Showing posts with label entrepreneurshi p. Show all posts
Showing posts with label entrepreneurshi p. Show all posts

Japan's Software Factories: A Challenge to U.S. Management Review

Japan's Software Factories: A Challenge to U.S. Management
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Japan's Software Factories: A Challenge to U.S. Management ReviewThis is one of the earliest in a series of books that Cusumano has written on software technology. In this book he cries "Wolf!": the Japanese are so much better at industrial strength software development than Americans, they have a "software factory", etc., etc.
In his subsequent books, especially those on Microsoft and Netscape, Cusumano slowly discovers that the traditional software development process, requirements/specifications/code, etc., e.g. the waterfall model, is *NOT* the model adopted by successful software companies (and, indeed, not the model adopted by many hardware companies). He learns that designs are not something to be churned out by a factory - indeed, if they can be churned out, then they should be reusing exactly the same software.
In some ways the packaged software industry, e.g. Microsoft, supplanted the custom software industry in this timeframe, the time of the PC; Microsoft's process, which Cusumano calls "synchronize and stabilize", may be considered to be JIT (Just In Time) software specification and development. Or, if not Just In Time, As Soon As Possible and No Earlier than Necessary.
While I cannot agree with the conclusions of this book, it is interesting to have on one's bookshelf, to see the evolution of the author's thought over time.Japan's Software Factories: A Challenge to U.S. Management OverviewThough Japan has successfully competed with U.S. companies in the manufacturing and marketing of computer hardware, it has been less successful in developing computer programs. This book contains the first detailed analysis of how Japanese firms have tried to redress this imbalance by applying their skills in engineering and production management to software development. Cusumano focuses on the creation of "software factories" in which large numbers of people are engaged in developing software in cooperative ways--i.e. individual programs are not developed in isolation but rather utilize portions of other programs already developed whenever possible, and then yield usable portions for other programs being written. Devoting chapters to working methods at System Developing Corp., Hitachi, Toshiba, NEC, and Fujitsu, and including a comparison of Japanese and U.S. software factories, Cusumano's book will be important reading for all people involved in software and computer technology, as well as those interested in Japanese business and corporate culture.

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Creative Genius: An Innovation Guide for Business Leaders, Border Crossers and Game Changers Review

Creative Genius: An Innovation Guide for Business Leaders, Border Crossers and Game Changers
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Creative Genius: An Innovation Guide for Business Leaders, Border Crossers and Game Changers ReviewCREATIVE GENIUS: AN INNOVATION GUIDE FOR BUSINESS LEADERS, BORDER CROSSERS AND GAME CHANGERS provides a key to new ideas, technologies and directions and offers business leaders ideas for exploring creative places to further business. It introduces the Genius Lab, offering practice tools to locate these potentials and ensure best solutions from strategies of innovative companies from Apple to Samsung and IDEO. The concept of 'innovation drivers' is often talked about in business books, but this uses specifics and exercises on how to actually recognize - and act upon - the 'bigger picture', and is a pick for any innovation-oriented business collection!Creative Genius: An Innovation Guide for Business Leaders, Border Crossers and Game Changers OverviewTime and space. Genetics and robotics. Education and fashion. Possibilities limited only by our imaginations. The future is yours to create. Could you be the Leonardo da Vinci of our times?
Most ideas are incremental, quickly copied and suffocated by conventions. "Future back" thinking starts with stretching possibilities then makes them a reality "now forward". The best ideas emerge by seeing what everyone has seen, and thinking like nobody else. Newness occurs in the margins not the mainstream. Solutions emerge through powerful fusions of the best ideas into practical, useful concepts. Creative people rise up. Visionaries, border crossers and game changers. Engage your right brain, open your eyes, think more holistically... intuition rules.
From Apple to Blackberry, GE to Google, innovative companies stand out from the crowd not so much for their exceptional products, despite what one might assume, but for the way they challenge conventions, redefine markets, and change consumer expectations. Apple didn't just create the iPod; it envisioned the future of music and then made a product to service that future. And the same holds true for every highly innovative company. In Creative Genius, Peter Fisk presents ten tracks for innovation and provides business blueprints for making that innovation happen.Creative Genius is inspired by the imagination and perspective of Leonardo da Vinci, in order to drive creativity, design and innovation in more radical and powerful ways. It includes practical tools ranging from scenario planning and context reframing to accelerated innovation and market entry, plus 50 tracks, 25 tools, and 50 inspiring case studies.
Creative Genius is "the best and last" in the Genius series by bestselling author Peter Fisk. Others include Business Genius, Marketing Genius and Customer Genius.

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Staying Power: Six Enduring Principles for Managing Strategy and Innovation in an Uncertain World (Clarendon Lectures in Management Studies) Review

Staying Power: Six Enduring Principles for Managing Strategy and Innovation in an Uncertain World (Clarendon Lectures in Management Studies)
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Staying Power: Six Enduring Principles for Managing Strategy and Innovation in an Uncertain World (Clarendon Lectures in Management Studies) ReviewProfessor Cusumano's "Staying Power" is a major contribution in the field of business strategy.
I am in the business of technology and management strategy consulting and think his ideas have enormous value to any executive grappling with the implications and opportunities of cloud-computing enabled business. His six principles are easy to grasp. They are deceptively simple and are particularly powerful in a commercial and public sector business climate of austerity where new business models are emerging that will fuel our next growth cycle, but are disrupting incumbents. The introduction of cloud computing is beginning to have a disruptive effect on a wide range of business. Living through that disruption in day-to-day business can make it hard to see the bigger patterns at play and think through what the future state will look like. Professor Cusumano's elaboration of the platform/complementer services model with his excellent historical context and current market analysis makes it much clearer where we are headed in my industry and to seize emerging opportunities.
I purchased the book based on an Amazon recommendation and I am very grateful I did. The book is written in a more academic style than is typical of the more popular style business and management books. In fact, I picked it up and sat it down several times before committing to the book. It is not a book designed to skim. It requires concentration and focus to understand how Professor Cusumano has reached the conclusions he has. His ability to characterize the current disruptive innovation cycle in the information technology business using his analysis of the history of both the information technology and automotive industry is excellent. It is a fascinating story leading up to today's new business models.
Once I started really focusing on the book, I could not put it down. My copy is full of highlighter pen marks and 3M stickers. Kudos to Professor Cusumano for a valuable tool for business executives trying to figure out how to proactively take advantage of the cloud-enabled business models that are emerging. I hope that he extends this work with additional video and supplementary blog or presentation materials to continue to expand on his ideas and share more examples of the ideas in action. I have already begun converting his ideas into execution in my business.Staying Power: Six Enduring Principles for Managing Strategy and Innovation in an Uncertain World (Clarendon Lectures in Management Studies) OverviewBusiness news tends to focus on the travails of a handful of giants: Apple's iPad, the Toyota recall, the controversy over Google's book-digitization program. Whatever the day's headlines, though, most of these firms have been there before--up and down, written off and overpraised--yet they endured and triumphed. What is their secret? What is it that has lifted them to preeminence and allowed them to come out of each crisis stronger than before?In Staying Power, Michael A. Cusumano provides the answers. A bestselling business author and leading scholar, Cusumano has spent a quarter of a century studying the world's most successful companies--many of them from the inside, by serving as an advisor to more than one hundred firms. He identifies six critical principles that have driven the success of today's foremost companies, including Google, Intel, Apple, JVC, Toyota, and Microsoft. He argues that companies today must develop distinctive organizational capabilities, not just business strategies; focus on platforms and services, not just products; pull information from the market, responding to real-time changes in demand and competitive conditions, and not just push products out; achieve economies of scope, not just scale, by creating efficiencies across all a firm's activities; and acquire flexibility, in addition to efficiency, to quickly adapt to a volatile marketplace. Drawing on real-life examples, he illustrates how the best companies put these principles into practice, identifying precisely how these ideas have lead to concrete success time after time.Business books, the author notes, often promote short-lived fads in management thinking. But Staying Power is different. Written by a bestselling international expert, this book focuses on lasting success, analyzing the fundamental elements common to the leading competitors in the world today.

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The Official Alibaba.com Success Guide: Insider Tips and Strategies for Sourcing Products from the World's Largest B2B Marketplace Review

The Official Alibaba.com Success Guide: Insider Tips and Strategies for Sourcing Products from the World's Largest B2B Marketplace
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The Official Alibaba.com Success Guide: Insider Tips and Strategies for Sourcing Products from the World's Largest B2B Marketplace ReviewGo from garage sales to China overnight. It's not that hard to buy from China and feel good about your tranactions. This book helps you avoid the pitfalls and rapidly take advantage of the opportunities worldwide.The Official Alibaba.com Success Guide: Insider Tips and Strategies for Sourcing Products from the World's Largest B2B Marketplace OverviewThe official guide to making a bundle buying and selling through Alibaba.com, the world's largest online B2B marketplaceAlibaba.com is the world's leading global business-to-business online marketplace. People around the world use it every day to import and export products for big profits. But newcomers are often overwhelmed by the sheer number of products and the quantity of information available.The Official Alibaba.com Success Guide shows you how to ramp up your business or build an entirely new business, using the Alibaba.com brand and web site as your supplier. This practical guide provides simple answers for complex questions, from navigating the site, to finding products at the right price, to branding, and much more. Plus, the book includes best practices for importing, locating and vetting suppliers, and protecting yourself against online fraud. • An answer-packed guide for all your questions about doing business through Alibaba.com

• Officially licensed and supported by Alibaba.com, this is the only guide you need

• Includes inspirational profiles of people who have used Alibaba.com successfully to launch new businesses or revive old ones

• The first and only step-by-step guide to using Alibaba.com effectivelyAlibaba.com gives you the opportunity to make real money online. Here, you'll find a wealth of inside information that will help you use Alibaba.com safely and profitably.


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The Business of Software: What Every Manager, Programmer, and Entrepreneur Must Know to Thrive and Survive in Good Times and Bad Review

The Business of Software: What Every Manager, Programmer, and Entrepreneur Must Know to Thrive and Survive in Good Times and Bad
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The Business of Software: What Every Manager, Programmer, and Entrepreneur Must Know to Thrive and Survive in Good Times and Bad Review---> To swing for the fence, entrepreneurs must avoid the shark-infested red water and sail into the deep blue sea.
If you're even thinking of creating a software startup, I highly recommend you read The Business of Software as soon as possible. Doing so will save you much pain and suffering from senseless mistakes. When there is such a large body of existing knowledge, there is no cause for trial and error mentality. There's plenty of other opportunities for trailblazing. Read this book as a bare minimum before starting your venture.
Cusumano, offers an in depth study of what it takes to succeed in software. Of particular value are critical questions to contemplate:
1) Do you want to be mainly a Products company, or a Services company?
2) Do you want to sell to Individuals, or Enterprises | Mass market, or Niche market?
3) How horizontal (broad) or vertical (specialized)is your product or service?
4) Can you generate a recurring revenue stream that will endure both good and bad times?
5) Will you target mainstream customers, or do you have a plan to avoid the chasm?
6) Do you plan on being a Leader, Follower, or Complementor?
7) What kind of character do you want your company to have?
Cusumano also offers eight Critical Success Factors that are necessary for Software Start-ups to succeed as a business and raise investor money:
1) Strong Management Team
2) An Attractive Market
3) A Compelling New Product, Service, or Hybrid Solution
4) Strong evidence of Customer Interest
5) A Plan to Overcome the "Credibility Gap"
6) A Business Model Showing Early Growth and Profit Potential
7) Flexibility in Strategy and Product Offerings
8) The Potential for Large Payoff to Investors
Don't reinvent the wheel. Read this book as soon as possible, preferably "before" you create that software venture you so boldly dreamed.
Michael Davis, ByvationThe Business of Software: What Every Manager, Programmer, and Entrepreneur Must Know to Thrive and Survive in Good Times and Bad OverviewThe world's leading expert on the global software industry and coauthor of the bestseller Microsoft Secrets reveals the inner workings of software giants like IBM, Microsoft, and Netscape and shows what it takes to create, develop, and manage a successful company -- in good times and bad -- in the most fiercely competitive business in the world. In the $600 billion software industry it is the business, not the technology, that determines success or failure. This fact -- one that thousands of once glamorous start-ups have unhappily discovered for themselves -- is the well-documented conclusion of this enormously readable and revealing new book by Michael Cusumano, based on nearly twenty years of research and consulting with software producers around the world. Cusumano builds on dozens of personal experiences and case studies to show how issues of strategy and organization are irrevocably linked with those of managing the technology and demonstrates that a thorough understanding of these issues is vital to success. At the heart of the book Cusumano poses seven questions that underpin a three-pronged management framework. He argues that companies must adopt one of three basic business models: become a products company at one end of the strategic spectrum, a services company at the other end, or a hybrid solutions company in between. The author describes the characteristics of the different models, evaluates their strengths and weaknesses, and shows how each is more or less appropriate for different stages in the evolution of a business as well as in good versus bad economic times. Readers will also find invaluable Cusumano's treatment of software development issues ranging from architecture and teams to project management and testing, as well as two chapters devoted to what it takes to create a successful software start-up. Highlights include eight fundamental guidelines for evaluating potential software winners and Cusumano's probing analysis, based on firsthand knowledge, of ten start-ups that have met with varying degrees of success. The Business of Software is timely essential reading for managers, programmers, entrepreneurs, and others who follow the global software industry.

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The Economics of Software Quality Review

The Economics of Software Quality
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The Economics of Software Quality ReviewCapers Jones and Olivier Bonsignour have authored a very useful book that will help the software industry make more objective decisions and improve the economic outcomes of software delivery organizations. This book is loaded with data, benchmarks and cause-and-effect relationships for reasoning about how to improve software quality. It is not an easy read because it goes both deep and broad across the diverse contexts of software domains and across the life-cycle practices of software development. This book is a great place to start when looking for credible and objective benchmark data to build a business case or defend a proposal for improving software quality or productivity.
The economics of software quality is an attractive topic all by itself. However, the book delivers unexpected value on two other fronts. First, the presentation and discussion of substantial data provides an educational framework for quantitative reasoning with enlightening discussions on cause and effect as well as cautions on potential misinterpretation. Second, the well-integrated history lessons throughout give the reader a good feel for the improvement trends, or lack of improvement trends, across the software industry.
Decades of experience, compiled into an encyclopedia of facts and figures. Well worth the price.The Economics of Software Quality Overview"Whether consulting, working on projects, or teaching, whenever I need credible, detailed, relevant metrics and insights into the current capabilities and performance of the software engineering profession, I always turn first to Capers Jones' work. In this important new book, he and Olivier Bonsignour make the hard-headed, bottom-line, economic case, with facts and data, about why software quality is so important. I know I'll turn to this excellent reference again and again."—Rex Black, President, RBCSPoor quality continues to bedevil large-scale development projects, but few software leaders and practitioners know how to measure quality, select quality best practices, or cost-justify their usage. In The Economics of Software Quality, leading software quality experts Capers Jones and Olivier Bonsignour show how to systematically measure the economic impact of quality and how to use this information to deliver far more business value.Using empirical data from hundreds of software organizations, Jones and Bonsignour show how integrated inspection, structural quality measurement, static analysis, and testing can achieve defect removal rates exceeding 95 percent. They offer innovative guidance for predicting and measuring defects and quality; choosing defect prevention, pre-test defect removal, and testing methods; and optimizing post-release defect reporting and repair.This book will help youMove beyond functional quality to quantify non-functional and structural quality

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Management Strategies for the Cloud Revolution: How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Can't Afford to Be Left Behind Review

Management Strategies for the Cloud Revolution: How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Can't Afford to Be Left Behind
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Management Strategies for the Cloud Revolution: How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Can't Afford to Be Left Behind ReviewDrawing on his extensive experience in the IT world and his position as "editor-at-large" of the well respected InformationWeek, author Charles Babcock aims to offer "..the first book to provide practical cloud computing understanding and strategy for business".
So does the book meet/exceed the promise made?
Based around a promising synopsis the book begins with a solid foundation in the chapter layout and topics to be covered which include the potential pitfalls of adopting cloud technology.
The author provides his own thoughts on what cloud computing actually is (a subject of some intense debate even now) - although the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)'s formal definition is included as one of the book's appendices and it is clear the writer understands that whilst flexibility is one of cloud computing's main attributes it also contributes to people's confusion..
In answer to those that might argue that cloud computing is simply the latest buzz word based around pre-existing technologies - such as traditional mainframe computing, whilst acknowledging the contributions of what has gone before the author argues that although this is true to an extent it is the way these and emerging technologies have been combined and refined - virtualization in particular as well as a number of cultural changes that truly is leading to a paradigm shift.
Indeed, whilst an understanding of the machinations behind the cloud may be considered unimportant if not to a degree desirable for the majority of service consumers it is critical for those that wish to take full advantage of the opportunities it presents such as CIO's/IT professionals and progressive business managers and it is this audience I feel the book is most appropriate for. It tackles the hype commonly associated with the subject matter head on and the chapter entitled "Overcoming Resistance to the Cloud" covers the main issues with a focus on vendor lock-in all using an easy to read, conversational tone.
The author is clearly an advocate of the cloud, but presents his case without vendor bias whilst referencing the main players in the field as appropriate and concludes by means of a glimpse of the potential that current and future implementations may provide that although cloud based computing at present could be considered a disruptive technology it may provide the most intoxicating blank sheet of "paper" on which the future will be written.
Management Strategies for the Cloud Revolution: How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Can't Afford to Be Left BehindManagement Strategies for the Cloud Revolution: How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Can't Afford to Be Left Behind Overview
Increase efficiency while saving money with "on-demand" computing

The biggest game-changing force in business since the creation of the Internet,cloud computing simplifies and lowers the cost of operations while providing flexibilityand power you never dreamed possible. Make your strategic move now, with ManagementStrategies for the Cloud Revolution!

"Management Strategies for the Cloud Revolution is an important work that captures theconcepts and technological advances fueling the rapid adoption of cloud computing today.It illuminates how specific core technologies have led to the emergence of those patterns asthe foundation for the next generation of IT-managed infrastructure."—Rich Wolski, Chief Technology Officer and cofounder of Eucalyptus Systems, Inc.,and Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara

"Explains in marvelously plain English how clouds will change our world. . . . If the potential ofcloud computing doesn't excite you now, it will after you read this book. Buy a copy and put iton your CEO's desk. Babcock explains it all."—Paul Gillin, bestselling author of The New Influencers

"A valuable primer and handbook. It will help you master the technology and follow the storyas innovators craft the future of cloud computing."—Ted schadler, VP and Principal Analyst, Forrester Research, Inc.,and coauthor of Empowered

"This readable, thought-provoking book will be especially useful to business professionals and practitioners."Choice magazine

About the Book

Everyday business as we know it is poisedfor a monumental shift, courtesy of cloudcomputing—the biggest game-changer since thecreation of the Internet itself. There's no doubtabout it: If you want to compete in the future,you must begin educating yourself about cloudcomputing now.

From InformationWeek editor Charles Babcock, aleading authority on the business benefits and pitfallsof cloud computing, Management Strategiesfor the Cloud Revolution provides the tools everymanager needs to create a new business strategythat harnesses all the power cloud computing hasto offer.

Cloud computing is the equivalent of renting timeon a computing infrastructure over the Internet, ratherthan building your own from the ground up. Accessto the cloud is growing quickly, and the benefits areundeniable. Those who begin incorporating cloudcomputing into their business strategy will enjoy:
Dramatic Cost Savings: The cloud makesavailable innovative technologies that wouldotherwise be too expensive.
Ubiquitous Access: Employees canaccess the server power they need anytime,anywhere, and send it the program theywant to run.
Unprecedented Agility: Business processesand business infrastructures can be alteredquicker than ever.
Steady Traffic Flow: Even during peak loads,systems in the cloud can overcome bottlenecksand expand to meet the user's needs.

Working on the cloud, your analysts, business intelligenceexperts, and researchers can access large-scale,high-speed, highly reliable systems whilepaying only for short-term use.

You didn't set up your own electrical grid to poweryour computers. Why pay big money to use themwhen you don't have to? The cloud is on the horizon,and it's looming larger by the day. Learn how to takefull advantage of it with Management Strategies forthe Cloud Revolution.


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Never Get a "Real" Job: How to Dump Your Boss, Build a Business and Not Go Broke Review

Never Get a Real Job: How to Dump Your Boss, Build a Business and Not Go Broke
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Never Get a "Real" Job: How to Dump Your Boss, Build a Business and Not Go Broke ReviewI purchased this book on the recommendation of Peter Shankman via his Help a Reporter e-mail blast. I read the sample, read the reviews and thought that this would be one of those "must have" books for entrepreneurs.
I plowed through the first half but grew tired of Gerber's "get tough" attitude/lecturing. Gerber is not quite bloviating but his voice is pretty close. Luckily the second half of the book is much better. It's filled with useful lists of resources that you can probably find on Google using the right search terms* -- but it's nice to have them collected in one place.
This book is probably great for someone who just graduated from college and doesn't have a job. Although, if you've got a very limited budget, I might recommend The Zen of Social Media Marketing and -- perhaps -- Smarter, Faster, Cheaper: Non-Boring, Fluff-Free Strategies for Marketing and Promoting Your Business (another Shankman recommendation) as better choices for your buck. I can't fully recommend the latter, however, until I have finished reading it, Keep your eyes posted for the review....
*I only added the remark about Google because Gerber always stresses that you shouldn't pay for something that you can find on Google for free.Never Get a "Real" Job: How to Dump Your Boss, Build a Business and Not Go Broke OverviewYoung serial entrepreneur Scott Gerber is not the product of a wealthy family or storied entrepreneurial heritage. Nor is he the outcome of a traditional business school education or a corporate executive turned entrepreneur. Rather, he is a hard-working, self-taught 26-year-old hustler, rainmaker, and bootstrapper who has survived and thrived despite never having held the proverbial "real" job.In Never Get a "Real" Job: How to Dump Your Boss, Build a Business, and Not Go Broke, Gerber challenges the social conventions behind the "real" job and empowers young people to take control of their lives and dump their nine-to-fives—or their quest to attain them.Drawing upon case studies, experiences, and observations, Scott dissects failures, shares hard-learned lessons, and presents practical, affordable, and systematic action steps to building, managing, and marketing a successful business on a shoestring budget.The proven, no-b.s. methodology presented in Never Get a "Real" Job teaches unemployed and underemployed Gen-Yers, aspiring small business owners, students, and recent college graduates how to quit 9-to-5s, become their own bosses, and achieve financial independence. Q&A with Author Scott Gerber The title of your book is 'Never Get a Real Job," but are you suggesting that there's an entrepreneur in everyone? Millennials are no longer beneficiaries of the hand-out, resume-driven society of old. Boomers and Gen Xers need to stop training Gen Y to believe that the mantra of ‘work hard, get good grades, go to school and get a job' that they were told to buy into, is alive and well. It's not - it's dead - and now it needs to be buried for good. Fact: there are over 81 million young people unemployed worldwide. And this number does not account for the tens - if not hundreds - of millions more that are underemployed. It's becoming more and more apparent that in today's world, young people will need to create a job to keep a job. Millennials need to re-train themselves to become self-sufficiency experts capable of generating their own incomes. I truly believe everyone can become entrepreneurial and partner with individuals whose strengths fill in gaps and weaknesses. The key is for us to stop thinking 'Facebook" and start thinking about practical, nuts-and-bolts, income-generating, on-the-ground businesses. When we finally turn that corner, Gen Y will truly become the most entrepreneurial generation in history. How should young entrepreneurs go about determining if their 'passion" can become a scalable business? The Hollywood-esque scene for most young entrepreneurs, where two guys are sitting at a bar, write their idea on a napkin and then proceed to build a gazillion dollar business is fiction - at least for 99.9999% of us. In truth, every entrepreneur needs to have a gut-check moment. They shouldn't simply 'believe" their idea will work as a business and get started. Rather, they need to prove it to themselves, poke holes in it, determine if it can generate real revenues - as well as how fast those revenues will start rolling in - and be able to defend their assumptions to their harshest critic. I know my detractors will mention 'revolutionary" and 'game-changing" companies such as Facebook and other Silicon Valley darlings that went on to raise millions, get acquired for billions, or go public. However, I would never advocate to young entrepreneurs, especially in our current economy, that jumping right into a business on passion alone is an advisable way to start a business. What made you want to be an entrepreneur? The thought of working for someone else gave me chills. Office politics, dress down days, cubicle life, water cooler rants, a lack of real decision making ability--they all made me want to reach for Vodka and a bottle of Xanax. If I was going to fall flat on my face or go bankrupt, it certainly wasn't going to be because I let myself end up in a position where I could be underpaid or downsized without any warning. "Real" jobs, and the quest to attain one in the first place, didn't make sense for me--and they especially don't make sense now in the new, post-recession economy. I found all the arguments that "real" jobs are stable and secure to be ludicrous. After all, how stable and secure is ANYTHING that you don't control, own or have a real say in? And with ever-growing rises in outsourcing, globalization, on and offline educational institutions, and recessions, I know I absolutely made the right decision and have absolutely no issue telling others they should do the same in order to take control of their lives and financial futures. Jobs are not going to materialize out of thin air just because politicians say they can make it happen. The only job that is remotely safe for young people in this new economy is one of their own creation and design that they own and control. However, even though we live in a world of an over abundance of collegiate institutions, enhanced automation, increased globalization, and ever-growing outsourcing options, Gen Y is still being force fed that this age-old "send out resumes to get a job" is still relevant and applicable to today--when the reality is that this notion is anything but the actual reality. Yet there hasn't been any real action. Just empty promises and words from politicians and pundits. Nor has there been any sort of helping hand to teach Gen Y about the new way forward they must learn in order to stay competitive and effective. This needs to change.

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Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization Review

Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization
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Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization ReviewAuthor and customer service speaker Micah Solomon's keynote speech to the NCBS Retail Banking Conference at the Four Seasons in Las Vegas (8 minute excerpt): This Customer Service Keynote is an introduction to the principles inExceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization's principles. (8 minute excerpt)
This keynote speech was filmed in front of an audience of bankers at the Four Seasons in Las Vegas in June 2011.
{More live speaking excerpts and info available at customerserviceguru DOT com}
Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization Overview"Filled with treasure and big ideas, this book will help you becomeexceptional." - SETH GODINIn a tight market, your most powerful growth engine and your best protection from competitive inroads is this: put every thing you can into cultivating true customer loyalty. Loyal customers are less sensitive to price competition, more forgiving of small glitches, and, ultimately, become "walking billboards" who will happily promote your brand. In Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit insiders Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon reveal the secrets of providing online and offline customer service so superior it nearly guarantees loyalty. Their anticipatory customer service approach was first developed at The Ritz-Carlton as well as at Solomon's entertainment and technology company Oasis, and has since proven itself in countless companies around the globe from luxury giant BVLGARI to value-sensitive auto parts leader Carquest, and everywhere in between. Now, readers can take the techniques that minted money for these brands and apply them directly to their own businesses. As Ken Blanchard writes, "Leonardo and Micah's philosophies, rules, and winning examples of service excellence will make you want to implement their suggestions immediately in your own organization."Filled with detailed, behind-the-scenes examples, the book unlocks a new level of customer relationship that leaves your competitors in the dust, your customers coming back day after day, and your bottom line looking better than it ever has before.Honors received: * A Jack Covert Selection* CEO Refresher Top Ten Best Business Book of the Year * 800-CEO-READ Business Book of the Year Awards Shortlist winner* Philadelphia Bulletin "Must Read" business book* Book of the Month, Las Vegas Women's REALTOR® * DearReader.com Business Book Club Selection* Shanghai Daily Press #1 U.S. Business Book"If you want to deliver a superior client experience, then have everyemployee read this book. That's what we've done. This volume is simply that profound, that good." Jim S. Miller, President, Prime Performance

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The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content. Review

The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content.
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The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content. ReviewThe title and cover draws people in. 4 Hour Work Week, it's too good to be true. Then we read the first couple of pages, maybe the first couple of chapters. The first chapters are the typical motivational, "you can do it" montage. I'm not going to lie, I felt motivated to give this book a try after reading the first part of the book without even knowing what this book is all about. But as I began to get out of the fluff, and actually found myself reading the core subject of the book, I was utterly disappointed. D is for Definition
In this section Ferriss tells us to do an important task: define what you want. And I agree that most of us live through life not knowing what we want; just following the crowd like a herd of sheep. This section was the motivational, make you feel good section. This wasn't the how, it was the why, and it downright made me pumped.
E is for Elimination
Okay, so he basically says to eliminate all the junk in your life. For example: watch less TV, don't check your e-mail 50 times a day, don't look at your phone 100 times a day, don't surf the web 3 hours a day, etc. It's all good advice, nothing too fancy, or new, just plain old, "don't waste your time" advice. So far so good.
A is for automation
This is where I ran in to problems with Tim's method of creating a "4 hour workweek". First he tells us to outsource a big chunk of our lives using a VA (virtual assistant) from India or Shanghai or wherever. Basically a virtual assistant is a person who assist you in everyday task (checking emails, making reservations, doing research for your job that you got hired to do,set up appointments, etc) so basically an online-personal assistant you hire for dirt cheap. So if you are okay with some guy in India knowing your personal information (SSN, bank account number, phobias, any illnesses you might have, problems in life, and many more as Ferriss states) go ahead and outsource the things you can already do yourself to a guy in India you never met. But Ferris says that misuses of sensitive information are rare; well there could be bias behind that statement, but I'm not willing to find out if it's true or not. The irony of oustourcing your life is that you become dependent on your VA. You no longer have the urge to take control of your own life when it comes to paying bills, making reservations, or doing research for your job because your VA does it for you. So that's the paradox: out source your life, but become more dependent on a foreigner. And Ferriss quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson throughout his book as a motivational spice. But it's apparent that he never read "Self Reliance", the cornerstone of Emerson's philosophy. (Tim if you're going to use Emerson's words, how about not making a book that totally contradicts the philosophy of Emerson? Thanks).
A is for automation Pt. 2
Ferriss then goes on to tell us how we can make up to 40,000 dollars a month of automated income (little work). Basically you create a product and sell it. Plain and simple. He tells you to find a market, find the demographics of your product, make a product and sell it. Yup, your average entrepreneurship. It's nothing new, and Ferris is not an expert entrepreneur. He did have a company BrainQuicken which sells "Neural Accelerator" supplements. The site is 99% advertising and 1% scientific: It sells because it's precisely that. And the product that Ferriss started is not something revolutionary, I'll take my 200mg of caffeine before a workout any day than pay 50.00 dollars plus shipping for BrainQuicken. So if you want to make your own product, market it, sell it and make millions of dollars go ahead. Tim tells you exactly how, but what Tim doesn't tell you is that it takes a lot of work in the beginning, a lot more than 4 hours a week.
L is for Liberation
More like L is for not showing up to work, and being cynical. Now I'm against the 9-5 hours of work. I think that human beings are more efficient enough to get things done in a short period of time, and I believe that society is slowly catching on. But here's Tim's idea of "liberation". Escaping the office: not doing your job or worse, not showing up. Killing your job: quit your job. Mini retirement: take a month vacation every 2 months of work (or pattern that works best for you). Filling the Void: filling in the emptiness and the boredom you feel with fun stuff like becoming a horse archer, learning tango, and winning a fight championship by cheating.
So okay, let's say everything goes well: you are making 40,000 dollars a month, you are working no more than 4 hours a week... now what. Even Ferriss says that you will feel a void... well that sucks doesn't it? Why don't you go and talk to your VA about your problems?
Now obviously I'm against Tim's advertising methods, it's misleading. The book only sells because of the hope it gives 9-5 workers that it's possible. Oh, it's possible but unlikely. Tim is no Bil Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, or Clint Eastwood he is nowhere close to them. You see great testimonials from people from Yahoo!, Wired, Silicon Valley, and hell, from Jack Canfield about Tim's book, but not from people like Gates, Jobs, Buffett, Eastwood, or any other highly successful people, why? Because those four know that true success comes from years of hard work, and building lasting relationships with people. Those four know that decreasing your work hours, outsourcing your life, and making a tons of money is not the road to true happiness. Those four people, even if they read this book, will probably throw it in the fire. But for the cynical, "how do I work little and make tons of money" people out there (which is most of the population) this book will initially look like the next Bible. The fact that this book sold well says a lot about our society.
This is a misleading book, there are tons of other great books you can read for true success: Talent is Overrated (no BS way how people become great at what they do), 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (classic), and How to Have Confidence and Power in Dealing with People... to name a few. Very few will read this review before buying, and more copies of this book will sell due to the cynical and lazy nature of people. Don't be one of those people, don't buy this book.The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content. OverviewMore than 100 pages of new, cutting-edge content. Forget the old concept of retirement and the rest of the deferred-life plan–there is no need to wait and every reason not to, especially in unpredictable economic times. Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management, or just living more and working less, The 4-Hour Workweek is the blueprint. This step-by-step guide to luxury lifestyle design teaches: •How Tim went from $40,000 per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per month and 4 hours per week•How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want•How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs•How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist•How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and frequent "mini-retirements"The new expanded edition of Tim Ferriss' The 4-Hour Workweek includes:•More than 50 practical tips and case studies from readers (including families) who have doubled income, overcome common sticking points, and reinvented themselves using the original book as a starting point•Real-world templates you can copy for eliminating e-mail, negotiating with bosses and clients, or getting a private chef for less than $8 a meal•How Lifestyle Design principles can be suited to unpredictable economic times•The latest tools and tricks, as well as high-tech shortcuts, for living like a diplomat or millionaire without being either

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Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers (Columbia Business School Publishing) Review

Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers (Columbia Business School Publishing)
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Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers (Columbia Business School Publishing) ReviewThere has been a veritable onslaught of strategy and business 'design' literature published in the past few years. Most of it is interesting but falls into one of two traps: either it's too theoretical to put into action, or it's directed to a choir of the design-familiar and leaves everyone else behind. Liedtka and Ogilvie break the mold with their new book, providing a framework and a tool kit to help almost anyone with interest and motivation explore the power of design thinking.
It starts with a relatively simple point. Most of the time, most of the world sees the design process as messy and unpredictable and nonlinear and twisted and terribly inefficient. In many organizations, that's why design is often considered a black box so impenetrable that it's outsourced to marketers, product developers, and, well, designers. Liedtka and Ogilvie take the mess and unbundle it all into a four-phase, 10-step framework that starts to look more like a process that individuals and organizations can learn and replicate.
While the steps are somewhat familiar, the recommended approaches in each phase sound reasonable but are more challenging for most people to put into practice. (Try explaining to a typical business planner that you're going to generate new business offerings based on research you conduct with a dozen or so customers, and you'll see what I mean.) Lucky for all of us, Designing for Growth provides concrete tools and step-by-step instructions and plenty of real-life examples for each step of the journey so that there's sufficient structure to help the reader navigate the discomfort of trying something new.
I've been fortunate enough to collaborate with Liedtka and she's fond of saying that she's not a designer, and that if she and her faculty colleagues can make good use of the Designing for Growth tools then anyone can. Having watched her in action, I'd say she's more of a designer than she'd like to admit, though perhaps not in a traditional sense. Because for me -- and as illustrated throughout Designing for Growth -- being a designer isn't about being artistic or clever or even all that creative. Being a designer is about approaching a complex problem with curiosity and empathy and patience and then having the discipline to explore many possible answers before selecting a path forward. This book helps bring out that design thinker in each of us.Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers (Columbia Business School Publishing) OverviewJeanne Liedtka and Tim Ogilvie educate readers in one of the hottest trends in business: "design thinking," or the ability to turn abstract ideas into practical applications for maximal business growth. Liedtka and Ogilvie cover the mind-set, techniques, and vocabulary of design thinking, unpack the mysterious connection between design and growth, and teach managers in a straightforward way how to exploit design's exciting potential. Exemplified by Apple and the success of its elegant products and cultivated by high-profile design firms such as IDEO, design thinking unlocks creative right-brain capabilities to solve a range of problems. This approach has become a necessary component of successful business practice, helping managers turn abstract concepts into everyday tools that grow business while minimizing risk. (9/7/11)

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