Title: The Busy Adult’s Guide to Making College Happen!
Author: Geoffrey Schmidt
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Break Free Publishing, LLC
Pages: 160
ISBN: 978-0-97908699-0-7
Price: $14.95
Publishing Date: 2008
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
This excellent how-to fills an important need in today’s society. Not every worker has a college degree. To get one requires a person to become a “nontraditional” student. Whether one needs a few hours to complete a degree or the whole nine yards, it is possible to do so. How do I know? Because I had to complete my last college semester in night school while I was stationed with the Army in Washington DC and I did my Masters in Business on the weekends while I was stationed at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. My son also did almost all his requirements for a degree in business IT at night and on the weekends.
This is a book we would have found very helpful. We would not have had to learn the time and life management skills the hard way, if we had used this guide. It teaches why you should seek to complete a degree and how to prioritize your time and goals. It encourages you to attain your goals. Most importantly, it tells you what to expect if you go down this path. This book is for all who have not attained sufficient education and who wants to while still fulfilling workday and family responsibilities. We rated it five hearts.
Title: The Tipping Point
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Back Bay Books
Publisher Website: www.hachettebookgroupusa.com
Pages: 303
ISBN: 9780316346627
Price: $14.95
Publishing Date: 2002
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
Within the past year, I have reviewed two very important trend books—Mind Set by John Naisbitt and Micro Trends by Mark J. Penn with E. Kinney Zalesne. Although this book, The Tipping Point, is a slightly older book, it really makes sense of the other two. If you understand the driving forces of major or mega trends and you understand the importance of how and why micro trends can quickly cross over into the mega area, you will still need the knowledge of how to work with them and even manipulate them. The Tipping Point focuses on how to help a micro trend become huge and how to carefully ride that wave to marketing success. This is absolutely critical in the fast-paced environment of the world wide web.
The Tipping Point explains how viral marketing is like unto epidemics. The spread of information works very similarly to the spread of disease. The book explains this phenomenon as “The Law of the Few.” There are three types of people who create marketing epidemics, playing important roles in making a sweeping trend from out of a small movement:
•
Connectors—people who network constantly and create informal information structures. The book emphasizes the phenomenon of six degrees of connectivity where most everyone can connect with anyone else within six levels of connections. If this can happen through normal society connectivity, think what someone could do who purposely goes about forming connection links while considering also the functions of the people they are connecting to.
•Mavens—people who are highly respected as subject matter experts and are listened to as opinion leaders. These are knowledge brokers who get a kick out of helping others find the best food, the best route, the best bargains, and so on; however, they are generally not persuaders. “Here’s what I know; take it or leave it.”
•Salesmen—people who urge others to climb on board the new movement’s bandwagon. These are the persuaders and are generally the guys who tip a small trend into a major movement.
Finally, the message or concept must have “stickiness,” the power to hold someone’s attention, and it must make sense in its context.
The book goes into how find and identify the few people who can make a movement really happen and how to analyze its message and context. When you couple the other two books with this one, you have a blueprint for market direction, creativity, and hints as to how to find and use those who can make a successful campaign happen. We rated The Tipping Point five hearts because of its absolutely critical information and how it makes sense of anticipating where societies are headed.
Title: Red Hot Internet Publicity: An Insider’s Guide to Marketing Your Book on the Internet
Author: Penny C. Sansevieri
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Morgan James Publishing
Publisher Website: www.morganjamespublishing.com
Pages: 220
ISBN: 9781600370939
Price: $18.95
Publishing Date: 2007
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
There are a number of business books explaining the intricacies of marketing on the internet. This is one of the most practical ones available. In anticipation of putting up a catalog of books for reluctant and gifted readers onto the web in the near futures, I began in January of this year making an intense self-education process on this very subject. This is why I scored “Red Hot Internet Publicity” the maximum 100 points which equates to five hearts (it takes at least 65 points to score that five hearts).Here are some of the subjects covered by this author:
•The secret to getting thousands of hits on your website and then converting them into sales
•Top Internet promotion techniques that won’t cost you a dime
•How you can take a book “tour” without stepping outside your home
•The tricks to networking effectively on the Net
•How to get print media from your Internet campaign
•How to expand your professional platform to sell more books
•How to create a campaign that will last for months, not days
•Automating your marketing and much, much more
If you plan to market a book over the web, this is an absolutely necessary reference to have, read, and use.
Title: Micro Trends
Author: Mark J. Penn with E. Kinney Zalesne
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Twelve—Hatchette Book Group USA
Publisher Website: www.twelvebooks.com
Pages: 426
ISBN: 978-0-446-58096-0
Price: $25.99
Publishing Date: 2007
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
Micro Trends may be far more important than books such as Megatrends. As a book reviewer, I’m always on the lookout for business books that help us understand the directions in which society is moving and the effects they will have on businesses. Micro Trends is one such book. Mega trends are fairly easy to spot and understand; however, this book addresses small niches that may play pivotal roles in society.
With today’s internet and media technology, it has become much more cost effective to satisfy the needs of small niches. The term for this approach is “Long Tail Marketing.”
Imagine a bell curve that is skewed slightly to the left. The highest, largest part of the curve represents the easy to recognize and spot megatrend niches. Just to the right of the curve’s “bell” of megatrends is a “long tail” of many small niches. Previously, these markets were difficult to address and hardly worth the effort, in terms of potential payoffs. This is no longer the case for two reasons:
1.Marketing economies and technology make smaller segments more profitable to go after
2.Small niches sometimes have the potential of acting like “tipping points.”
Although a small group may not seem to have much power, they just might make enough noise about their interests to cause their niche to suddenly become a megatrend. That is why this book is so important. It gives advanced knowledge of 75 microtrends spread over 15 categories, which include:
•Love, Sex, and Relationships
•Work Life
•Race and Religion
•Health and Wellness
•Family Life
•Politics
•Teens
•Food, Drink, and Diet
•Lifestyle
•Money and Class
•Looks and Fashion
•Technology
•Leisure and Entertainment
•Education
•International
Think how important it might be to know that there is an increasing number of older new-dads who spend more time with their children. What political impact will illegal immigrants have on the next Presidential election? America has the highest percentage of convicts. What will their impact be on society when they’ve done their time? What impacts on fashion and the workplace will the increasing number of women who are getting tattoos? How will the pervasive pornographic invasion impact on families and societal norms? Why are more and more real estate properties being bought by foreigners and what does it mean to our real estate markets? Why are petite women suddenly becoming a power to reckon with?
All these topics and many more are addressed in this interesting study.
Penn, the primary author, is well-qualified to discuss this topic. As a staffer in the Clinton Whitehouse, he was the first person to recognize and name the Soccer Mom market/political segment. He went on to identify several other critical areas of interest. If you want your business to take advantage of small markets that have the potential of exploding into huge profit centers, you must read this book. We rated it five hearts.
Title: The Mormon Way of Doing Business: Leadership and Success Through Faith and Family
Author: Jeff Benedict
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Warner Business Books
Pages: 231
ISBN: 978-0-446-57859-2
Price: $25.99
Publishing Date: 2007
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
This is undoubtedly the finest book on business ethics and priorities, family values, and spiritual inclusion that I have ever read. It is not a proselytizing attempt but a detailed explanation of how Mormon culture affects the way highly successful Mormon business leaders live their lives and run their businesses. Mormonism is far more than a religion; it’s a way of life, which is why this in-depth view of Mormon culture is so meaningful.
The book was written because of a request by Warner Business Books vice president and executive editor Rick Wolff, who is not Mormon. He had been amazed to learn how many of our major companies now have Mormon’s at their helms and wanted the author, a highly successful Mormon journalist, to explain why. The book examines in great detail how the following people were able to run mega corporations while at the same time having the ability to spend quality time with their families and fill highly responsible leadership positions in their Church:
•Ex-Harvard Business School Dean Kim Clark
•JetBlue Founder and CEO David Neeleman
•Former Madison Square Garden CEO Dave Checketts
•CEO of Dell Kevin Rollins, CEO of Deloitte & Touche Jim Quigley
•American Express CFO Gary Crittenden
•Founder and former CEO of LifeRe Corporation (world’s largest re-insuring company) Rod Hawes
•Harvard Business School professor and consultant Clayton Christensen
As one should expect, these men put in a lot of hours on the job, but not as many as other CEOs might at work. Each one sets aside time to spend with their families and all spend as many as twenty hours a week at Church leadership duties. An oft quoted Mormon observation is no amount of worldly success can make up for failure in one’s home. Mormons believe their families can be forever into eternity and act accordingly. They don’t have a built in divorce clause, “until death do us part.” The Mormon Church is a Lay church. This means there is no professional, paid ministry. All positions of responsibility are filled by ordinary people who voluntarily sacrifice their time and talents in order to accomplish their tasks. Each one of the above businessmen has been a Bishop in charge of a Ward (usually about 500 members) and/or a Stake President in charge of eight to ten Wards (4,000 to 5,000 Church members). Another experience they held in common was a self-funded two-year mission when they were nineteen. Many of them had to become fluent in a foreign language and live in other countries during their proselytizing missions. All but one came from farm or small, Western town backgrounds.
Some of the common values they practice are:
•Their word is their bond
•Practicing exemplary living habits
•Tithing ten percent of their gross earnings to their Church
•Excellent time management
•Working with their corporate employees, not over them
•Being willing to walk away from their careers when asked to work full time for their Church
One other aspect they all held in common was the fact they could not do all of these things without their wives’ willingness and abilities to become the glue of their families, holding all together in common cause.
Many of the author’s findings are startling, but they:
1.Make sense and
2.They work
We rated this enlightening book five hearts.
Title: Quantitative Trading Systems
Author: Howard B. Bandy
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Blue Owl Press, Inc.
Pages: 368
ISBN: 9780979183805
Price: $49.95
Publishing Date: April 2007
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 4 hearts
This is the ultimate manual on technical trading of stocks. Written by an expert with both university and real world experience in math, physics, engineering, and computer science, this book focuses on the quantitative tools available to those who have the expertise and experience to use them. It is not for the hobbyist who may not have the education or experience to understand all its content. One really does need higher math familiarity.
An important aspect of the book is the author’s explanation of trading software and how to couple his scientific/mathematical approach to it. We ranked this valuable tool four hearts.
Title: Advanced Email Marketing
Author: Jim Sterne
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Lyris Technologies, Inc.
Pages: 128
ISBN: 0-9744393-0-4
Price: 19.95
Publishing Date: 203
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 3 hearts
This unique how to book on email marketing is unusual in that it uses a fictional setting to teach its advanced email marketing concepts. A new email marketing employee is hired to turn around a failing bicycle manufacturing company. Ideally suited for a medium to large sized company, the story addresses the following concepts:
•Email in the Organizational Food Chain
•Setting and Aligning Goals
•The Medium Helps Determine the Message
•Driving Traffic—Online and Off
•Email: Crystal Ball for Sales
•Linking Online Promotions to Repeat Sales
•Capturing Interest and measuring Perceived Value
•Driving Interest, Driving Sales
•Closing the Feedback Loop
•Conclusion
It is a very quantoid, numbers oriented book. Those marketers who are incorporating email as a channel will quickly learn that it is also a rapid turn-around marketing survey instrument. We rated it three hearts.
Title: A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers will Rule the Future
Author: Daniel H. Pink
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Riverhead Books
Pages: 276
ISBN: 1-59448-171-7
Price: $15.00
Publishing Date: 2006
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
Every now and then someone comes along with the ability to define the present and the evolving future in regard to America’s and the World’s societal directions. Dan Pink, an ex-Al Gore speech writer, is one such guru as he demonstrates in this superb business book. I also heard him speak at a luncheon in Portland, Oregon for the American Booksellers Association’s Winter Institute. He emphasizes that anything that can be done as a routine, such as computer programming or accounting will be outsourced overseas. He points out the three main aspects to world business developments are:
Abundance: the incredible amount of stuff available to be bought.
Asia: the huge developing middle class in India and China especially.
Automation: the enormous amount of things that are being automated and outsourced.
Because of these three aspects, our knowledge workers such as lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers, and even executives who have relied on their logical, sequential left brains are finding their jobs becoming obsolete because of automation. Just ask your accountant what the impact of the software TurboTax® has had on his business. A law degree or an MBA are no longer sure paths to success. Pink claims that the MFA, Master of Fine Arts, is replacing the MBA. The right hemisphere of the brain, which is the non-sequential, creative engine of the mind will now be ruling the business world. We have evolved from the agricultural revolution, to the industrial, to the information, to the conceptual age, made up of creators and empathizers. Pink proffers six skills which will be required of those who will thrive going in this new direction:
Design — it’s not enough for a product to function, it must also look good.
Storytelling — rather than argument must be used to make your point, allowing emotions and wonder to have a greater impact than logic. We already see this in the spin doctors.
Symphony — focus and specialization is not enough. One needs the skills to pull it all together —generalists over specialists.
Empathy — logic is not enough. People will need to understand what makes other people tick, to forge relationships, and to care for others.
Play — a good sense of humor and the ability to have fun will be essential.
Meaning — as in the meaning of life. People are looking for spirituality everywhere. People must find that for themselves and respect it in others and the ways they choose.
Everything this author says is backed up with solid research and his book and speeches are filled with easy to understand examples. We rated this book our max five hearts.
Title: Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers
Author: Shel Horowitz
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: AWM Books
Pages: 276
ISBN: 978-0-9614666-3-4
Price: $24.95
Publishing Date: March 2007
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 4 hearts
Shel Horowitz is a generous, highly experienced marketer of books and general items. Known for his focus on ethical marketing, the author has put together an essential reference book for the independent press and self-publishing industry. With over 170,000 new books being published a year, it has become extraordinarily difficult to get seen among the crowd of other books and publishers. Shel’s book gives practical guerrilla marketing ideas and procedures that give the little guy at least a chance of getting seen and bought in the market place.
He provides strategies and examples of how these strategies can be executed. He covers all the marketing aspects of book selling and explains how and why the industry works as it does. If you are thinking of writing a book; if you have even been fortunate enough to have been accepted by a major publishing house, you will find all the marketing aspects you will be expected to use to maximize book sales. We rated this book a high four hearts.
Title: CyberSelling
Author: Russ Lombardo
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Peak Sales Consulting
Pages: 375
ISBN: 0-9728263-2-7
Price: $24.95
Publishing Date: Dec 2006
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 4 hearts
This is an excellent advanced book for the sales professional. Fairly technical, it explains how to use three important aspects of the sales arena. The author is a highly experienced salesman, sales manager, trainer, and consultant who has his own radio show on salesmanship. The book explains how to join a sales process with sales skills and support them with customer relations management software to effectively use the most modern sales tools available to sales management and their teams. This is a must have for businesses and business schools. We rated it a high four hearts.
Title: Mind Set!: Reset Your Thinking and See the Future
Author: John Naisbitt
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Harper Collins
Publisher Website: www.harpercollins.com
Pages: 272
ISBN: 0-06-113688-3
Price: $24.95
Publishing Date: Oct 2006
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
John Naisbitt has been acknowledged as one of the top futurists in the world ever since his blockbuster book of the 1980s, MegaTrends came out. John’s staff keeps track of newspaper articles from around the world to determine emerging trends they see at the grassroots level. Now working out of Austria, John and his firm continue on with their trend evaluations. However, he builds on the directions in which the world is headed and develops a framework of mindsets around which people and businesses need to embrace to get ahead now and in the future.
He addresses eleven new mindsets:
1.Most things remain constant
2.The future is embedded in the present
3.Focus on the score of the game
4.Understand how powerful it is not to have to be right
5.See the future as a picture puzzle
6.Don’t get so far ahead of the parade that they don’t know you are in it
7.Resistance for changes falls for benefits
8.Things that we expect to happen always happen more slowly
9.You don’t get results by solving problems, but by exploiting opportunities
10.Don’t add unless you subtract
11.Consider the ecology of technology
There are also five bonus areas to consider:
1.Culture: A visual culture is taking over the world
2.Economics: From nation-states to economic domains
3.China: Will the dragon devour us, or will it be the dragon we ride
4.Europe: Metamorphosis to history theme park
5.Our Evolutionary Era: No next big thing
Although the above topical areas may seem cryptic at best, Naisbitt provides excellent analysis, interpretations, and examples to make sense of it all. When my wife and I read this book in turn, we ended up underlining two thirds of the sentences. If you are interested in what the future holds and where you might fit into it, you must have this book. We rated it five hearts of five.
Title: No Yelling
Author: Wally Adamchik
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Fire Starter Speaking and Consulting
Pages: 197
ISBN: 0-9779005-0-9
Price: $24.95
Publishing Date: 2006
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
If you have management and leadership responsibilities, no matter how simple or complex, you’re going to love this book. The author translates nine Marine leadership principles into the civilian workplace. He discusses: integrity, technical competence, setting the example, self-awareness, taking care of people, making new leaders, the boss’s intent, culture and values, and rehearsals and critiques. He provides examples in both the military and civilian on the job examples of how each principle should work. The material is taken from people who are currently responsible for management in both major corporations and small businesses but have been Marine leaders.
The book is easy to understand and extremely practical. If the reader has never been in the military, it doesn’t matter because the language and incidents are plain and easy to understand. If the reader has military experience, the book is full of ah ha moments for those who have been there. It is based on over 100 interviews with current and former Marines now serving in the private sector. It will help the reader discover how to: energize a workforce; reduce turnover; successfully delegate; set higher personal and job standards; and increase production. We ranked this excellent practical guide five hearts.
Title: The Honda Myth: The Genius and his Wake
Author: Masaaki Sato
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Vertical, Inc.
Pages: 208
ISBN: 1-932234-26-8
Price: $
Publishing Date: 2006
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 3 hearts
This history and commentary on the great Japanese automobile and motorcycle giant, Honda, makes for an interesting MBA case study on the industry. Although the corporate development information is important, what is absolutely paramount is the Japanese cultural information that Americans will find both interesting and useful. The corporate loyalties stretch far beyond retirement and must be taken into consideration as much as current operations. Japanese businesses take care of their own. The scope of this concept is startling when compared to American businesses who throw their senior executives out in the cold, unless they were wise enough to insist on a golden parachute before accepting their positions.
Although a little unfocused and confusing in terms of time lines, that can be explained by the Japanese custom of talking around subjects, rather than coming directly to the point as we do in America. In a way, this is the value of what the publisher, Vertical, Inc. provides when they give direct translations—they show us a window directly into the Japanese mind. We rated this book three hearts.
Title: The Secret Life of the Corporate Jester
Author: David T. Riveness
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Jardin Publishing
Pages: 112
ISBN: 0-9776856-0-8
Price: $12.95
Publishing Date: Aug 2006
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 4 hearts
Too many corporate bosses are surrounded by sycophantic yes men and women, who are not doing their organization any favors by saying the things their bosses want to hear. The corporate jester’s role is to carefully and wisely be the voice of reality and reason by pointing out blind spots in the boss’s thinking. This is not a role for the faint of heart; however, it may position one for higher realms of management.
The author has produced a helpful management how-to that gives many practical suggestions on how to influence corporate organizational improvement. He has translated a role from feudal pasts into a useful tool for organizational effectiveness. We rated his book four hearts.
Title: You Can’t Do It Alone: Building Relationships for Career Success
Author: Amy Glass & Marjorie Brody
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Brody Communications Ltd.
Pages: 118
ISBN: 1-931148-12-0
Price: $14.95
Publishing Date: 2006
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 4 hearts
This book teaches you how to play in the sandbox at work. It is the quintessential book on social relations and networking to further one’s career. It covers the essential knowledge and includes a fill-in-the-blanks action plan to better one’s career relationships. We rated it four hearts.
Title: The Ultimate Guide to Electronic Marketing for Small Business
Author: Tom Antion
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Wiley
Pages: 294
ISBN: 0-471-71870-X
Price: $19.95
Publishing Date: 2005
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating:
WARNING! This book assumes a certain level of technical expertise, but lets face it, if you are contemplating using electronic marketing, you need to have some technical expertise. In as simple a language as is possible, considering the subject, the author leads the reader through the entire gamut of marketing possibilities using the technology of the internet and emails. Although the subject area may seem daunting to some, the author makes it as understandable as it’s likely to get. This book is a valuable resource and contains much in the way of modern knowledge as well as recommended resources. We believe it should be a must read for those thinking of competing in business in today’s global and technological environments. We rated it five hearts for how well it communicates a complex and important subject.
