Strategy Books

Linda lays out the details on building a strategic public relations plan. She candidly tells you what will work and what won't, popping the balloons of those PR practitioners who bilk naive businesses with unfulfillable promises.

Her take on PR dismisses the Press Release Mills and Spin Doctors who damage our discipline and those foolish enough to engage them. She fleshes out some of the concerns I expressed in a Barks & Bites OPED in the Public Relations Journal Bulldog Reporter, entitled "I Want A Divorce." Her take on public relations is right in line with the role I advocate in my book, Play Nice, Make Money.

Linda has obviously been there and done it all. While students and PR professionals can gain much from this book, every business executive can gain a much better understanding of the role PR should play in their organization as well. This book should be required reading in every MBA program and business course as well as every communications course offered.

W.T. "Bill" McKibben

Perfect Condition - came right on time - no worries at all!

Shame on you. Do what Linda says. In order to do that you have to buy Linda's book. This is the cheapest graduate level course in modern public relations for the technical enterprise you will ever take. If you don't read and apply the lessons in this book, you will be walking on crutches in your job.

Linda VandeVrede is one of the best solo practitioners of PR for technical companies. I recommend her services regularly and I highly recommend her book.

Walt Boyes
Editor in Chief
Control magazine
www.controlglobal.com

What is PR? How does one develop a successful PR campaign? Linda VandeVrede's book answers all these questions and more. Her book is concise, interesting, and very easy to read and understand. "Press Releases are not a PR Strategy" walks the reader through the concepts of PR in a very straightforward way. From the entrepreneurial point of view, this book is invaluable! I highly recommend it for early stage startups.

This magazine is one of the best. Have all the tricks that you need to help you with the game. Buy it and proves it yourself.

This guide is very helpful and it was worth the price i paid for it.

the strategy guide has pics for all scenes and gives many good tips throughout.

The official MediEvil II guide is a rarity among most of Prima's recent strategy guide offerings--it's EXTREMELY good. Everything the game has to offer is greatly detailed by way of clear maps, screenshots, walkthrough directions, and enemy strategies. All of this is presented in a very nice layout which takes full advantage of all 160 pages--no wasted space to be found here. Highly recommended if there's anything stumping you about this game.

Mr. Reppen writes exceptionally well in any genre, whether informative, argumentative or persuasive. This volume is no exception. A welcome respite from the slew of mediocre fare that characterizes much of this type of stuff.

Erik is an excellent writer and a great undiscovered talent. Read his book!

I think the book that I wrote is great! I made these great diagrams with Microsoft Paint and I'm sure the hardest of hard core were blown away by my section on inertial space flight. Definitely buy this book... or steal it.

Erik Reppen

It's difficult to credit the grace and dignity of language which Mssr. Reppen brings to this strategy guide. The wealth of intelligence and tact which he bring to the task of describing Independence War is normally reserved for the finest of cathedral architects. A paean to you, fine craftsman.

User friendly read with many tips and ideas for using your time efficiently and establishing the climate you want.

I "had "to buy this book for a class in my masters program and after using it in class and reading through it, I decided that I was NOT going to sell it back. This is a great resource and help for principals or administrators. This will be a well read and heavily highlighted book that will remain a part of my library.

When I was a new assistant principal, I bought this book for a resource for my job. I am glad that I did. Not only did it help me throughout my assistant's career, but it assisted me while I worked on my master's.
It is a hands-on resource book that can help with many situations or prepare you for new situations. In our jobs, every day is a surprise, so the more effective resources that we have on our shelf, the more relaxed we are when it comes our way.
I believe that this is a book that should be in the curriculum of every college campus preparing dynamic, future principals.
Cathy Blair

I am two thirds through this book, but there is so much advice and consciousness-raising information that is thoughtfully presented and very much need that it's not necessary to wait until I finish the book to write a glowing recommendation. There are ideas I will need this year to boost collegiality and morale. Some of the problem-sharing ideas are quick and easy to implement, too. I would like to have read more about interviewing and hiring teachers, but other than that I am quite pleased. I'll pick up this book often as a refresher.

This book taught me one thing I didn't know (finite differences -a lot less strain on me to find formulas and equations) and gave me challenging problems.

I borrowed this resource from another teacher during my student teaching as a math teacher. Now I am in my first year teaching full time and looking to buy my own copy--I don't know what to do without it! It is a great resource for problems for many age and ability levels. The problems are interesting, use a variety of well-established strategies, and make problem solving fun! A great book.

Six years ago I actually took Problem Solving from Ken Johnson, one of the authors, at Sierra College. Problem solving became a whole new and exciting recreation from then on. I would have to credit that miracle to the class's amazing teacher and the book he wrote. I have had hundreds of teachers in my life, and am a teacher myself, yet I have never met any teacher that was as gifted as Ken Johnson. His talent is clearly evident in his written work as well. (PS, how many people would it take to give this book 396 thumbs up?)

I had to purchase this book for a Class I was taking at Sam Houston State University. It is an excellent book to help learn problem solving strategies. Although, I am an elementary education major with a math specialization and had to take this class, I would recommend this book to anyone who is planning to teach grades 1 through 12. This book was designed for middle school grades, but could be adapted to any grade level. Problem solving is so important in mathematics.

Profit Mapping is unusual in the sense that it combines a strategic element with specific details outling decision processes and execution. The authors have created a practical how to for decison making that results in a systematic guide for execution. This book really focuses on making value added decisions for every key member of an organiztion. Many strategic books are good at a high level with no details. This book gets into the nuts and bolts of value based business decisions.

I know that everyone is anxiously waiting for the next approach to business improvement. My own journey started with Ollie Wight himself and the refrain that the days of the expeditor were over. I'm not sure if I was an expeditor at the time but that was my first job and in the week before I retired I did the exact same thing I had done 33 years before. One of our salesmen called me (VP Operations) to make sure we would be making a shipment as the customer's unit was down. The biggest change was that we had received the order in the morning, manufactured the product, and had the product delivered before midnight, to Freeport, TX from Chicago. In the old days we would have told the salesman no, he would have called his boss, who would call my boss who would call his boss, and so on until it reached the top of the company and we were told to do what the customer wanted. Of course by this time we lost a couple of days and no one was happy.

Reading Anil Menawat and Adam Garfein's new book Profit Mapping brings back a lot of memories and the realization that along this path of continuous improvement that some things worked but nothing seemed to be the solution that was advertised. A lot of us have seen great benefits to the lean journey but along the way it always seemed as if we just were not quite there. There are those examples where On-time delivery is 100% and inventories approach zero and analogies of reducing the level of the water to find the rocks drives the next level of improvement but the net result seems that while the business is better, a lot of times the individual improvement projects do not meet expectations or drive the business to the next level.

The book drives the concept that everything in business is a set of processes and that changes to each of the process need to be evaluated for the consequences both intended and unintended. This can be done theoretically before you take action by integrating a financial analysis (income statement) with the various scenarios. It provides a roadmap on how this can be done but to me the biggest value is that it drives the logic that there are no absolutes but that with the facts you can pick and choose those actions dynamically that will have the biggest impact on the business. It may even support the position that it is better left alone but that has its own political complications. The example in the back of the book shows that there are times due to equipment and demand profiles that having inventory in queue is more realistic and better for the business. Some of this is dangerous territory....

For everyone who has been through the mill, this is more than just another book. It hopefully sets the stage for all of us to realize that rules of thumb are just that and to drive a business one needs to do what is right for the customer and concentrate on those things that are proven to truly impact the business and are not just another notch on the belt of completed projects. This book is a keeper.

This book is a "must read" for managers who rely on "rule of thumb," and "best guess" methodologies that have held sway in every business that I've ever been associated with.

The authors set out clearly how you can take control of your future, and test the results of an action or strategy before you commit resources and potentially set off down the wrong road. But first you've got to take on board the idea that simply projecting past results is no way to forecast, because those results came from different demand and capability circumstances than you face now.

I thought that the authors argued convincingly that you must understand the factors that affect your business, and which of them you do and don't control. The ProFIT-MAP methodology then lets you test those factors for sensitivity, so you can concentrate on the things that really matter to the overall goal.

Now you need to know the dynamics of your process. The authors break the business into 3 areas, Processes, Resources and Finance, and urge us to make sure that an "improvement" in one area doesn't result in major disruption elsewhere. (I could never figure out why cost savings in a production process, was rarely reflected in the overall bottom line.) Now I know, "tunnel vision".

Having followed the 6 Phases detailed in the book, you can generate different scenarios and analyse the impact across the board.

It might sound like a lot of work, but you're already doing a lot of work - guess work mostly, and once you've done it the first time, it's easy to continue. Remember, to make the broadly correct decision, you don't need to know the minutiae. But every time you reiterate, you add better data for tomorrow's decision support.

Speaking of figures, the authors offer a specification for real-time data collection and software integration that I have yet to see in the real world. However, help may be at hand, I notice that the Menawat & Co's website now makes mention of something called "ProFIT-MAP Dashboard", which promises integrated analytics. I will be watching this space.

Anil Menawat and Adam Garfein provide in this brilliant volume "a tool for aligning operations with future profit and performance." To their credit, they explain with meticulous care how to drive operational excellence through profit mapping to create a sustainable edge which they correctly characterize as "the management roller coaster." In this context, I am reminded of the familiar assertion that "you can't manage what you cannot measure" and how important it is to "measure only what matters."

The maps with which Lewis and Clark began their journey of exploration in 1804 were crude and over time revised as the journey continued until 1806. The same is true of the documents with which - more two centuries later -- senior-level executives begin an exploration of their own organizations, in search of hidden resources and new opportunities. Following their Introduction to this volume, Menawat and Garfein, examine various challenges to business execution, present a "parametric framework" by which to "drive the system," and explain how to "win before taking action with a structured methodology," then shift their attention practical action steps in combination with two case studies in Chapter 10. The first examines a common dilemma of "doing no harm." The second illustrates ProFIT-MAP's potential to drive radical cost reduction without sacrificing quality or throughput.

With regard to ProFIT-MAP, Menawat and Garfein offer it as a "forward-looking management decision methodology" which enables senior-level executives to "navigate [both] the forests and the trees of business strategy and execution proactively." It consists of six phases: Project Objectives (please see pages 155-167), Process (pages 170-177), Resources (pages 177-180), Finance (pages 181-184), "What if?" (pages 184-187), and Business Execution Option Choice (pages 193-202).

With regard to the first phase, I am reminded of what Peter Drucker suggests in an article written for the Harvard Business Review (1963): "There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all." Obviously, it makes absolutely no sense to create a totally accurate map - even if guided and informed by the ProFIT-MAP methodology -- to achieve an objective that will not increase profits and improve performance.

To me, some of the most interesting and most valuable material is provided in Chapter 4 as Menawat and Garfein explain how and why the Parametric Activities-Based Framework (pABF) offers a practical approach to measuring the right variables in any enterprise in order to reconstruct the whole system. One of the greatest benefits of the pABF is that it eliminates the need for patches or workarounds. On pages 101-102, Menawat and Garfein cite eight specific reasons why the pABF is a better estimation and reconstruction framework than others which lack a methodology or a process for applying one.

It seems appropriate to conclude this brief commentary with a brief excerpt from Chapter 1 in which Menawat and Garfein duly acknowledge various challenges to profitability and competitiveness. However, although "managers may not be able to do anything about high fixed costs in the near term, they can do a lot more operationally to increase effectiveness and quality while striving to reduce cost. In order to overcome changes in demand and financial constraints, organizations must learn to be become cost-competitive; price competitiveness is not enough. Industry leaders win by focusing on operational execution, cost management, and customers. The devil is in the details, and they understand that success happens only when the plan is grounded in reality, as opposed to invalidated expectations." This is precisely what Thomas Edison had in mind when asserting that "Vision without execution is hallucination."

Congratulations to Menawat and Garfein on a brilliant achievement.

I bought the previous edition of this book several years ago and learned so much from its straight forward, well-organized and clear presentation (I am neither an accountant nor a tax person) that co-workers and family members began quizzing me on matters of estate planning. This book allowed me to answer many questions and also enabled me to have a very intelligent conversation with a professional estate planner. I consider the book such a valuable resource that I just purchased the updated edition.

Outstanding book to educate yourself on estate planning. This book will prepare you for the planning process so you can understand what your estate planning attorney is talking about and what he or she is trying to accomplish for you. It also very clearly outlines the fallacies inherent in trying to conduct estate planning without competent legal counsel. The authors tell you know how to find competent advice and how to arrange conduct free consultation interviews with any prospective estate planning specialists. If you are even thinking about estate planning, GET THIS BOOK!

I am an estate planning attorney, not affiliated with any of the author's companies, and I think this book is a "must read" for anyone who is serious about planning his/her estate.

By the way, estate planning is for everone, not merely the "wealthy." The cost (in time and fees) to have a customed designed and implemented estate plan will probably be the best investment you will ever make to protect and preserve your wealth for your loved ones.

This book was better than most I've read on estate planning. Its objective was to familiarize the reader with the estate planning process. I'm not sure it really covered "the process." But I think it educates the reader well enough to be an educated consumer when consulting an estate planning attorney for help in estate tax planning matters.

As I read I got the feeling the authors were anti-probate and pro- living trusts. And there were certain things included in the book that made it sound like a promotional piece for the authors' own law practices and organizations. I would have liked it better if the book had not come across as a promotional piece.

The authors say to treat this book as a survey of what estate planning can be. When reading this book (7 years after it was written) I got the feeling the content could have been a bunch of blog entries the authors have posted online that they conveniently strung together to make a book. There are 42 chapters and 4 "entries" in the appendix. And the book is only 330 pages long.

I was looking for a Glossary of Terms, but failed to find one. The book would have been better with one. And I would have liked the book better if Appendix D about the history of estate planning had been moved to the front.

Chapter 1: What is estate planning? I felt this chapter was lousy. It was wordy and vague and not really accurate. Estate planning is really "estate tax planning." It is not financial planning or "wealth strategies planning" as the authors suggest. Nor is estate planning to be confused with "disability planning." As a result, I'm not sure why Chapter 4 was included.

Chapter 8: Probate. I enjoyed reading about estate administration in this chapter. But I think the authors did the reader a disservice by equating the probate process to estate administration. Other problems I had with this chapter include the statement made that executors work for the probate court or probate judge. This simply is not true! Executors work for the estate (a separate legal entity). And the statement that probate is complicated is not accurate as stated. In some cases it can be. But in most it is NOT.

Chapter 9: The federal estate tax. Here the authors repeatedly referred to the estate tax as a death tax. The estate tax has nothing to do with death. It only has to do with wealth transfers. If a poor person dies, then no estate tax is due. If the estate tax were really a death tax, then a tax would be due when a poor person dies.

Chapter 10: The unified system. I had a problem with the material the authors chose to talk about here. Why was it necessary to discuss the way things used to be? As far as I am concerned the book would have been much better if the authors had stuck to the present and explained how things are now. The presentation of the material would have been much more straighforward and easy to understand. 4 stars!

this is a handy guide that you can take anywhere. small and succint. easy to read and up to date information. highly recommended!

A nice, pocket-sized resource to help learn and distinguish between the essential diagnoses in psychiatry. Great for medical students and junior residents. DSM-IV criteria readily available for most common psychiatric diagnoses.

Excellent mini-reference. All pertinent medicine information. Pertinent condition information to include information on the DSM-IV criteria. I pull this little book out of my lab coat daily. If you are not going into psych and don't want to waste money on a full size book you may not ever use again, this is the one to get. If you are going into psych and want a great reference that fits in your pocket, this is the one to get

I am in my final phase of psychiatric nurse practitioner program. This book was recommended by my professor. It is a great handbook to use at the bedside, short, concise, recommendations for treatment...and best of all pocket size!!. Highly recommend.

Many times the term "classic" is overused, but not in this case. The author actually served in the British navy in WWII and his book pulls you in, gives you an idea of what is was really like to be on the Hood, or on the Bismarck during its final battle. It also gives you an idea of what the Hood meant, as a symbol, to the British navy. The only question that was not answered for me, was why no FW Condors were sent out to aid the Bismarck when the British moved in?

Written in 1974 ~ in a world before Muellenheim-Rechberg, Ballard, and Mearns became published, familiar names ~ this is a wide-ranging and richly-textured account deserving of the too-loosely bandied term "classic". Sir Ludovic was a serving Lieutenant aboard HMS TARTAR, one of the Tribal-class destroyers present at the climax of this most epic of sea stories. Far from being merely an "I was there..." account, PURSUIT is the result of extensive research into official British, German and other records, coupled with the fruits of an amazing array of interviews and correspondence with many of the key players, at sea and ashore. Esmond Knight, from the PRINCE OF WALES (who also made a cameo appearance in "Sink the Bismarck") was among the sources, as was (surprising to me) Norwegian fisherman Viggo Axelssen, whose sunset sighting of the two German ships outbound past Kristiansand confirmed the first sighting report relayed by Britain's Naval Attache in Stockholm.
Sir Ludovic weaves a wealth of facts and operational insights through his narrative strands, his hallmark prose style at once seductively gripping and colourful: scenes, moods, weather, waves and witness accounts bring this tragic tale to life in a unique way. For example, from the start of Chapter Four (you'll know what's coming!): "And so the two admirals, Luetjens and Holland, riding on their great chargers, came at each other like knights of old, with guns for lances and armoured bridges for visors and pennants streaming in the wind."
The track charts and maps are masterpieces, and set a standard for the genre all too rarely emulated today. One photograph in particular ~ of BISMARCK departing from Grimstad Fjord ~ is a gem I've not seen in any other publication, and the double-page view from the REPULSE of the KGV and VICTORIOUS "standing on towards the enemy in a flurry of spray" captures the lonely desperation of the evening following the Denmark Strait battle.
By any measure, this book is a "must have".

This is one of those "personal account" tomes that has a nasty tendency to "pull you right in", and with any good book, that is a PLUS!

Kennedy's account of the Royal Navy's pursuit and subsequent sinking of the German battleship Bismarck is the stuff of legends. From cover to cover, the manner in which the story is recounted keeps the reader engrossed. The photos from the events are marvelous, and had they not even been included, this would still be a great book. I just think of the pictures as "icing" on an otherwise tasty "cake".

As with every personal account, there will be errors, and although none of them are that profound, they are there , notwithstanding. I had hoped that further printings would alleviate that, but perhaps not.
That is the only smudge on this otherwise outstanding chapter of history.

What would be nice to see is a newer cinema version, without the "fluff", and with all the facts intact based entirely on this book.

I would recommend this to people of any age, who not only are history buffs, but just enjoy hearing a good old yarn spun from an old "salt".

This is a worthwhile and even-handed account of the pursuit and subsequent sinking of the Bismarck, which is particularly notable for the way in which in the author uses his own wartime experience as a junior naval officer to evoke the human element of this dramatic episode of naval history and bring the account to life.

Especially memorable in this respect are his comments on the sinking of the Hood and his description of the grim fate of Bismarck's survivors as the Dorsetshire broke off her rescue action.

The book is not without its inaccuracies -- for example, Kennedy wrongly suggests that Luftwaffe reconnaisance of Scapa Flow was misled by British decoy ships -- and it is marred by a writing style which perversely omits many conjunctions.

However, Kennedy's book will be read with profit by anyone seeking a straightforward account of how in the space of three days, two of the world's greatest warships were destroyed and with them over 3,500 mostly young lives.

Mr. Silver, in his book "Raising Kids in an Age of Terror," confronts
issues
that are new to parents in the 21st Century. He has written a very
informative book on weapons of mass destruction and their consequences,
and
gives us an excellent insight to the political, social and religious
preludes to why we are now engaged in attempting to preserve our way of
life. I would highly recommend this book to all families.

Ray Derby...

Being somewhat secluded as a 'normal' U.S. citizen (at least hat's what I realize now), I needed to get a better background on why terrorism exists (and why they dislike the U.S. so much), the reality of the threat, and what I could consider doing if I want to take steps for my family. This book answered those key questions for me and gave me many additional resources that I can further explore on my own. The book does not take political sides - it just present the facts and the reality. The book also offers positive life-oriented advice that is always good to follow - with or without this threat of terrorism - but the advice hits home more because of the threat.

I've always taught my children that knowledge conquers fear.
if your child is afraid of spiders,
help him find out all about them, so he'll know which are harmless
and which are not. Knowledge helps children develop reasonable
fears that will guide, rather than paralyze them. This same
rule applies to understanding terrorists. We need to know all
we can about the terrorists in order to prepare ourselves for
the war and the possibility of terrorism.

As you are well aware, perpetrators of terrorism do not think like us. In
order to anticipate their actions, we need to understand them
from the inside out, the way an FBI profiler understands the
mental landscape of a sociopath.

We are fortunate that one concerned father took this to
task and turned his desire to protect his children and provide
answers to their fears into a valuable resource. In "Raising
Kids in an Age of Terror," author C. Brian Silver reveals how
terrorists think, why they hate us and how we can protect
ourselves from terrorism, while turning fears into knowledge.

In a clear and balanced way, Mr. Silver investigates why
we find ourselves in this conflict, the ways in which our country
has contributed to it, how vigilance can thwart future attacks
and how to live with the threat of terrorism. Although these
subjects provide food for adult minds, the underlying premise
of the book is how to relieve adult anxiety through understanding
and preparation, so the parent can help children cope with
the fear of living under the constant threat of terrorism. Silver devotes
an entire chapter to this subject.

In "Raising Kids in an Age of Terror," Silver does more than
investigate the problem and how it was created, he offers
solutions as to what we, as individuals and as a country, can
do to help resolve the situation. At the end of the book, there
is an appendix that offers a disaster planning guide, a checklist
and the supplies that you will need in case of a terrorist attack.

If you or your kids have been plagued by uncertainty or
anxiety since the terrorism of 9/11 or if you don't fully understand the
conflict, I urge you to read this book. You'll come away with
a perspective on terrorism that will allay your fears, help
your children cope with theirs and prepare you and your
family for the uncertainties ahead.

So many of us feel impotent in the face of modern terrorism that we don't know where to turn. So what do we do? Turn nowhere! Instead, I highly recommend this concise and critical volume that not only explains the current terrorism cells for the layman or woman, but gives you step by step advice on how to protect yourself and, more importantly, your children. Highly recommended as a one-stop resource for busy, safety conscious Americans...