Business Resources - July 4, 2012

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

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Work Happy: What Great Bosses Know
by Jill Geisler

A practical, step-by-step guide, based on real-world experience, respected research, and lessons that will transform managers and their teams. It's a workshop-in-a-book, designed to produce positive, immediate and lasting results. Whether the reader is an experienced manager, a rookie boss or an aspiring leader, Work Happy will supercharge their skills and celebrate the values that make anyone look forward to going to work.

Small Message, Big Impact: The Elevator Speech Effect
by Terri Sjodin

You're in the airport waiting for a flight when you spot the CEO of a company you've wanted to connect with for ages. He's also waiting for his flight. Your flight! Should you walk over? What would you say? We've all been there. An opportunity presents itself and you have one chance to share your important message. In this age of information overload, no business skill is more essential than being able to connect with others quickly, whether in a one-on-one meeting or in front of thousands of people.

Walmart: Key Insights and Practical Lessons from the World's Largest Retailer
by Bryan Roberts and Natalie Berg

Roberts (retail management, U. of Surrey) and Berg, a retail consultant, explain the birth and astounding growth of retail giant Walmart, analyzing its methods, successes, failures, and leadership, and distilling lessons for other retailers. The authors also assess Walmart's changing strategies in response to competition, especially competition from Internet sales, and predict how those changes will soon impact Walmart's competitors, suppliers, and shoppers.

The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone--Especially Ourselves
by Dan Ariely

Ariely challenges our preconceptions about dishonesty-- we all cheat, whether it's copying a paper in the classroom, or white lies on our expense accounts. He explores how unethical behavior works in the personal, professional, and political worlds, and how it affects all of use, even as we think of ourselves as having high moral standards.

Uncorked: My Journey Through the Crazy World of Wine
by Marco Pasanella

Marco Pasanella's behind-the-scenes memoir through the world of wine will captivate wine lovers with its story of one man who decided, at age 43, to change his life by opening a wine shop. AsKitchen Confidential and Waiter Rant explored the front and back of the house at restaurants, Uncorked offers a peek behind the curtain of the wine world. Pasanella takes the reader into the underbelly of his store and the industry, which is steeped in history yet fanatical about technology and brimming with larger-than-life personalities. Infused with rich details of his historic waterfront building in New York City and his sojourns to Tuscany, Pasanella's memoir is one of transformation through a project many fantasize about but few commit to.

Uncontrolled: The Surprising Payoff of Trial-and-Error for Business, Politics, and Society
by Jim Manzi

In this readily accessible book, Manzi (Applied Predictive Technologies) explores the positive results that could come from increased controlled experimentation in the social sciences. He first covers the scientific background of the concepts to be explored, such as induction, probability, and randomized trials. Next he both advocates more repeated small scale experiments conducted in real time and humbly admits that they will not give us all the answers.

Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-rich and the Fall of Everyone Else
by Chrystia Freeland

Forget the 1%; Plutocrats proves that it is the wealthiest .1% who are outpacing the rest of us at break-neck speed. What's changed is more than numbers. Instead of inheritance, today's colossal fortunes are amassed by the diligent toiling of smart, perceptive businessmen who see themselves as deserving victors in a cut-throat international competition. As a transglobal class of highly successfully professionals, today's self-made oligarchs often have more in common with one another than with their countrymen back home. Cracking open the tight-knit world of the new super-rich is Chrystia Freeland, an acclaimed business journalist on both sides of the Atlantic. After reporting on the lives and minds of the world's wealthiest for two decades, Freeland now looks deeper to understand the rise of this new transglobal elite, and the consequences for everyone else.

Precision Marketing: Maximizing Revenue Through Relevance
by Sandra Zoratti and Lee Gallagher

Rather than devoting marketing budgets to mass campaigns, precision marketers are mining customer data for ways to spend to target buyers in sophisticated ways. This book breaks down the perspectives and skills necessary to deliver powerful marketing results. Includes case studies.

Rebounders: How Winners Pivot from Setback to Success
by Rick Newman

"U.S. News & World Report" journalist Newman examines the rise and fall--and rise again--of some of our most prolific and productive figures in order to demystify the anatomy of resilience.

The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change
by Jason Jennings

Business speaker and best-selling author Jennings advises business leaders to "kiss a lot of frogs" in their pursuit of constant change and growth in response to changes in the economy and trends in individual industries. He steers managers and CEOs away from conventional wisdom and traditional business models, instead advocating constant, radical change in order to stay ahead of customers' needs, attract quality staff, and make the most of relationships with other stakeholders, such as suppliers, vendors, and investors. Case studies from business behemoths such as Starbuck's and Smithfield Foods illustrate principles for success.

Odd Jobs: How to Have Fun and Make Money in a Bad Economy
by Abigail Gehring

Here is a book for every curious, courageous, or desperate person whoâ™s willingto set convention aside to earn a living in the face of an ailing economy. Fromfashioning balloon animals to promoting liquor brands to picking berries in Australia,this easy-to-read, entertaining book takes a candid look at over a hundredjobs that donâ™t require you to sit in an office eight hours a day, five days a week.

Likeonomics: The Unexpected Truth Behind Earning Trust, Influencing Behavior, and Inspiring Action
by Rohit Bhargarva

How to become a trusted resource for consumers in a society of constant manipulation People decide who to trust, what advice to heed, and which individuals to forge personal or transactional relationships with based on a simple metric of believability. Success, in turn, comes from understanding one basic principle: how to be more trusted. Likeonomics offers a new vision of a world beyond Facebook where personal relationships, likeability, brutal honesty, extreme simplicity, and basic humanity are behind everything from multi-million dollar mergers to record-breaking product sales. There is a real ROI to likeability, and exactly how big it is will amaze you. Likeonomics provides real-world case studies of brands and individuals that have used these principles to become wildly successful.