Educational Books

As "Harry Potter" calls out to today's young bright outsiders looking for somewhere to truly belong, this book spoke to me. It mesmerised me as a little girl. As an USAF "brat" I very much understand Nona's ache and anger as the "weird" outsider. I fell in love with the dolls as well. Their "voices" sounded like two little doting "aunties" as they subtly manipulated Nona and Belinda into seeing past their differences and fears and into finding friendship. If only I had had such a wonderful pair of guardian angels of my own back then.

Rumer does a great job of painting two total opposites of little girls with warmth and sympathy while never truly turning either into either a villian or a bad joke (way too rare). She showed that even our flaws can become strengths when they are accepted and we are willing to be loved.

One thing that really grabbed me as a child was that the book included all the plans for the house and the furnishings the girls eventually build for their little foriegn guests. I spent hours pouring over the school library copy back then. I nearly wore it out. Now my girls will be able to indulge in the same pleasure without having to always be on the look out for the due date.

This time we'll be building the Japanese doll house together.

It is very well organized, and written down to earth for anyone to understand and enjoy. It clearly dictates things I did not understand years ago, namely the patience one must go throgh in dealing with the struggles and challenges of being successful, and frequent mistakes you should avoid.

Unlike many others, this book is not about FLUFF, and should be taken as a priceless and required handbook for becoming a successful entrepreneur. It paints a picture of so many lessons that are better learned sooner than later, and uses comical examples to nail the point down.

I attended the UW-Madison for four years, and college does not teach you the lessons you can get from Mark's book. I'd highly recommend it to anyone serious about being a successful entrepreneur. Read it, read it again, follow the lessons in here, and then succeed.

We've all heard the phrase, Most learn from their own mistakes, but "smart people learn from other peoples mistakes." These are the individuals that often become successful sooner. This book will help you to do just that.

What I like most about this book, is that its easy to read and the personal experiences really nail the situation and topics presented. Forget about all those "Business Management" bestsellers, focus on getting your grass-roots first. Where better than to learn from the experiences of people who really run their business!

I didn't learn a thing I didn't already know. You would be better off buying another book, for example a Guerilla Marketing book, good old Napolean Hill's Think and Grow Rich, or Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I also liked How to make a million with your ideas.

Besides being dull and unimaginative, the only purpose I can imagine using this book for is if you have some vague pipe dreams about starting your own business and need to know if you have what it takes. This book will weed you out if you don't have the initial business sense or persistance to learn it.

At some point in their nacent lives, even dot com companies are going to have to make a profit. That means selling goods or services for more than they cost to produce. It also means the company- wide adoption of sound business practices that control much of the free-floating risk in their businesses. It probably wouldn't hurt a few thousand of these start-up

companies to read Peterson's book and live by the lessons. Sure would change the horizon of the dot com industry, though. Companies would have more revenue, better cash flow, and actually make a profit (GASP!) And what would the market think? Shareholders would be happier, have more money to spend, employees would be more realistic and grateful for a job. Oh, and managers would make better business decisions.

This book had page after page of epiphanies. You know, the sudden

realization where you get to "Ah-hah!" that the dot commers' as an industry group have obviously overlooked in all of their technical innovation.. It's one thing to call yourself an entrepreneur and make a profit. It's entirely another to manage a business with a torrid cash burn rate that goes ripping out of the shareholders pockets, dragging the stock price down with it. Well, should you expect anything less if you can't recognize or manage business risk?

The real benefit to me from this book is the realization that although e-commerce companies these days must spend to develop all the sustainable competitive advantages possible, they must also instill throughout the employee base a strong sense of fiscal discipline and the impact of risk on every business decision.. Fundamentals my friend. It isn't about cold fusion or landing a crew on the nearest star. It's about people, external partners, internal partners, and the right way to deal with them and their

little and not-so-little bundles of risk..

Belt tightening? Well, it's in there. It is always a daunting task for well-managed companies, but it's frequently a fatal one for free spending ones. And boy, did the March 2000 meltdown in the NASDAQ ever bring the matter to the attention of every stunned investor.

Picking the right partners? Working with banks? How to avoid shooting yourself in the foot? Trust me, it's all in there and it's all relevant today if you run a business. And there's one heck of a lot more.

What's most important, and Peterson spells it out in The Complete Entrepreneur, is a clear path to avoiding fatal business risks. He identifies them for you! The lessons are put on the table in a light-hearted fashion but don't be mislead. They have a heavy-handed impact on your business and it's success. Every lesson that makes you smarter ultimately saves you money. That's one path to profitability that builds shareholder value. You can either learn from the lessons in the book or for pay for them. Or have your shareholders pay for them which is a fairly ungainly expectation after the market has applied a 95% haircut to the price of your stock because you didn't know the first thing about recognizing business risk..

One day soon, the next generation of dot commerce entrepreneurs are going to step to the front with innovations we just haven't imagined. Brilliant individuals, all of them. The ones that stay there will have started with the fundamental lessons about business risk in Mark Peterson's The Complete Entrepreneur.

Finally, it could help to free you from the intimidation of all those salespersons clad in guru's clothing who conduct seminars and office meetings, touting the latest product or service that is claimed to be "essential" for your survival in the wild-and-wooly world of real estate in cyberspace.

It has been my good fortune to have an early look at this book published by Prentice-Hall. The authors, not real estate practitioners themselves, are both spouses of web-enhanced Realtors in South Orange County.

They know whereof they speak, as both are active providers of Internet related services to Realtors, and they have both had the combat photographer's up-close view of real estate in the trenches. Their target audience will find the book both practical and appropriately written.

"Internet Marketing in Real Estate" consists of five parts:

"Creating and Building Your Internet Presence: Your Web Site"

"Getting Found" (the all-important section)

"Effective E-mail"

"Time to Get Started" (developing tasks, time-lines, and a budget)

Appendices

No technical expertise is presumed on the part of the reader. Each part that deals with Internet and marketing related concepts begins with a friendly "learning the language" section. A great deal of effort is made to explain to the reader, in plain language aided with illustrations, how things work in the initially mysterious world of Web sites, search engines, keywords, and meta-tags.

Textbook-like, "Internet Marketing in Real Estate" starts its sections with "the basics" and then develops the concepts that have been introduced. Sections end with exercises that encourage the reader to put his/her new knowledge to work.

The book also integrates related topics that are not Internet specific. Chapter 1 of Part 1 could be titled "Real Estate Marketing 101." It is important toward understanding Internet marketing concepts but that is because it is basic to marketing per se. Parts of the effective e-mail" section are straight out of basic composition. They are highly relevant.

"Internet Marketing in Real Estate" doesn't deal with all the issues that bear discussing. No book does. For example, the authors do not engage the serious questions that can be asked vis-à-vis the relative effectiveness of dollars and time spent on Internet marketing as opposed to other kinds of marketing. That is not their purpose.

When confronted with a new marketing medium, a businessperson (real estate or otherwise) must always ask the question, "If I adopt this, what will I stop doing that I am doing now?" (If the task - or the dollars - represents an addition to present efforts, rather than a replacement, then presumably it replaces something we were doing or spending in our non-business lives.)

To the credit of Cox and Koelzer, they present with great clarity the tasks and range of costs associated with various levels of involvement in Internet marketing. They provide the real estate businessperson with the information that will enable him or her to make an informed decision about this medium.

For those who have already decided that they want to make an effort at Internet marketing, the Cox and Koelzer book will provide an invaluable tool. Even the sales-focused agent who leaves the details to his marketing people and technical assistants will want this book - to give to them to read.