrow morning.Book Description
You're a manager. You're expected to be a leader, innovator, magician, dynamic motivator, stern but fair judge, diplomat, politician, therapist, financial wizard, warrior, and saint. For some people, it's a breeze. What do they know that everyone else doesn't? The rules of management: rules for managing your team and managing yourself. Now, Richard Templar's brought them all together in this expanded edition.