Business Books

I have been in the consulting business for the past 20 years. This book proved itself by consolidating many business concepts and ideas.

This book is very informative. It contains invaluable Knowledge on a variety of tpoics such as Security clearances, apostille, etc. These topics are rarely seen discussed in this level of detail.

Dr. Uchil writes in compact, easy to digest chapters about the broad sweep of ideas necessary to successfully navigate the corporate world. "Essential Information" can be viewed as vital intelligence to get your plans lined up with your goals, especially for those retiring from/leaving one career and seeking an exciting and radically different one in the corporate marketplace. I have used this candid guide to chart my own course and, when discussing life plans with friends, his words often come to mind. I have already recommended this book to several friends on the verge of major career decisions.

Dr Uchil's Survival handbook is an incredible tool to bring us back to the basics of navigating the corporate world. As a Healthcare Project Director in the Consulting arm of a Multi-Billion dollar software and services company, it is always helpful to be reminded of the basics and the importance of influencing others in order to survive in a large corporation.

Navigating the corporate world and creating the necessary environment allows individuals the ability to get things done and is crucial to individual and corporate sucess.

Key areas of Interest for me were the chapters on Consulting, Resumes(reviewing), Proper business etiquette, Human Resource matters, and most importantly the Balance of work demands and family. With 4 kids ages 9-16, it is always difficult to balance Work vs. home needs and still feel sucessfull.

Highly recommend reading this book and getting back to basics.

Dr. Uchil's book is an excellent primer on the culture and nuances of the corporate world. This book should be recommended reading for all those new to the corporate eco-system as Dr. Uchil's observations provides insightful tips and techniques to successfully navigate the corporate world. I highly recommend this book as both a guide to those new to large corporations as well as useful reference for the seasoned professional--an outstanding read.

Received the book in the condition specified in the listing. It was delivered promptly with no problems. Would recommend this seller.

Creating a Life Worth Living is one of the best purchases I've made in some time. Rather than the usual advice of satisfying an inner child or making a laundry list of things you THINK you might like to try, Carol Lloyd leads you through a series of exercises that help narrow down the field considerably. She requires you to work, to think about who you are, identify your bad habits and obsessions and incorporate those as well as your talents and inclinations. She encourages you, but it's clear the work is yours to do. This is a workbook for people who are creative, are looking for a direction, and can use self-examination as a propelling force rather than an excuse for not moving forward.

I've owned this book for a few years and even now, I turn to it once in while for motivation. Similar in objective to Julia Cameron's books, it is designed differently, more like a 15 weeks workshop. It is absolutely essential for creative types looking to guidance on their path, no matter what turn they are at.

Even if you don't make a living at your art or craft, this book is excellent for those who want to give more space for their personal project. "Creative types" loom large; there must be something in "Creating a Life Worth Living" for a large number of persons. Most alive and curious working people have a second or many passions beside working at their jobs: engineers writing science fiction books, secretaries making specialty chocolate or salesmen writing books.

Whatever your passion, whatever the stage you are at living it, you can find ideas to guide you and portraits of creative people enjoying their own life worth living. In the same vein, I would also recommend "The Pathfinder" by Nicholas Lore and "Soul Mapping" by Nina Frost et al.

I bought this book one year ago and it has been very important to me. I did go through the exercises during 12 weeks. And some exercises and ideas opened a whole new perspective on my life and career. I read a lot of self-help books, and this book stands out. Lloyd is down to earth and her book is funny and well written. She gave courses and out of that experience she wrote this book. At this moment I have a job I love and I bought a second book to lend it to my friends.

Carol Lloyd's "Creating a Life Worth Living" bears a subtitle that declares it to be "a practical course in career design for artists, innovators, and others aspiring to a creative life." And in that, it succeeds quite well. The course (developed from workshops Lloyd teaches) starts with the assumption that maybe you have a yearning to do something different with your life, but you don't yet know what that is or, at least, how to do it. Starting with a "daily action" and moving on to some material on idea generation and abstraction, Lloyd mixes thoughts on creativity ("It's good to simply look at your lived experience and separate it from your concepts about 'life.'") with concrete exercises and interviews with successful creative people from all walks of life: teachers, painters, actors, writers, inventors, entrepreneurs, performance artists, dancers, directors, and more.

A book like this won't bandage up your life and make everything better in five easy steps. It won't reveal a magical key that will show you how to make millions from your watercolors. But it can help you to see your life a bit more clearly. It can help you to see the options and resources you might have missed, and it can help you to figure out what needs you have, creatively speaking, and how best to fulfill them.

Questions encourage you to take both the short and the long view, the practical and the ideal. Lloyd helps you to let go of your preconceptions by having you write down everything, no matter how silly, and by sharing stories of people who succeeded by doing what everyone told them they shouldn't do. So if you're already snugly fitted into your creative career, you'll have little use for this book. But if you're struggling to figure out what to do next or where to go, this book could help you turn your interests and desires into a concrete plan of action that fulfills both emotional and practical needs.

The 21st century has witnessed the shrinking of the world into one global village. Today, businesses and financial markets are irrevocably interlinked. The internet has spawned a remarkable revolution which enables people from around the world to communicate for free with one another through email and online messengers.

As national boundaries become less important, people from all over the world have to interact with each other. Cultural clashes can be inevitable unless people learn to understand how other cultures think and behave.

Thomas Zweifel's book is a must read for today's global managers, diplomats, students, world travellers - infact just about anyone who wants to be a part of the globalized free world.

You cannot truly talk about multinational business issues much less work in a international professional space without understanding the cultures in question and the many pitfalls associated with "diving right in" with possible good intentions but little cultural knowledge. This small yet information heavy book is essential in understanding and navigating Culture Clash.

This book is a must read. For anyone in business looking to climb the corporate ladder this book offers very valuable insight. The author shares his broad and fascinating experiences working with different cultures. I couldn't put this book down. It was a real eye opener.

What is particularly great about this book is that it has so many telling examples, which allows the reader to compare them with his or her own culture.
Reading this book has made me think a lot about the characteristics of the Danish culture (my culture). The qoute on the Germans "But how do we do this? I can't see that this can be done" - that is so Danish!
Such insight is very helpful, because knowing intellectually that your own culture is "a set of rituals and norms" as all other cultures is one thing, but actually being able to see the specific characteristics of your own culture is so much more!

Helle Vincentz Jørgensen, journalist and writer, New York.

Thomas Zweifel's "Culture Clash" is a must-read for anyone embarking on his/her first ventures into the global economy, with valuable tips on how to proceed and, perhaps more significantly, how NOT to proceed. This applies to senior managers as well, including CEOs, especially those anxious to grab their share of the exploding global market without having experienced or learned about its complexities and nuances. Mistakes can be very costly. But it also is valuable for veteran multinationalists for its insightful reminders of what we went through during those formative years of emplaning to a foreign destination on business; the excitement, the formalities, the wisdom of listening, of modest presentation, of respect for ingrained customs, and what can go wrong as well as what did, indeed, go wrong. Beynd all that, its content is amusing and chock full of fascinating mini-case histories that help the pages fly by at a delightful clip. William Schechter
President
William Schechter Incorporated
New York, NY

I wish I would have read this prior to starting to work for his new company and also I could've used this about 5 years ago to encourage me to change careers. This is an excellent book and I'm using some of the examples in it for my MBA application this fall.

I don't think I need to tell any educated person that a review from a disgruntled ex-employee needs to be taken with a grain of salt, if not a whole handful (9/26/02). Rosenbluth is not a perfect company, and Hal never pretends it is but the lifeblood of his company is his belief that every member of the company is a valuable contributor. His book does a great job of conveying that value proposition and how others can make it work.

Although many companies preach an employee empowerment model few practice it. That's why Rosenbluth's mascot is the Salmon - we swim upstream.

As an Executive Coach and a close observer of many corporate cultures it did my poor old tired heart a world of good to read this book. If what Hal Rosenbluth says about his company is even half true, it puts his organization at the forefront of employee value and relationship management. Beyond all that, it makes perfect common sense. Why we would think in our wildest imagination that an employee who does not feel valued by his employer would not transmit that lack of appreciation to his customers, is a mistery to me. The first 100 pages of this book are not be missed by any company who truly wants to improve their workplace culture, increase the productivity of their workforce and cut their turnover rate down dramatically. Read it and implement any one of the outstanding programs explained within and watch s shift in morale and productivity start right away. This book is a keeper and an excellent reference source. I could not recommend it more highly.

I am an avid reader of business books, and if I gain just one or two usable ideas from a book, I consider it worth my time. This book is a stand-out among management books, because I got not one or two, but at least a dozen solid ideas I can implement right away. I have shared it with all my top level managers, and have wathced it being shared throughout my multi-national organization. It is a gem, to be kept within reach in one's office -- not with the countless other books that sit, read once, on most managers' bookshelves. I highly recommend it for anyone who cares about the success of their business.

As an Executive Coach and a close observer of many corporate cultures it did my poor old tired heart a world of good to read this book. If what Hal Rosenbluth says about his company is even half true, it puts his organization at the forefront of employee value and relationship management. Beyond all that, it makes perfect common sense. Why we would think in our wildest imagination that an employee who does not feel valued by his employer would not transmit that lack of appreciation to his customers, is a mistery to me. The first 100 pages of this book are not be missed by any company who truly wants to improve their workplace culture, increase the productivity of their workforce and cut their turnover rate down dramatically. Read it and implement any one of the outstanding programs explained within and watch s shift in morale and productivity start right away. This book is a keeper and an excellent reference source. I could not recommend it more highly.

This book is packed with ideas on winning back customers. It takes CRM to a new level. The authors have a great understanding of what motivates the customers' decisions.

We have utilized Customer Winback as a tool in taking our organization to the next level of service recovery. As a healthcare organization renowned for service excellence, we found that this book assisted us in developing new approaches through the case studies and examples offered by the authors. The information provided is clear, straightforward and easy to translate to any industry. It is refreshing to read a book that focuses of the value of keeping existing customers rather than constant recruitment of new customers. I would highly recommend Customer Winback.

This book deals with the often neglected area of bringing customers back once you have lost them. Griffin and Lowenstein give the reader numerouse specific strategies and tools for winning back lost customers, saving customer before they defect and "making your company defection-proof."

As I have stated in my review for "The Journal of Consumer Marketing",each chapter summarizes the points succinctly in a method that allows the reader to digest the material for long-term memory.

This book is right for people who have,had, or hope to have customers. It is one of the most comprehensive books on getting,keeping and getting back customers that I have encountered. It is for people who teach marketing and for people who do marketing.

Customer Winback has great information and wonderful examples (presented in depth) of what companies can do to address a much-neglected area of customer service--winning back lost customers. It shows how this concept is just as important as emphasizing customer loyalty and customer satisfaction in not only maintaining customers, but keeping them delighted and coming back to buy more.

It is very well organized, well-written and covers a wide range of material. It also gives you many ideas to implement at your own company. Just one chapter provides you with more substance than many entire books. This is an excellent customer service book and a must for customer service managers. I recommend it highly.

Customer Winback has great information and wonderful examples (presented in depth) of what companies can do to address a much-neglected area of customer service--winning back lost customers. It shows how this concept is just as important as emphasizing customer loyalty and customer satisfaction in not only maintaining customers, but keeping them delighted and coming back to buy more.

It is very well organized, well-written and covers a wide range of material. It also gives you many ideas to implement at your own company. Just one chapter provides you with more substance than many entire books. This is an excellent customer service book and a must for customer service managers. I recommend it highly.

All of the office politics, dishonesty and clawing that was going on around me was stressing me out. I was about to join in reluctantly for fear of being left in the dust. This book was a real eye opener and has helped me deal with what I have learned to be a universal corporate problem (which explains a lot about why corporate America is continuously critisized). If everyone is clawing their way to the top, who is actually working and getting the job done? Thanks to this book's funny approach to dealing with office politics, I am and I hope it will not go un-noticed.

This book covered some of the most interesting topics of real human life in the workplace, and not only in the United States. It also applies in places like Spain, where I'm from. Jean's experience in dealing with all these subjects makes the book and her advice very useful and realistic. Also I very much enjoyed reading this book -- it's certainly not boring! I strongly recomend this book to my friends, to people who work in companies or institutions, and also to the general public. I'm sure they will learn from it as well as enjoy it. Thanks, Jean, for this excellent book.

I will admit I was skeptical when I picked up the book but I quickly found myself laughing and learning. In a light, funny and to the point "Dear Abby" style Jean answers tough questions about today's changing workplace. Covering everything from when to conduct business durng a business lunch to how to deal with the gum-smacking co-worker, Jean sheds light on many issues. Using real life examples, she gives the reader tools to get ahead in the workplace. No matter what your line of work there is bound to be something in the book for you.

Dear Jean is one of the most useful books for dealing with the everyday antics of the workplace. Jean stresses the importance of personal responsibility that is so often missing in today's employees. To get her career started in the right direction I gave my daughter a copy on the day she started her first real job.

Jean's writing style makes reading this book an absolute joy. Every office should keep a copy for reference.

Dear Jean provides key insights and tips that can help improve our interpersonal relationships at work. The book provides a variety of real cases and issues that we may face at work. The book can become a very powerful "personal skill software" that will avoid us being caught up in messy personal issues at work that may hinder us from accomplishing our full business potential. Alejandro Sucre Director of Caracas Teleport / Otassca

This is an excellent book on debugging. Whether you're debugging mechanical systems, electrical circuits, or software, the methodology presented is extremely practical and systematic. The author presents nine debugging rules that can be applied to any problem. The text is well-written, engaging, and humorous. The author also included a wealth of war stories that are worth the price alone. Highly recommended.

This Book Demonstrates How you could debug SOMETHING systematically, from most important principle to least important principle.(All 9 As the Book name said.) The Examples covers software, hardware, electrical, mechanical debugging. It is just amusement to read the example. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Quite liked it. I now have a game plan for approaching bugs in a nonrandom manner (including intermittent bugs):


Understand the System
- Read all related documentation
- Draw a system diagram and understand how things are connected
- Know the capabilities of your debugging tools


Make It Fail
- Start from a clean initial state
- Consider automating lengthy steps
- Make it fail in situ; don't waste time simulating the environment
- For intermittent bugs: list possible factors and try varying them one at a time; output a logfile and look for patterns


Quit Thinking and Look
- Watch it fail
- Use Remote Desktop / VNC
- Add logging and monitors
- Don't start thinking until you've limited the number of possible causes


Divide and Conquer
- Binary search
- Use test data with an easily identifiable pattern
- Start at the failure point and work backwards
- If you discover other bugs that may be related, fix them before continuing your search


Change One Thing at a Time
- Don't panic
- Back out changes that have no effect
- Compare the logfile with that of a good system
- Check earlier versions


Keep an Audit Trail
- Keep a detailed written log


Check the Plug
- D'oh!
- Have the components been properly initialized?


Get a Fresh View
- Try explaining the problem to someone (or something)
- Ask an expert: co-workers, the vendor, documentation, bug database, the web
- Report symptoms (including possibly unrelated observations), but not your theories


If You Didn't Fix It, It Ain't Fixed
- Fix the root cause
- Make the problem happen again by undoing your fix

I worked with Dave Agans for over 10 years and I can tell you first hand the man knows what he's talking about. From developing hand-held controllers in the late eighties to single-board OS/2-based videoconferencing products to software collaboration tools, we have debugged problems of every ilk. Whether the problem was an FPGA bug, a faulty component in a board, a race condition in a device driver or a dangling pointer in a DLL, Dave always approached the problem with his same set of debugging rules, and they never let him down. Read this book. It's engaging and fun to read. But more importantly it will make you a better debugger, whether you're debugging hardware, software or your lawnmower.

This book is absolutely indispensable for anyone working in any job where things occasionally work in an unexpected manner. It's concise, funny, well-written, and full of immensely useful tips on how to go about debugging problems.

One of the great things about this book is that it's generalistic in nature, not specific. Agans's decades of troubleshooting experience has given him great insight on how to go about debugging in all sorts of environments, so he lays out nine rules for approaching any problem:

Understand the System
Make it Fail
Quit Thinking and Look
Divide and Conquer
Change One Thing at a Time
Keep an Audit Trail
Check the Plug
Get a Fresh View
If You Didn't Fix It, It Ain't Fixed

[...]

Debugging isn't an art performed only by folks with some odd genetic disposition, it's a critical craft which can and must be learned. I was fortunate to have some good troubleshooters as mentors during my days working radar inflight in the Air Force, but I've fallen out of many of the good practices those folks beat^H^H^H^Hinstilled in me. Agans's book is helping me pull out of the thrash and churn mode of debugging.

This book's only 175 or so pages long and is well-worth adding to your library. Actually, substitute "a critical addition" for "well worth adding". I'm also going to make sure this book gets added to the professional development reading list I'm working on creating.

This is a great, straightforward reference. It covers everything any person needs to know about dining etiquette without any useless "filler" material. The audio format is great and the speaker is one of the best I have listen to.

After a few months as a first year associate at my law firm, one of my former law school classmates told me that their firm had sent its new associates to an etiquette class. I decided that it might be a good idea for me to brush up on my etiquette skills as well, so I purchased this CD and also the Food Scholar Wine Basics CD. I recommend both for new professionals to prepare them for any "dining" situation they may encounter in their first jobs. These situations frequently fall into the "you don't know what you don't know" category of student knowledge.

I, for one, had very little experience in more formal dining situations upon graduating from school. This CD was just what I needed to get myself up-to-speed. It is well-organized and well-presented, covering a number of very specific situations that convey the elements of common sense and consideration that underlie all etiquette.

The author thankfully avoids spending time on how to arrange the seating at a state dinner. What he offers is practical, usable advice on the types of real social interactions that occur in all kinds of business. A very useful CD and well worth the price. Definitely five stars.

I will be graduating from college this year and have started to interview for jobs. I have a decent GPA, am in the career placement office every week for advice, and have spent hours polishing my resume. I thought that I had all my bases covered. Then I started actually interviewing for jobs. I have already had three interviews that included meals and two "mixers" with drinks and appetizers. It was a little overwhelming. I could tell there was an order to things I did not completely understand. A friend recommended this Dining Etiquette CD, so I ordered it. I had yet another meal during an interview after listening to it. It made a big difference. Knowing what to do at every turn during the meal was a confidence booster and I am sure it helped me appear more polished and professional. I HIGHLY recommend it, Two Thumbs Up.

A good etiquette book should sit on every professional's bookshelf alongside "how to win friends" and "7 habits." I purchased this book along with Essential Etiquette Fundamentals, Vol. 2: Wine Selection & Etiquette and The Etiquette Edge: The Unspoken Rules for Business Success to cover all the bases. These books do an excellent job covering the important etiquette skills often overlooked in today's environment. Although often underappreciated, exhibiting proper etiquette signals to others (especially your boss and clients) that you are well educated, care about detail, and have respect for others. I highly recommend these books for anyone new to the business world or for those of us who may need to brush up on the basics.

The last book on CD my wife and I bought was terrible: mens' voices for female characters, etc. And what's the alternative on the radio? Pop music or Howard Stern? I spend twenty percent of my waking life in my car. I might as well spend it wisely. The Food Scholar is easy listening and presented in a way that makes the information easy to learn and remember.

I have known and worked with Ardi Kolah for a number of years and have found no one with such an in-depth understanding of the legal side of marketing.

In today's highly litigious society, knowledge of what is permissible in marketing is essential, even more so given the complex regulatory framework in which organisations operate today.

This book is well written, easy to understand and is a must for any truly professional marketer.

I have known Ardi Kolah since he was an outstanding post graduate law student here at University College London. On the basis of that contact I am sure that Essential Law for Marketers is an exceptional book in terms of its content and clarity of writing. It is important that such a book be read by all law students who are interested in working within the creative industries and those who need a robust introduction to the way in which law has influenced this important sector.

Ardi Kolah has captured many of the substantial legal issues that marketers could face as regulation and compliance standards increase. This book offers clear explanations of relevant law, with examples and practical advice for maintaining marketing momentum.....

Ardi Kolah's Essential Law for Marketers has been written with the legal virgin in mind and that includes a surprising number of advertising practitioners who should at least have a basic knowledge of the laws governing their business. This book is full of practical tips and suggestions that will also be relevant to the seasoned campaign director and is sure to prove essential reading for anyone in the advertising industry who needs to get up to speed with this complex area.

If you want an intelligent overview of the application of the law for marketers, then this is it. It should have been around years ago ...

Hamlet? A high school term paper compared to Lizotte's book. The Bible? A confusing rant of disconnected stories next to Ken's perfectly crafted epic. And don't even get me started on Hemingway, whose combined works in light of Ken's latest masterpiece are not even worthy of lining my bird's cage. No my friends, what Lizotte has done here has shaken the publishing industry to its very core. No more books need ever be written -- read this and sleep peacefully, knowing you've experienced all you'll ever need in wisdom, entertainment and humanity.

Ken's new book is wonderful and a must read for all consultants! It essentially outlines a road map for successfully navigating your way from professional with pearls of wisdom to savvy expert / thought leader. Throughout my consulting career I have had the pleasure to work with Ken first hand. And he has effectively captured this transformation process in his new book. His book is an easy read. It provides an overall strategy, practical approaches and how to's, testimonials from successful thought leaders and makes the business case for why you should invest your time and energy. When working directly with Ken you also benefit from his unconditional support and great sense of humor as you forge ahead. So, at a minimum read the book. If you have the opportunity to work with Ken then do that too! Happy reading!

Carol Bergeron
President of Bergeron Associates(tm)

Ken is nothing short of a wizard at making people famous. While working with him I've had more articles published in all the best places. Now he's captured the best of his wisdom in The Expert's Edge, and you have no excuse but to follow his advice and make a name for yourself that will produce dividends now and for years to come!

If you want to be a leader in your field - read this book. Ken Lizotte has packed his book full of practical and useful advice about how to do it. It's well-written, well-organized and easy to read. A real gem!

Ken Lizotte in The Expert's Edge, McGraw-Hill 2008, has nailed it. If your eye is on the prize of becoming an authority in your field, this book is it. The Expert's Edge is riveting--- and real. You'll come away with real answers and a riveting plan of how you can become "the Go-To Authority People Turn to Every Time."

M. Susan Hamilton, Director-The Family Economist