Profit The Books

It's a pleasure reading a book that uses everyday language and minimizes the use of trendy buzz-words. The seven chapters are divided logically and go from the general to the specific. This allows the reader to capture the essence of the message without reading long passages before getting to a point. The reader can visualize his own job shop and pick and choose which solutions are pertinent.

Mr. Bozzone's experience and knowledge are evident throughout the book. His viewpoint brings a dimension and a dynamic quality which allows the reader to benefit from the many "real-life" examples peppered throughout the pages. The many models and illustrations help the reader understand the concepts and operational strategies that improve job shop performance.

From a training perspective, Speed to Market provides a sound basis for developing programs that would help people at all levels to understand the intricacies of managing a job shop. The book is an excellent tool for constructing a curriculum that would benefit experienced managers who need to re-think their current situation, as well as people who are new to the job shop environment.

It is clear that owner-operators and managers of job shops would be well served by having their people understand and use the concepts and information presented in this book.

Speed to Market is a "must-read". Speed to Market is an "easy read". Speed to Market should be on your bookshelf! Speed to Market should be on your bookshelf!

Review by Richard B. Mroczek Infoactive Training Group, Montreal, Canada

Speed to Market by Vincent Bozzone is one of those books that is dumbfounding in its practicality. It makes you wonder why more how-to books aren't written this way.

Speed to Market is a refreshing and unique book on "how to cut lead time and increase profits in job shops and custom manufacturing environments." Not only is this one of the few books available on this heretofore ignored topic, it is written as a step-by-step manual for designing and running a profitable job shop, incorporating detailed structure and process elements as they relate to the bottom-line. Actual client studies help make this book even more pragmatic.

Once you read this book, you realize that Vince Bozzone really is a rare expert in job shops and process improvement design.

Review by Kathy Molloy for the Designer's Forum, AMOD Newsletter

This hilarious parody manages to lampoon just about every aspect of both the original series and "The Next Generation." It all starts with wordplay on the names of the major characters in both series. They are

*) Captains Ricardo and Smirk
*) Smock, Dr. McCaw, Mr. Snot, Checkout and YooHoo.
*) Piker, Dr. Flusher, Dacron, Deanna (Dee) Troit, Wart, Guano, Westerly, Mr. O'Brine, Georgie LaForgery and Guano.

Add in additional names such as Admiral Nonsequitur, Star Freak U. S. S. Endocrine and ten foreplay and the structure is complete.
The plotline is that Star Freak is broke and layoffs are necessary. They are generally random, leaving Captain Ricardo in command of the ship still commissioned with a crew selected from the crews of both series and Captain Smirk in command of one that has fallen victim to the budget knife and crewed by the leavings. They are both searching for the Fountain of Youth, the plan being that if Star Freak can find it and market the water, they will solve their budget problems.
The best section of the book is by far the first two paragraphs of page 62.

"But what a radical notion they're proposing - that the frakesonian spineroscopy technique can be fragmented across the sirtis and mcfadden modes."
Smock coughed, caught his breath, then coughed again. "But that must be considered - ", he broke off as another deep cough shook his chest and then subsided - "in light of the burton-wave theory, given the inevitable inaccuracies of the dornscope and he stewartometer in detecting goldberg variations."

The actual last name of all the major characters in "The Next Generation" are used in these two paragraphs. If you enjoy heavy, nonsensical parody based on wordplay and absurdity, you will like this book.

For all "Star Trek" fans this book is a MUST! This is the first "Star Wreck" book I read and I was hooked! It's hilarious! In this volume, Starfreak have decided to keep only one Endrocrine crew, and so various members of staff are laid off, inlcuding Captain Smirk, who is not too happy about Ricardo getting the job. Guido becomes first officer while Piker becomes the doctor - it can only spell disaster! Meanwhile, on the other ship, Georgie LaForgerie and the rest of the "Have-nots" have decided to try and find the Fountain of Eternal Youth before the "Haves" get there, so that they will get their jobs back. It's brilliant, you have to read it!

Recommended reading for any Director or CEO of a non-profit organization

A comprehensive-easy to understand and implement-140 page, 8 Step "HOW TO" professional recruiting model developed by the 2 leading executive search consultants in non-profit Board Chair and CEO recruitment.

We all know, intuitively and intellectually, that planning is the catalyst to excellence in every endeavor. Greg Bustin, with his well-crafted insights, provides the tools to leverage the planning process - through meaningful interaction, collaboration and thought-provoking tools - into measurable results.

Greg Bustin GETS IT. I voraciously read most books in this genre. This one is very well thought out and presented. Obviously written from decades of personal experience in a leadership role, not just more Armchair QB Theory. One of the best I've picked up. Very truthful, and results driven.
On Amazon.com buying the book for my clients today.

Murphy has hit another homerun with Talent IQ. I have used his Leadership IQ for years, Talent IQ now redefines the leadership challenges for the 21st Century. Dr. Murphy provides actions that a leader at any level can perform that will address the critical issue of maintaining your talent in a shrinking pool of capable persons. Employees will be able to move easily and will be highly sought after assets. The ability to maintain and cultivate talent will be one of the key leadership challenges. This is a must read book.

Want to learn about the significance of superior talent management on your organization, your life, and society as a whole? Want to learn it from someone who combines passionate curiosity, historical perspective, deep insight, organizational sensitivity, real brains and a big heart? Then read this book. It has MASTERY stamped all over it. It will make you smarter. This is almost as good as having Emmett Murphy in person!

Allan Cox

Ever wonder how a company can spend something close to the national budget of Belize developing and bringing a product to market, only for us the consumer; after purchasing it and using it, to discover it's a piece of junk.

I myself have a drawer full of track balls, mice, ergonomic and semi-ergonomic keyboards, and other such devices that were each, at one time in someone's mind, or group of minds, going to be the product that revolutionized an industry. They were cleverly designed, packaged and hyped; shrunk wrapped, bubble packed, bundled, and ballyhooed. Yet they all sank to the bottom of the new product ocean faster then an armor plated Edsil.

Or worse yet, maybe you have been a development team member or even a project manager responsible for bringing a new product to market, only to find that once in the marketplace the product developed all the interest and had the life cycle of a fruit fly. You, if lucky enough to have kept your job, could not show your face at the water cooler again.

In Time-to Profit Mr. Fern posits that it is not just getting an idea to market; but rather, it is the perfection, and proper management of all the activities that are a new product that make an idea work, and thus a profitable product. In Time-to-Profit, he gives us a set of tools based on his trademarked Ten-P Paradigm, ™ that while not guaranteeing success, can go a long way to eliminating failures.

While reading Time-to-Profit I found it easy to visualize the Ten-P Paradigm™ and its sources of value being used as a powerful overlay template for a product development project. This overlay would allow the project manager and members of the project team to sharpen the fuzzy edges generated as a new product morphs from a creative concept to a finished good or service. I visualized the Ten-P Paradigm™ doing this by means of helping identify and compartmentalize all activities that are the new product. In turn, this compartmentalization would help focus the development team away from several common emotional issues I have found hamper new product development. For example: The personality of a strong project champion; or the highly leveraged political power of a marketing division; or even the fact that the new product concept was developed by the boss's son or daughter who was interning on their fifteenth summer vacation from the local two year community college. Instead, the Time-to-Profit approach would, I believe, tend to keep the team focused on the product development process and its perfection.

Additional tools are provided in the Time-to-Profit methodology that matrix with the Ten-P Paradigm™, and serve to extract all the power that its sources of value have to offer. In particular the stage, phase, and gate methodology is very strong. By segmenting the product development into four stages: Incubation, elaboration, adaptation and contention, then breaking each stage into phases, the Ten-P Paradigm sources of value are juxtaposed in an X Y axis against them. This is far too complex to review here, but thankfully Mr. Fern has the ability to think visually and presents very clear and simple to understand charts, along with a concise narrative that makes understanding the logical concept simple.

Also, as one doing work with start up and turnaround ventures, I have been required to developed countless Gantt charts and PERT networks. I found the Design Structure Matrix for information dependencies covered in chapter five very valuable as an approach to identify the dependencies and interdependencies required to start developing those type documents.

Specifically, it is not just the charts, methodologies, or Ten-P Paradigm by themselves that I found as the real strength of this book. It is the integration of all these plus other elements taken from organizational behavior and system learning, into a tight system that gives Time-to-Profit its punch.

In general, I especially liked the "Real World" examples and analysis of some famous product successes and failures used to substantiate the need for the Time-to-Profit Ten-P Paradigm™ approach. I also enjoyed Mr. Fern's clear and non-superfluous writing style, a refreshing change from some other authors in the business category. Additionally, the appendices and bibliographies will keep you reevaluating, researching, and web surfing for quite some time.

In conclusion, I can recommend Time-to-Profit to not only project managers, team members and new product developers, but also to anyone who may have even a subsidiary involvement or stake in bringing new products through their development cycle. This includes CEO's Finance people, Engineers, and Production Managers. Time-to-Profit provides a comprehensive and tightly packaged toolkit. It is certainly a set of tools worth checking out.

Time-to-Profit Project Management: A Primer for Project Managers in Commercial Product Development

Reviewed by David S. Jacob, Principal, Doren Associates, President PMI-Orange County Chapter

To borrow a thought from the CEO of Microsoft soon-to-be published latest book, Bill Gates' New Rules, "If the 1980s were about quality and the 1990s were about re-engineering, then the 2000s will be about velocity." - then Edward Fern's new book, "Time-to-Profit Project Management", is a "must-read" for project managers who aspire to lead and rapidly deliver successful product development projects in the next millennium.

Mr. Fern has placed a new perspective on the word "profit", by infusing it with a non-traditional meaning. As he points out, "profit is the total benefit that a company receives from its customers in exchange for the value it delivers to them. In this context "profit" is not merely the traditional measure of the difference between revenue and expense. Rather, when juxtaposed with "time", ... "it empowers a company to build relationships with customers that transcend the incidental purchase of a product".

The first two chapters define what is "time-to-profit" and stresses the validity and importance of its use. The author provides a rich collection of anecdotal situations - both follies and successes -to support and validate the need for the time-to-profit process. To attest to the universality of "time-to-profit", these anecdotes range over a wide array of industries, such as the demise of McDonnell Douglas as an independent aircraft manufacturer, the fierce competition amongst several drug companies in their rush to market "quit- smoking" products, and Chrysler's initial and continued dominance in the mini-van automobile market.

Chapter 3 introduces the reader to the novel concept of the Ten-P ParadigmTM for new product development, including:

1. Positioning - identifying and distinguishing your new product from your competitors.

2. Planning - organizing your product development activities into development stages.

3. Partnering - identifying and enlisting strategic partners.

4. Producing - identifying and securing capabilities to successfully penetrate the market. 5. Processing - identifying and developing ancillary processes to achieve success.

6. Packaging - determining the extent and nature of bundling, appropriate for the market.

7. Pricing - determining the pricing structure to maximize revenues and profits.

8. Promoting - identifying and implementing the appropriate means of heightening market awareness of the product.

9. Placing - identifying, enlisting and training appropriate marketing channels.

10. Pleasing - identifying and supporting customer service requirements.

Each of the these Ten-P ParadigmTM elements are viewed as "sources of value" within what the author defines as the four distinct stages of the time-to-profit "race":

1. Incubation stage- subgrouped into idea capture and incubation, product conceptualization, preliminary and detailed investigations and preliminary development.

2. Elaboration stage - subgrouped into Alpha product development, alpha production, testing & validation and test marketing.

3. Adaptation stage - subgrouped into design modification, beta development, production, testing & validation and marketing.

4. Contention stage - subgrouped into delivery & support, product discontinuation and project closeout.

Chapter 4 comprehensively develops a stage, phase and gate methodology in the form of a matrix, relating the Ten-P ParadigmTM elements to the four time-to-profit stages. The matrix demonstrates what impact each of the Ten-P ParadigmTM sources of value has on each of the development subgroups, by establishing whether it is mandatory, elective or prohibited. This chapter is replete with illustrations and a well-written narrative to articulate the methodology.

As with all emerging project management concepts worth their salt, Chapter 5 demonstrates how "time-to-profit" seamlessly integrates within the Project Management Institute's, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, encompassing integration, scope, time, cost, quality, human resources, communications, risk and procurement.

The book concludes with an excellent discussion in Chapter 6 on an array of proposed techniques - including a triple loop learning technique - to improve any company's product development systems and processes.

But that's not all! There is an superb set of appendixes, starting with Appendix A, which provides a set of checklist questions for each of the Ten-P ParadigmTM sources of value, to preclude overlooking key elements in a project plan. Appendix B provides a rich bibliography, including a series of related websites.

Overall the writing style is easy to read from cover-to-cover, and can be readily used as a desk reference or as a textbook.

"I read this book on a recommendation from a friend and am glad I did. It is the only book on conflict resolution I have found that addresses both the puzzling psychology behind conflict as well as counter-intuitive strategies for how to deal with it. It goes deeper and beyond popular conflict books like "Getting to Yes" while presenting current research on what we now know works to resolve conflicts, get what you want and still have people respect, like you, and willing to work with you. The book was easy to read and helped me in my professional and personal life where other books had let me down. Detailed, descriptive, funny at times and insightful of big truths about human relationships - I now tell myself to "lean into it" several times a day.

Social Psychologist Larry Axelrod and certified mediator and psychotherapist Rowland Johnson present Turning Conflict into Profit: A Roadmap for Resolving Personal and Organizational Disputes, a guide especially for business and personnel managers who have to resolve sticky situations between antagonistic employees and co-workers. Chapters discuss the psychology of conflict, differences in conflict that arises from interpersonal issues as opposed to cultural issues, and offer a five-step process to turn conflict into benefit: tap the energy, find the learning, build relationships, cultivate innovation, make better decisions, and more. Extensive research supports the fundamental rules to smoothing over rough edges and promoting a cohesive organization: the importance of allowing both sides in a conflict to save face, the "platinum rule" of "treat others as they wish to be treated", and the dangers of going to the opposite extreme of conflict suppression where "groupthink" which can be just as debilitating to making the best decisions as a conflict-ridden brainstorm session. Overall, Turning Conflict into Profit is a valuable manual filled with insight and practical advice recommended especially for readers with little background in psychology - or in the art of mediating heated tempers.

You're not the only one that wonders whether the government that is supposed to guarantee your private property rights seems more interested in making sure your vinyl siding runs the same way as your neighbor's. This is the way of things in America today, where municipal governments segregate business from housing, then wonder why everyone thinks he has to own a car.

Enter the Voluntary City, a cogent and realistic analysis of how we got here, and whether we have actually improved things in doing it. There used to be sufficient housing (try to find the word "homeless" before the Carter presidency), and police that actually had to catch the bad guys (read about one police force that had a catch rate of over 90%), and the reasonable expectation that if you wanted to alter your property you could do so without groveling to the city fathers. We gave these things up in the hope that what we would get back would be better. But is it? Really?

You aren't the only one that wonders. This excellent book provides some answers to the question, and the impetus to take those answers out into the political world. We're doing it where I am.

Back in the mid to late 90's I had the pleasure of reading a new version of a book written by David Friedman called "The Machinery of Freedom" which was originally published in the 1970's. Friedman's book introduced me to anarcho-capitalist ideas and now, years later, thanks to David T. Beito and the Independent Institute "The Voluntary City" is published that confirms many of the thoughts and ideas Friedman wrote about in his treatsie. This book is a collection of policy pieces done by different authors that detail specific, real-life examples of free market alternatives to things like court systems and litigation, education, police, housing and welfare. Most of whom were provided by insurance plans people paid for on their own via insurance companies or by private, charitable organizations people belonged to while governments, by and large, stayed out of the way. One aspect of the book that was not pointed out was private fire departments. Prior to being run by governments, many fire departments were also privately run in which their funding came from insurance plans they particpated in that provided fire protection for their customers. It wasn't until after the civil war that municipalities started acquiring and operating them. Even today, governments are beginning to privatize or not provide many essentials since they are too costly to run. For example, in Arizona, Rural Metro Corporation has contracts to provide fire and ambulatory service for cities (like mine) and even counties that do not or cannot afford to provide it. Despite this one subject left out, I felt this book was very well done and I heartily recommend it to people who have doubts about anarcho-capitalist ideas or people who are looking for new, radical ideas to replace the monopolies governments have on services they presently provide.

This is a very comprehensive manual for the management of volunteer based groups. I used this book extensively for two years as president of a 100% volunteer based non-profit org. Frankly, it was indispensable as both a guide and reference in countless situations, from rewriting the bylaws and policies, to managing/inspiring/leading a board of 12 directors and over 60 volunteers/500+ members. This group went from a dwindling, unorganized, under-funded lot to a vibrant, well organized, and well funded group during my time of service. I owed a lot of that success to this book.

I loved this book. It is very well written and extremely well outlined. And the list of contributors to this book is impressive. They bring much credibility to the ideas and concepts presented. What this book does is provide helpful, practical and proven solutions to anyone who needs to be able to effectively manage volunteer efforts at nonprofits. Are you an executive director at an NPO, a member of a BOD of an NPO, or a consultant providing capital campaign direction to an NPO? Then this book is for you.

Volunteers have always been and always will be an important resource for nonprofits of all types and sizes. As a result, this is a very important book. It has the following 18 chapters:

1. Metaphors and visions for the voluntary sector
2. Motivating people to volunteer their services
3. Preparing the organization for volunteers
4. Recruitment, orientation, and retention
5. Training and development of volunteers
6. Training volunteers in quality management techniques and tools
7. Policies for volunteer programs
8. Administration of volunteer programs
9. Episodic volunteering
10. Volunteer and staff relations
11. Reward and recognition systems for volunteers
12. The role of volunteers in fundraising
13. Managing corporate and employee volunteer programs
14. General liabilities and immunities
15. Board member liability and responsibility
16. Risk management strategies
17. Volunteers and employment law
18. National service: 20 questions and some answers

And these chapters are grouped into three parts:

I. Volunteer Development (chapts 1-6)
II. Volunteer Management (chapts 7-13)
III. Volunteers and the law (chapts 14-18)

Volunteers work for nonprofits in many ways. Some are members of boards of directors. Some help run programs offered by nonprofits. Others help run fundraising activities such as special events and capital campaigns. And yet others make major gifts to NPOs and do "asks" in major gift campaigns and capital campaigns. This book is about how to keep these people helping your organization.

Volunteers sitting on a BOD expect something different from an NPO than volunteers helping to put on a special event or volunteers leading a capital campaign. But all volunteers consistently expect their NPO to provide a worthy cause and be credible. This book does an outstanding job of explaining how an NPO and its leadership can attract, manage, and keep wonderful volunteers. If lead and managed appropriately (professionally), volunteers will continue to volunteer their time, services, and money. Read this book and find out how this is done. 5 stars!

Here it is in all it shamefull glory. This is a study about the enormous profits made by the military Industrial complex at war time. In a democracy, wars have nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with economics. The corporations who produce war goods make billions of dollars in the war and those corporations that don't make war goods make billions of dollars after the war when their markets are expanded into foreign lands. This, I'm sorry to say, is the backbone of capitalism. How are corporations to increase profits continuously, even after the home turf is saturated, if not by war? This is a common thread that runs throughout the book, Don't Weep for Me, America: How Democracy in America Became the Prince (While We Slept), as well.

"Warhogs" defines the "Merchants of Death" theory as "that defense contractors aided and abetted the outbreak of war in search of profit".

"Support for increased naval spending came from 'a combination of very wicked persons who stand to profit from a big navy'".

"...millionaire munitions executives were 'agitating' for a larger defense in search of profit".

And finally, "war...was the worst enemy of progress".

This book also contains the cold hard facts of just how much money the defense contractors profited.

So when you are contemplating the wisdom of the Iraq War, forget about "Democracy" and "Liberating the people", and "Removing the Evil Dictator". Instead consider the no-bid contracts given to Halliburton and other Cheney and Bush administration cronies. Because, unfortunately, war is all about profits and economics, and has nothing to do with...politics...

Stuart D. Brandes has written an engaging book, "Warhogs, A History of War Profits in America." In this work, the retired history professor discusses inter alia profiteering, privateering, ransom, defense contracting, executive compensation, tax policy, and the role of government in providing for the needs of the nation's military especially in time of war. The book covers the period of US history from the colonial era to the conclusion of World War II.

Among the key figures discussed at length are: George Washington, who questioned both the virtue and patriotism of profiteers during the Revolution; Abraham Lincoln, whose administration wrestled with the rates that northern railroads were billing the government in transporting troops and materiel during the Civil War; Woodrow "He kept us out of war" Wilson who, three months after his reelection, went before Congress asking for a declaration of war; FDR and his long-serving Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr., together they struggled to pull the nation out of the Depression and later set in place policies and a bureaucratic apparatus to award military contracts to manufacturers while overseeing those same contractors in terms of: output capacity, plant building and expansion, quality of goods, the amount of profit deemed sufficient, tax rates, salaries, etc.

Evenhandedness is a hallmark of this book; those who might read this work expecting an anti-corporate jeremiad will be disappointed, as will those who believe that the federal government is mostly inept or worse. Rather, companies, businessmen, and government officials are either criticized or praised based on the evidence that Prof. Brandes cites; the documentation is ample and derived from government tax records, congressional committee testimony, memoirs, diaries, contemporaneous newspapers and periodicals, biographies, and the works of other historians. Some businessmen who were producing goods for the country's wartime while drawing exorbitant salaries are named, while others are noted for being dollar-a-year-men during armed conflict. Some companies boosted profits by reducing the quality of, for example, weaponry or uniforms. Army quartermasters did a commendable job in obtaining the necessary military supplies at a fair cost to taxpayers, although some personally profited financially--either legally or not. Some companies did not profit excessively during the war, yet benefited greatly during peacetime when the federal government looked to shed its unneeded assets. A short but poignant section of the book (p. 349) discusses FDR's misapprehension of tax policy and economics, despite the Harvard-educated president having majored in economics. And according to Secretary Morgenthau's presidential diary (p. 253), "The [p]resident doesn't devote more than two days a week to the war....I have been up to Shangri-La three times and he sits there playing with his stamps....[War Production Board Chairman Donald] Nelson never gets to see him." (Such a characterization of FDR by one of his ablest cabinet members would irk New Deal historian/hagiographer Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.)

The author states (p. 355): "No previous book that has come to my attention deals expressly with the topic presently considered." This reviewer concurs. It is a well-written book in part because such topics as amortization and facility depreciation are discussed without getting into the tall grass of accounting/tax law or causing the average reader's eyes to glaze over. Moral and ethical issues over war profits are raised without pedantry. Some will have some quibbles with portions of the book--quibbles too few and too minor to detract from it at all; isn't debate part of the fun of reading history? This reviewer looks forward to Dr. Brandes' future historical efforts.