Profit The Books

This book is great for anyone who is a CEO or owns their own business. Not only is it informative but it's entertaining as well.

Thanks for the book Mom!!

Finally, good news from inside the Corporate World! As the media focus our attention on corporate wrongdoing, the show trials of the rich and powerful, stratospheric salaries of greedy CEOs, and the "unaccountability" of managers and Wall Streeters comes a heartwarming and inspiration story of a Fortune 500 company with a soul.

The CEO and the Monk is the inside story of Keyspan's dramatic growth over the past decade, of its hands-on CEO, of the difficulties encountered as the "family" of a 100-year old, conservative utility absorbs the shocks of mergers and acquisitions and grows from $1 billion to $6 billion in revenues, tripling its workforce. All the while maintaining a clear focus on doing the right thing...and blowing the numbers out of the water while not losing its soul, as one financial analyst observed.

Bob Catell, Chairman of Keyspan, one of the nation's leading energy providers, is the CEO in the title. He's a career employee whose soft-spoken style and ready smile hide the tough inner man who created a whole new company amidst the chaos of de-regulation. Tough, smart, caring and candid about what it took to achieve his vision, he points out this was the opposite of the "asset-lite" and high-flying Enron of the 1990s. Same industry, similar starting point, different leaders...much different results.

Kenny Moore was a real monk who after 15 years left cloistered life in the monastery to rediscover himself and pursue a career in the corporate world. Despite the odds of succeeding in Corporate America - no MBA, no useful business experience, and a serious bout with life-threatening cancer and then a heart attack - Kenny signed on in HR and rose to be Corporate Ombudsman at Keyspan. He became the conscience of the company, but not without struggle and self-doubt. He took risks along the way - even brashly staging a mock funeral for key employees as the old Brooklyn Union "died" and the new Keyspan was a-borning.

About the book: This a fast, enjoyable read, with three authors' voices leading you through the pages, with informative and lively stories about corporate and personal success behind the scenes. These are told in the first person by the CEO, Bob Catell, and the Monk, Kenny Moore. There's an interesting narrative thread to guide the reader as well, presented by the third story-teller, the skilled business writer Glenn Rifkin, a former New York Times reporter. This is a warts-and-all tale and belongs on the reading list for senior managers - and those who plan to be CEO one day.

Hank Boerner
Management Consultant
Corporate Governance Advisor
Rowan & Blewitt
Mineola, NY

March 10, 2004

I work for an A/V company who does small trade shows and pharmaseutical companies. I ordinarally fall asleep during these presentations, but when Kenny hit the stage with his understated enthusiasm and wisdom about how the bottom lines of profit and spirituality can come together -- and make both bottom lines go up for all concerned -- I was transfixed.

All I do is run a sound board. I get a lot of free books from these shows, and to be honest I sell most of them on EBay.

I am keeping this one.

I'm not ordinarily a fan of business books, but I fell in love with this story about a company with heart, soul and a strong sense of moral responsibility and community. If we all lived our business lives like The CEO and The Monk, there would be no Enrons and all our bottom lines would be healthy.

There are so many places in the book that pull you up short and make you think, like the Monk's recalling words of Oliver Wendell Holmes: "Most of us go to our graves with our music still inside us." I felt energized reading this book, inspired to start all over again and make a difference. I am sharing this book with my staff. And, I've been buying copies and giving to friends who work in the corporate world. BUY THIS BOOK!!!!

This book is "ok". If you use the track record of corporations to measure Key Span (Brooklyn Union), then what they've done is good, not great, but good. If you use a spiritual or moral measure, then what they've done is quite mediocre. The main accomplishment is that of the monk, Kenny Moore, who was able to foster direct and non-judgemental communication between the workers and management. This is a good thing and many companies would do well to learn from this example. Key Span does do a lot of charity work, but their motives for doing so, by their own terms of "enlightened self-interest", are just that, selfish. The company pressures average workers to give up their free time to volunteer for charity. The result is that Key Span gets publicity at the expense of their unpaid workers. This is PR on the cheap and takes unfair advantage of the already financially strapped workers. They hire social workers to aid the company in extracting money from customers who are unable to pay. On the surface it sounds good, but it's just a ploy to increase company profits by increasing collections. Much of the book is about the inside scoop on various Brooklyn Union/Key Span mergers and aquisitions, a bit boring. The rest is a lot of back slapping of both CEO and the Monk. There's very little investigative journalism here in terms of exploring contrarian points of view. What Key Span has done is just "ok", not great. They stand out not because of what good they've done, but rather because of what very bad other corporations have done. The bottom line, foster honest communication between management and the workers. The rest of the book is meaningless. It's the same old same old, the workers toil in order to make executives rich. Nothing new. That the CEO and the Monk can't see this is more telling than anything told in the book.

This is the story of Procter & Gamble from 2000 till now enriched with anecdotes from other businesses. It is a report of P&G's transformation into a customer-focused enterprise, driven by customer research and new product development. The book is structured around eight key elements that influence customer centricity.
I like this book and can recommend it to anyone involved in innovation- or marketing processes or strategy in his/her organization. It is refreshingly different in its view on innovation and provides first-hand information how even a global enterprise can be changed significantly and the effects of a real customer focus.
There are reviews of this book saying that it contains nothing really new, which I would agree on. But, and this I think is more important, it shows that innovation does not work without a strategy, serious customer segmentation and a clear customer focus in general. It also shows that strategy should in its major part derive from the organization's core competencies. This has significant impact on the market approach. While an industry focused strategy mimics competition, does a core competency and customer centric strategy allow thinking out of the box and creative development of the market edge - the key to competitive-advantage.
In addition to these key lessons the reader will find comprehensive information about the various issues surrounding the implementation of innovation processes such as culture and incentives, organizational learning and infrastructure. These topics are extensively covered in many other books but A.G. Lafley shows how they can be put to use.

Having started, built, and sold my first business to McGraw-Hill and written four business books since, I know a first class business book when I see one.

"The Game Changer" is beyond fist class. It is in a space of its own. The prose is clean and deceptively clear. You risk reading it too quickly. This book is like Kissinger's "Diplomacy": every paragraph is a meal. Two to five pages a day is plenty. I tell Japanese CEOs, "Don't wait for the translation and don't worry if you find English difficult; the less you read at a time, the better."

What makes "The Game Changer" so good is that it is written by business people for business people. There is nothing theoretical. No business-school speak.

What the book does not say is that when Lafley took over as CEO of Procter and Gamble, its R&D coverage was 2.6. It is now 7.3. Check out how many manage this. Dell gets 4.9. Apple, 5.6.

There are one or two funky bits of phrasing. "Choiceful Strategies" isn't English. And nothing can be "geared around" a technology platform. Nor can anyone be "innovated out" of a market. A better copy editor would have come down hard.

But don't let a few bits of fuzzy English get in the way of a gem.

I started my career at P&G in brand management. And while the learning was extraordinary, I always felt the company was old, bureaucratic and stodgy. I had the opportunity to work with A.G. Lafley quite a bit in my first assignment, as we were both in laundry brands. He always seemed to me outside the traditional Procter mold--wicked smart but a thoughtful, open-minded and really nice guy.

Fast forward 25 years and what A.G. has done as CEO is incredible. Procter is one battleship that I didn't think could turn, much less on a dime. But reading Game-Changer one begins to appreciate what leadership and commitment can do, even in the largest and most traditional organizations.

Game-Changer is an enlightening read. Lafley and legendary author, consultant and scholar Ram Charan often tag-team the writing, each bringing a unique point of view. Sometimes this gets awkward, as the P&G story is interrupted by examples from other companies (which skew a bit from India, making a noticeably unusual sample). But that's relatively minor criticism compared to the richness of the transformation story at Procter, which has become a leader in commitment to innovation and has reaped significant financial rewards as a result.

The beauty of Game-Changer is that, unlike many business books, it is relevant to both mid-sized companies and corporate giants. For the Fortune 500, P&G's experience is a powerful example that radical and dynamic change is possible (see also GE, Whirlpool and IBM). For smaller companies, change is a lot easier, and the P&G model is full of ideas for potential initiatives.

This is a quick and easy read that never comes across as arrogant or self-serving. It does present itself as an arresting example of a new era in corporate management. I would have never guessed that would have come from Procter & Gamble. In fact, here's the thing. P&G has had a legendary track record over its 170-year history. But frankly, it was never considered a great place to work, at least for the brand management folks. Even more impressive than the reignited financials, the company's commitment to innovation and change make it sound like a really terrific place for a smart marketer to ply his/her trade. Now that's an innovation that will pay long-term dividends.
Bill Aho, www.atclevel.typepad.com

In the early years of business on the web, I was on a panel that addressed marketing in the then mostly new Digital Age. There was a senior executive from Proctor and Gamble on that panel who told the assembled marketers that P & G wasn't going to change because "we've got it all figured out."

As we were packing up, one of the other panelists said, "I don't know about you guys but I'm going home and sell my P & G stock. Any company with an executive that high up who thinks they've got it all figured out is going to go down sooner or later."

I remembered that incident while reading Game-Changer: How you can drive revenue and profit growth with innovation by A. G. Lafley and Ram Charan.

Lafley is the Chairman and CEO of Proctor and Gamble. Charan is neck-and-neck in the race with Warren Bennis for "Most Books Co-Authored by a Guru." Each writes parts of the book in his own voice. They are very different voices.

Lafley's voice is practical and down to earth. Here's a quote from chapter 1. "The Game-Changer is about what I have learned over the course of a lifetime in business, but particularly since I became CEO of P & G."

Charan has a more buzzword-rich style. "P & G is one of the few companies that has been able to break the chains of commoditization and create organic growth on a sustainable basis through implementing and managing the integrated process of innovation."

This is a book about the turnaround at P & G. Since Lafley took over, in June of 2000, the company has tripled profits, and improved revenue growth, cash flow, and operating margins. The stock price has more than doubled.

A significant part of the turnaround was the development of a process for managing innovation at P & G. This book is about that process and how it works.

Those are both Lafley's stories. But this is a better book because Ram Charan adds commentary and examples from other firms.

If you want to learn the back story, chapter one will set the stage for you. After Charan's comments in chapter two, Game-Changer is organized into three parts.

Drawing the Big Picture sets the stage for the other parts. The chapter titled The Customer is Boss is one of those chapters you copy so you can re-read it often.

Every company says they are customer-focused. P & G has been known as a customer-focused company for most of its history. And yet it was easy for the customer to slide from the center of the business to periphery.

Chapter three is the best explanation I've seen of what it means to put the customer at the center of your company. I'd love to see P & G or the publisher put this chapter out as a pamphlet.

Part Two is about the innovation process itself. It begins with a chapter on organizing for innovation. This chapter is one of several that include excellent material on innovation at other companies.

If you're not at a consumer products company, you'll get ideas about how innovation looks in other industries. If you don't think a P & G practice will work at your company, the book gives you some other models.

The next chapter, on integrating innovation into your routine, is one of the best in the book because it concentrates on a key point. For innovation to be a real game-changer, it can't be bolted on to day-to-day operations and responsibilities. It has to be part of the routine, even as it challenges the routine. There's great material here on how ideas get killed and the importance of a regular, social mechanism for approving ideas.

After a chapter on the risks of innovation, the authors move to the final part of the book which discusses the culture of innovation. You'll learn how innovation is a team sport and how a leader's job should include innovation.

This is an idea book, not a how-to book. If you want an innovation manual, pass this book by.

But if you want lots of ideas and examples to hold up against the way you do business now, plunk down your money. Even if you only read the chapter on putting the customer at the center, you'll get lots of return on your investment in this book.

In the early 1990's P&G was the number two laundry company in the world with a 19 per cent share. Today, it has a 34 share - nearly double its next competitor. Not bad, not bad at all. This book will help you understand how this consumer behemoth was able to achieve this result and many others.

I will be very surprised if THE GAMECHANGER does not become required reading in many Fortune 500 executive suites. It is not because there is anything dramatically new in it, but because it provides a good look at how Proctor & Gamble turned itself around from being a slow moving organization, poorly rated by analysts to one of the most respected consumer goods companies on the planet.

Credit for much of this turnaround goes to Chairman and CEO A.G. Lafley who took office in June 2000.

The co-authors, Lafley and Charan are corporate superstars. Lafley's contributions to the book are particularly interesting as he provides some excellent case study material on how innovation drove growth for key P&G brands.

The most consistently captivating theme is the reference to "The Boss." No, not Bruce Springsteen, good and all as he is. The Boss is the consumer and if Lafley is to be believed, Proctor & Gamble spends its life trying to satisfy the Boss. I particularly like his phrase of placing a "laser-sharp focus on consumers."

The authors tell us that Innovation is an integrated management process with the customer absolutely at the center. Eight drivers work together to fuel profitable, customer oriented growth. These are
Motivating Purpose and Values
Stretching Goals
Choiceful Strategies
Unique Core Strengths
Enabling Structures
Consistent and Reliable systems
Courageous and Connected Culture
Inspiring Leadership

These eight drivers have fueled P&G's growth as the company focused on two "moments of truth," (Interestingly, no acknowledgement to former SAS CEO Jan Carlzon whom I thought was responsible for popularizing this concept in a book of the same name). These are at time of purchase and time of usage.

Appropriately, as one of the most global of companies, P&G examples come from many different countries and product categories. Immersive in-store and in-home research has gained in popularity at the expense of the standard focus group. This deep dive research allowed P&G to dramatically grow share for Downy Single Rinse (fabric softener) in Mexico, Hugo Boss fragrances and SK-II skin care brand in Japan. I write about the Toyota concept of Genchi Genbutsu (Go to the source and learn) in my book Why Ireland Never Invaded America

One of the underlying themes throughout the book is that Innovation is cultural. You either live it or you don't. P&G's commitment to innovation has even seen it create a joint venture with a major competitior - Clorox. The two got together to create improved product performance for the Glad brand of household bags.

This book is not just about P&G. Other companies referenced in some detail include Nokia, Marico India, Best Buy, Lego, Honeywell and HP. Charan devotes a full chapter to "How Jeff Immelt made Innovation a way of life at GE." Given GE's ongoing struggles, the most apt sentence in this chapter is "It has taken time for GE's people and investors to be convinced." Ya think! Maybe the key lesson in this chapter is Innovation is not easy, no matter what your financial and commercial muscle is.

Overall, a very good read. Whether it will change your company and business depends on you and how aggressively you buy into the cultural aspects of creating an innovative company.

Great book,very informative,learn about job opportunitys.And the correct way of going about getting them.

While there are some very useful suggestions in this book no matter what type of business you have, it is mostly geared to selling to an upscale crowd at extremely high prices. I was looking for other suggestions and ways to be profitable in my photography business - not just charging high prices and targeting the rich. If you are established in the photography business, have a fancy studio, and already have a large customer base, this may be the book for you to push you over the top. But if you are just getting started, want to keep your overhead low, and are targeting a larger clientele, this is not the book for you.

I read this book first day I've got it. Great material about how to start your own company and what is common mistakes. This book is not about how to create best portrait in the business, its about how to treat customer right and sell your work. Actually, only 50% of the pictures was great, the other half didn't like so much. Thats why I striped one star. This guy is better businessman than a photographer, so if you dream about starting your own photography business you have to read this book. It is very simple and straight to the point. But If you want to take a great pictures just for fun, you should pass. He gave very clear formula to the success only your job is to make it happen.

I bought this book because of other readers' reviews. I was deluded. I want to start a photography business, and except for some very flimsy public relations information and a few general suggestions about business practices, it gave me nothing. Nada. As soon as it came today, I plowed into it looking for help. I don't need a lesson on lighting, thank you very much. I don't need to know that the author has a high end studio that I can't afford yet. I don't need to know that telephone manners are important. Not yet. I want to know how to get launched, how to set up accounts, what I need for permission forms, what copyright issues I'm facing, and there's only a meager dry crust of bread in this book.

This book does a good job a mentioning all aspects of a successful photography business, from great lighting, treating your clients, and marketing. I think anyone who applies the information in this book to their own photography business will only prosper from it.

This book is a must read for anyone who uses alliances. Segil's methodology is straigtforward and her keen insights are right on the mark. I am eagerly waiting for the release of her new book, "FastAlliances: Power Your E-Business" which is to hit the stories in January, 2001. I know this book will have a great impact on the way we do business in the new economy.

In-depth. Informative. A must-read, especially in light of today's e-economy. She's the expert!

I am responsible for my company's strategic development activity. As such, I recognize that prudent strategic alliances serve as the lifeblood of a successful organization. Looking for advice, I called my colleagues at the Harvard Business School. They recommended Ms. Segil's book on strategic alliances. Her book, Intelligent Business Alliances, became our proverbial "how-to" guide for our strategic development endeavors. I am happy to report the completion of a number of beneficial and synergistic relationships. Ms. Segil's work helped craft, hone and execute my company's strategic vision.

This is a clean-cut no-nonsense approach to forming business alliances that may save you millions. Lorraine Segil is the creator of the Mindshift method of business alliances. 1000 companies went through her training on alliance management at Caltech. A third of these adopted the program and from this real-life sampling came this data. How alliances succeeded and how they failed were analyzed.

She discusses the nine different categories of alliances, their levels of risk and their levels of commitment. In forming an alliance one must be aware of where one's business is on its business cycle, the corporation's management style, and the purpose and goals for establishing an alliance. Once this is done, one uses her method for finding potential alliances and how to weed out the mismatches based on the above criteria. An organization and management team will be found to have a certain mindset that can be characterized.

Also, are you a global corporation or just an exporter? Answers and understandings are here.

Five Stars

As the person who guides my company's business development and strategic initiatives, I have seen first hand the power and utility in Ms. Segil's work - without which, my firm would not have reached its current level of success. There is a profound difference between knowing the value of strategic alliances and actually crafting the proper strategy to realize synergistic relationships. I thank Ms. Segil for providing the requisite tools to build strategic alliances in such a well-written, structured format. For my colleagues and me, Ms. Segil's book has become the proverbial "how-to" when seeking and structuring strategic alliances.

I think every investor should read this book. The book explains how to combine cash income and an adjusted version of accrual income to get an accurate assessment of the quality of the company's earnings and its potential future earnings.

The book also shows how to modify the accrual income by capitalizing certain expenses and by accounting for the cost of equity using the appropriate discount rate. These modifications make the accrual income a much more accurate measure of the real earning power of the company.

The book is written in a very easy and readable way. All the concepts are very well explained. Interesting examples of real companies are used to show the ideas in the book. The book is very concise without any useless stories to fill the pages (like most investing books do).

This was a very informative book and discussed an excellent perspective for evaluating value stocks, especially in the current market. I would highly recommend it to the value investor who is willing to roll his/her sleeves up and get into some serious research for a prospective long-term position, with a time horizon of three or more years. What I have learned will help me to avoid the pitfalls of countless stocks that are being eagerly recommended but which pose unacceptable risk for the long-term investor (e.g. Enron and Worldcom type stocks).

Having said that, the book is occasionally (but infrequently) lacking in critical details that would help the reader to understand and replicate the author's analysis models. The preface says the book assumes no prior knowledge of accounting, but I personally feel an accounting background would have helped. It is very dense and occasionally dry reading, only for those truly motivated to profit from risk minimization in a difficult market.

Calculating the real value of an investment and its potential takes a lot of detective work.

Fortunately for us all Mr. Heiserman has written the gold standard for "The Standard Operating Procedures to Probable Investment Success." Certainly it cannot guarantee it. In most cases it will keep you out of trouble and guide you considerably closer to your goal. Was it Voltaire who once said, "Common Sense is uncommon."

In conjunction with services such as Value Line it offers far better odds at success.

I believe Warren Buffet was once asked, why not do something else and to paraphrase he replied, "Why bother when investing is so simple." If you read the book and apply it you will understand why he said that; simple yes, easy no, hard work yes.

Happily most people will not wish to do the hard work and will continue to purchase investment advisory services hoping that they, with little effort, will be blessed with magnificent returns.

So read the book, work at applying it and you will be amazed; I was. I have a library full of investment books and this is the only one on investments I would take to a desert island.

I am surprised that more investors have not read this book.


This book sets forth an excellent, step-by-step methodology to analyzing stocks that should be of interest to most fundamental investors. The author is a professional writer, and consequently the book is well-written and relatively easy to read even though it also covers some fairly complicated topics. The methods he describes are well thought-out and explained, and I honestly believe they can be of tremendous use to fundamental investors seeking to make investment decisions with respect to particular companies.

Heiserman's main point is that GAAP accounting means that the accrual income statement may not properly reflect the position of a particular company. In this way, he is similar to Marty Whitman (see "Value Investing" and "The Aggressive Conservative Investor") although he is certainly not a traditional value investor. Instead of focusing on book value like Whitman, Heiserman has created a means to adjust the income statement to overcome shortcomings in GAAP to identify companies that are financially sound with strong growth prospects.

His method is to create two new income statements for each potential investment - a "defensive" income statement that will reveal the company's need for outside capital and determine what the company's risk of going bankrupt is, and an "enterprising" income statement that will analyze how effective the company is at earning a return on its capital investment. In this way, Heiserman details a step-by-step methodology to find financially stable companies with strong growth prospects.

Heiserman eschews formulaic investing, meaning that applying his methods takes some time and effort. However, he also sets forth a helpful "five minute test" to enable investors to quickly assess whether it is worthwhile to dig deeper into a company's financials. He also provides good information regarding how to conduct competitive analysis and assess management (although some of the latter information may be dated due to recent SEC disclosure developments). Lastly, because the methods Heiserman has created rely on past financial statements, his methods minimize the possibility that an investor will make overly optimistic assumptions about a company's future prospects.

In all, I would highly recommend this book to intermediate-level investors who are willing to work to uncover individual stocks with sound growth prospects at reasonable prices.

The concept taught in this book (of the methods used to evaluate a company) is very good.
It's an extra tool to use in evaluating a company - a very sensible tool. The only reason I gave this book 3 stars is because a lot of the figures in the examples are wrong. They refer to the Financial Statements of Wriggley at the beginning of the book, but then they transpose the wrong amounts in the examples.

This source is a wonderful collection of information for non profit companies who want to expand to the Internet. It has real world suggestions, as well as IRS guidelines important to keep the tax status of the non profit. Recommend to all.

This is a very complete guide to using the Internet for marketing and fundraising. It could almost be a text book for a college course - if colleges offered marketing for non-profits as a course. Great reference material.

Those of us who manage nonprofit organizations have learned to use the Internet as a powerful communications medium. We invite the public to learn about us via our web sites and even to donate to us from a web browser. We've learned that this is just the beginning of the cultivation process, not the end. We've learned how to keep them coming back to the site. More importantly, we've learned to move them into our traditional cultivation processes once they make contact.

Our development officers have become accustomed to following up with those who've knocked on the door of our web site. We know that a donor who makes an on-line donation is often open to going deeper with the organization, and of increasing support -- if asked. We've learned to take these new-found supporters into our fold, and how to encourage more significant contributions from them.

Here's what else we've learned. We've learned to manage information in complex, server-based relational databases -- ours or those provided by firms who do this for us on their hardware. We share information internally via local networks and Intranets, and tie discrete offices together via virtual private network secure tunneling. We use extranets to facilitate strategic alliances with other organizations. To save money, we use voice over IP to replace traditional telephone circuits. We've even gone wireless.

Throughout all this, we gather information on our supporters and prospective supporters. We do so at Internet speeds, and with the organizing and retrieval efficiency of computers. We've learned to treat the information we gather with great care. The public support, we know, is a fragile thing.

Yes, we've learned a lot. If we haven't yet put all of what we've learned into place, we suspect that would if we had a clear, sensible roadmap to doing so within the confines of our budgets.

The simple truth is that the use of technology is one of the more challenging aspects facing those who manage nonprofit organizations. First, it's complicated. (Virtual private WHAT?!) Second, it's hard to have a clear idea of how to think about technology in the unique context of running a nonprofit organization. Third, it's hard to determine the best way to implement technological solutions when there are so many being thrown at us. Lastly, how can we be sure we're following best practices?

We need help to sort all of this out -- even those of us who are not exactly new to all of this. As it happens, I've been deeply immersed in technology in the nonprofit context for years, having designed and lead the team that created one the first on-line systems utilzing the donor-advised fund gift methodology as the means to enable the public to donate to any 501(c)(3) public charity from a single web site donation portal. I designed and built some of the first on-line charitable donation systems for nonprofit organizations and educational institutions. I am a programmer and a web site developer. I am a computer science student; one of my hobbies is exploring the theory of utilizing quantum mechanics to construct a computing device. I am a lawyer. I have administered large and small fund development programs, and advised them. I even co-founded a couple of nonprofit organizations -- a pre-K through 8th grade school and a charity that feeds and clothse the poor. I have read just about every posting to every CharityChannel forum since inception, and read every article on the topic that I can get my hands on. I've written some articles, too.

Yet I am the first to admit that the Internet, even the Internet in the nonprofit context, is too big and complex to try to make sense out of it without turning to those who have specialized in a particular aspect of it. It's no different in law. My field is tax-exempt organization law. I wouldn't be the one to advise you on your automobile accident.

That is what interested me in the new book Nonprofit Internet Strategies: Best Practices for Marketing, Communications, and Fundraising. It taps the experts in each subject to write a chapter. This approach makes great sense to me.

The book sets out to show us how to leverage the Internet to:

--Advance our organization's or institution's cause.

--Raise more money both on-line and off by establishing relationships with new donors, and deepen the commitment of existing donors.

--Inform the public and our stakeholders.

--Raise public confidence and trust through better communication and transparency.

It succeeds. Each of its chapters is contributed by a leading expert in the topic discussed. The editors -- Ted Hart, James M. Greenfield, and Michael Johnston -- also contributed chapters of their own. Some of the writers will already be familiar to many of my CharityChannel colleagues because they've taught a Summit session, or a distance class. Some have penned articles for CharityChannel, or posted to one of the professional forums.

I recommend the book for anyone who is serious about doing a better job harnessing the Internet for their organization or institution. You can read it cover to cover as I did. It is also suited to picking and choosing particular chapters of interest.

The book is for busy nonprofit managers who must work within real-world budgets and who are pulled in a thousand directions by the demands of their jobs. It is for those who want to have a clear roadmap of how to proceed. The book is not for techno-geeks, as such. Even if you barely know how to turn on a computer, you can read this book without difficulty. Of course, if you happen to be technologically savvy, so much the better.

This book is for large organizations with big budgets and complex needs. It shows how to think about technology, and how to approach it even if the organization is well down the road with technology.

It is also for small organizations with limited budgets and big dreams. That is because technology in our sector has matured to the point where there are strategically-powerful solutions that do not require large expenditures. What is required, rather, is a clear understanding of where and how to proceed.

Of course, no book can do it all when it comes to the Internet and the nonprofit world. But this book is one of the few must-reads for any nonprofit organization manager responsible Internet strategy.

Frankly, I was feeling a bit out of touch. The most frequently asked questions in my workshops were about Internet fundraising, and I didn't have good answers. My quick fix: reading this book and coming away amazed, astounded, and shocked. First, by all the profitable Internet strategies out there (the book is packed with examples of stuff that works). Second, by the thoroughness of this book. Another reviewer said it was like a textbook. Don't think academic, though; think "everything you need to know between two covers" comprehensive. And practical as soup on a cold day. If I had to limit my library to just six books about fundraising communications, this title would be among them. I haven't had the privilege of hearing co-author Michael Johnston speak, but I have heard both Ted Hart and Jim Greenfield present at conferences. Purely useful, well spoken, based on vast experience.

The information in Nonprofit Internet Strategies is sound until about page 100. The information comes from a variety of those working in the field and is an amalgamation of over 15 authors. This book tends to be redundant and far left leaning politically, unfortunately. It is clear to me that these individuals wrote their chapters at the same time and did not coordinate who was to discuss what subject, also.

The book would make a stereotypical (liberal) college textbook. Each individual expert seems to really know their stuff, however, it seems that each submission was not edited to avoid duplication of information. After about Chapter 6, the book information is redundant. This book had the potential to be the go-to-resource for nonprofit internet strategies, but they ruined it with their hidden agendas, lack of chapter/author coordination and poor editing.

A case study example from page 158 lists President Bush and Tony Blair on a deck of cards that Greenpeace sold had the actual letter, as if to brag, to their donors saying the following:

"These limited edition playing cards are hot! Back by popular demand, they're a spoof of the 'Iraq most wanted' deck. The Greenpeace cards name and shame world leaders who are sitting on the true weapons of mass destruction-nuclear weapons."

This book is filled with left-wing examples of cyber-activist companies dubbed "nonprofit companies." Having worked with 3 multi-million nonprofit companies, I think the two are different.

After reading a lot of trading books, this one made me come back to this essential truth I forget : any stocks can always be classified in one phase, the position of price related to 50 and 200 moving average is a fundamental information. Chuck Dukas give us the synthetic view about trend and phases, his book is the natural continuation of the book of Stan Weinstein, these two are foundation for trading knowledge.
Thank yu chuck.

Wow, this book is great!!!...I read it in two days because it was very helpful in explaining the boom and bust cycles of financial instruments...I have read 200 to 300 books on the stock market and this one is definately one of the best.

This is an interesting book. This book gives definitions of bull and bear markets and their phasis in exchanges, and suggests certain trading methods in each phase. You may take it or leave it, but in any case, this book is an anjoyable read.

It's a sign of a novice trader when they bash books that present core concepts of trading/investing rather than fluff such as "revolutionary" indicators, or "new concepts in trading." Yes, this book is short and simple, but it presents a concept that most wannabe traders totally miss. Dukas shows you an elegant but simple strategy of providing a framework to price action (similar to Stan Weinstein) that, if anything, serves as a guide post for your trading decisions. This was what I have been missing. Does Dukas illustrate specific trading setups in the book? No. He provides the framework and then leaves it up to you to design a approach that fits you. If you don't want to do the work to design your own strategy then you shouldn't be in this game. The more years that I get behind my belt, the more I realize that 99% of the trading books out there are useless. Sure, they are packed full of pretty graphs or trading setups, but they don't get you to think for yourself and help you truly understand what drives price movement. In summary, if you're looking for a framework to guide your trading decisions, then this is the book for you. Highly recommended!

I'm a day trader and trade stocks, ETF's, and options. I always looking for new ideas to help me screen for "buy candidates." I thought this book might have some new twist on technical indicators. When I opened it up, I was disappointed. I literally read the book, cover to cover in 10 minutes. I went though it quickly because the material was so simple. Basically the theory in the book is as follows: 6 phases of a stock. Recovery Phase (50SMA < 200SMA, Close > 50SMA), Accumulation phase (Close > 50SMA, Close > 200SMA, 50SMA < 200 SMA),etc.... same simple concept for the other four phases. Then for the grand finale,the last chapter "Putting it all together"...drum roll.... Was a review of the previous six chapters.. happy holidays.

This book absolutely changed the way I looked at starting a business! It helped me to think of so many ways to use the things I love to do to make money. Not only did I come up with ideas, but I learned the details of how to actually make it happen. Mr. Goodridge is a masterful writer who shares his knowledge in a clear and concise way.

I will use this book as a reference on my way to riches!

Wonderful book, very helpful,inspirational and informative.

Good investment of time and money.

Thanx Walt for your help!

This book was defineatly worth the read. It provides practical guidelines towards channeling one's passion in an effort to obtain profit.

I always preface my reviews of these type of books this way:

Treat these books like a Chinese Buffet: Take what you need and leave the rest for the next man.

After reading Mr. Goodridge's book and listening to him on an Internet interview, I've found very valuable information. In fact, I've made this book the main textbook in an upcoming entrepreneurial course I've designed. Although there is information that is relevant to residents of New York state, anyone in the US can use this book to take their "passion" and convert it into profit.

What was helpful to me was his thing about "reality reconstruction" and how when one chooses to pursue the entrepreneurial path, everything that does not serve the "endgame" must be removed. I think that is a very critical aspect of pursuing the entrepreneurial path. How strong are we to stay focused in the face of those who will be nay sayers and others that oppose our path to entrepreneurial success?

I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to achieve independence in doing what they love to do.......

This book includes some excellent information. The first third gives the basics of going with your passion, and the rest of the book is about starting a business. Nothing new, but a nice little package.

But. The author lets us all know he's Jamaican-American (which we already know from the two photos on the cover). I refuse to call him an African-American because he is from Jamaica. His affirmations include "despite racism" and "because of racism," etc., which is completely and utterly unnecessary. The affirmations (and other advice) applies to everyone, but the author just can't drop the racism card.

I'm a native of a suburb of Los Angeles and I'm lily white. Here, we "European-Americans" can be accused of and called anything, with no repurcussions to the accuser or heckler. But heaven help any of us if we're socially and/or policially incorrect.

Another problem is the nasty habit the author has of putting stupid and childish little rhymes on every other page. He writes them, and seems to think they belong in a book on other people's passions. They don't. If this man's passion is poetry, let him write a book on poetry. Don't inflict nursey rhymes on us when we're trying to learn about business. It's annoying.

I hope the author reads this review. Yeah, we allllll know about slavery and understand the problem of racism. As a personal victim of physical racial abuse by African-Americans against myself, a "European-American," I'm offended by the references to racism in this book.

And, buddy, if you want to write nursery rhymes, stick them in a children's book and sell them to toddlers. As a former English professor, I find them unbelievably trite, sophormoric, and downright idiotic.

This book has everything needed for those who are just getting into candles. Witch are:

A great list of candle suppliers(wax,wicks,jars,ect.)

Trouble shooting

Projects

Business how-to

Fragance information

Color dyes information

Wicking help and tips

Plus multiple tips on everything

This book has helped me in the little things I didn't know about candle making,,very easy to understand and well written.
thanks! good choice!

This book is vague at best. There is not alot of specific info on making candles or running a business. This is an OK book if you find it used and cheap, but your money is better spent on a different book if you want specific technical info on how to make candles.

This book explains so much. Just what I will need to get my candle business off the ground! I highly recommend this book!

This book was extremly helpful. It tells you how to make candles along with suggestions on how to make a business out of it. It tells you the step by step procedure for making everyday candles and tells you how to make some of the more exotic one. A+

This book is an excellent addition to a collection of a small investor who wants to learn about the benefits of international investing. However, it is also a great reading for somebody who is just starting in the field of Finance. It explains basic concepts very carefully, so that a good base is established for further explanations. Yes, to a certain point it concentrates more on non-U.S. markets, but I believe this is only because U.S. market information is readily available to us every day. The book is very well written and deserves a full five-star rating.

A recent amazon.com reviewer states incorrectly that Barbara Rockefeller's 24/7 Trading fails to note that the increasingly wired world raises volatility and affects the correlations among global stocks because this is one of the main points in the book. To wit: "...the developed world is so wired together these days that a drop in the Dow and the Nasdaq is often followed by an equivalent drop in the Nikkei (225 (Japan), DAX (Germany), CAC (France), DTSE 100 (UK) and other major indices." (p.187) She continues, saying that the benefits of international diversification may be exaggerated because a bear market in the United States contaminates other markets, at least in developed countries.

Note please some additional points on this topic. One is that the author advises that many portfolio diversification exercises use only classes of securities, rather than the securities themselves, which she describes as a sub-optimal practice because the same class of securities can contain a highly volatile security as well as a `placid' security.

The second point is that the author could have gone a lot farther in criticizing financial planners who create "optimal" portfolios for customers that are nothing of the sort. She perhaps should have warned much more strongly about paying an advisor to create an optimal portfolio. You will not always get what you think you paid for.

Finally, Rockefeller says clearly that no website today will give you the correlation of any two securities easily. You have to do it yourself, if you can get the data. Data on foreign stocks is hard to get, and, often, is not free; and, useful websites come and go, all of which the author acknowledges.

Why should US investors care are about non-US stocks? Because the new US administration is western states-oriented, investors should be prepared for future US dollar weakness that will presumably favor western states' exporters of commodities - grain, oil, beef and timber. With US dollar weakness, non-US stock will presumably appreciate in price versus US stocks. This means that savvy investors should be taking far closer looks at non-US stocks in the next four years than they have been taking in the last four. For serious investors, 24/7 Trading could not have come at a better time. Reading it is fair warning for the future.

Desmond MacRae New York City

Whereas this book definitely has its good points, the title is quite misleading. As a matter of fact its focus is quite limited mostly to foriegn markets and evaluating these investments combined with trends within the many international markets. On a general level this is discussed fairly well but the details are explained in a matter where it is assumed that you have taken a good number of economics classes. In addition, the different chapters seem to touch back to the same point that when investing overseas you have to look at not only the stock market but the state of affairs within the country both ethically and economically. You must be a good follower of the currency markets as well. This is not easy for most investors to understand on an in depth basis which is needed to trade overseas.

What is also annoying besides the constant redundancy of this book, is the matter in which the author sites references and website addresses for more information. The author must have included at least fifty if not a hundred sites that support each single example. What would have helped the overall presentation of this book, if the author included a list of helpful web sites to locate key information at the end of the book rather than interspersed within his blah blah blah commentary.

There is some useful information in this book and one who likes to explore new web sites might find more value here. However CNBC could have made this book reach a wider audience by organizing this book in a more easy to read manner. Therefore a 2 1/2 star rating fits the bill.

Barbara's book is a much needed addition to the trader's library. As currency, bonds, and stock index futures are now traded around the clock, the need for more information on how to deal with this fast-paced environment is much needed. Barbara's real expertise is in the currency sector and the information in the currency chapter alone is well worth the price of the book. As a CTA and investment advisor, I find Barbara's information highly useful and would highly recommend this book.

Although Barbara Rockefeller's attention to detail and obvious knowledge of the inside world of the life of a stock trader are quite phenomenal, I found the story lacking direction, and the climax weak. The characters of George Soros and Abby Joseph Cohen, for example, are minimally developed at best, and unnecessarily verbose at times. But Rockefeller has most certainly done her homework in terms of setting the stage for her story, an example that more contemporary writers should heed. All in all, however, this was a quite satisfying read!