New Summary Available for The Future of Value

The belief that sustainability is exclusively about altruism is dangerously outdated. In The Future of Value, strategy management consultant Eric Lowitt demonstrates that sustainability is an essential component of business, one that allows companies to create new value and stay ahead of the competition. Lowitt provides readers with the necessary tools and research to develop effective sustainability strategies, attract new customers, and enter new markets.

New summary Available for Resolving Conflicts at Work

In Resolving Conflicts at Work, Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith help readers understand the underlying causes of conflict and how to approach it in new ways. Conflicts at work arise because companies are made up of diverse group of people with different communication styles and differing expectations. Few people have been trained to resolve conflict in a healthy manner, which is why conflict is common in every workplace. Transformation does not occur until people first resolve how they became stuck in conflict and take time to develop new strategies. When an organization operates with a culture where conflicts are avoided, honesty and creativity is lost in the process. People need to take time to look inward and understand what conflict means to them and how their perceptions impact the way they respond to these situations.

New Summary Available for Leadership Blindspots

In Leadership Blindspots, Robert Bruce Shaw explores the ways in which leaders can become negatively impacted by their weaknesses. A blindspot is an unrecognized weakness that could negatively impact a leader’s success. This is different than black swan events, which are completely unpredictable or situational blindness which occurs when it is nearly impossible to see a weakness due to the environment. Blindspots impact all levels of a company, including the leader, the team, and the overall organization. The cost of ignoring blindspots can be very high, causing impacts on multiple levels.

New Summary Available for HBR Guide to Managing Stress at Work

Stress in the work environment is a given. However, while a little bit of stress can be motivating, too much stress can be debilitating. Most people are more than familiar with the usual advice: set priorities, manage time better, and pay attention to diet, exercise, and sleep. But sometimes these rules can be hard to adhere to, or they are simply not enough. HBR Guide to Managing Stress at Work goes beyond the standard stress-reduction tips and tricks to provide useful tools that focus on creating balance, energy, and self-fulfillment. Covering a wide range of topics and scenarios ranging from flexible scheduling to dual-career relationships to how to not take a bad day at the office home, the book offers a holistic approach to keeping stress at bay and turning it from a destructive to a productive force.

New summary available for Humanize

Humanize is a guide to restructuring organizations based on the principles of social media. Authors Jamie Notter and Maddie Grant provide recommendations for overcoming hierarchical structures, disengaged employees, best practices, monoculture, risk, and formal processes to become more human. They advocate open internal and external communication, including uncensored use of social media. Organizations need to build open, honest relationships. Human organizations must learn how to become open, trustworthy, generative, and courageous.

New Summary Available for Rebooting the American Dream

Thom Hartmann has a plan to rejuvenate the American economy and give citizens of the United States their dreams back. In Rebooting the American Dream, Hartmann uses Alexander Hamilton’s 11-point plan from 1791 as an example for getting America back on track. In the wake of 30 devastating years of Reaganomics, America has lost its industrial-based economy. The domino effect of this loss has reached everything from the military, to politics, to national health care. Hartmann cites such a fundamental shift in structure as an enormous threat to the future of the country. By plainly laying out the 11 steps to recover, Americans can work together to reboot the economy and return to prosperity.

New Summary Available for Standing on the Sun

The world is constantly evolving and, along with it, the capitalist system is also changing. In  Standing on the Sun, Christopher Meyer and Julia Kirby discuss how capitalism is morphing from the pursuit of financial gain to the pursuit of value. Many of the modifications to traditional rules of capitalism are occurring in emerging economies. The authors explain the factors driving the renaissance of capitalism and how different varieties of this economic system are developing around the world.

New Summary Available for Serve to Be Great

Serve to Be Great by Matt Tenney teaches that great leaders are those who know how to serve. When business leaders shift from a mindset of service toward self to service toward others, they will see significant advantages both personally and professionally. This shift is achievable by any leader who wants to learn a new way of thought about the workplace. Real leadership happens when people move away from self-centeredness toward other-centeredness. When someone has an attitude of service to others, success is a natural side effect. Leaders who strive toward service are happier while they make the world better. A simple focus on ways to help others will eventually result in a regular attitude of servant leadership and greater profits.

New summary available for Eat That Frog!

As Brian Tracy explains in Eat That Frog!, options abound in life, but so does procrastination. People simply cannot do everything they need or want to do. Instead of attempting to complete everything, productive people select the most important things and prioritize them. Mark Twain said that if people eat frogs first thing in the morning, it will be the worst thing they do all day. Like eating frogs, the most important tasks people have for the day should be completed first. This boosts self-esteem and energy, ignites the desire to complete the next task, and becomes a positive addiction that leads to a productive, fulfilling way of life.

New summary available for Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service

High-quality customer service is a key differentiator for many businesses, yet providing it seems to be falling down the priority list amidst cost and competitive pressures. Meanwhile, those companies that provide great service and innovate ways to keep both customers and employees happy are enjoying higher profits and lower long-term costs. These are the companies that go beyond customer satisfaction to customer loyalty. In Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service, authors Chip R. Bell and Ron Zemke show how companies can make that transition by implementing eight principles backed by both research and experience.

New summary available for Boundaries for Leaders

Boundaries for Leaders by Dr. Henry Cloud offers insight into the roles of the leaders in contemporary businesses. Not only must leaders set production goals and provide guidance, they must also define boundaries that keep negativity out of the workplace. Dr. Cloud, a psychologist, bases many of his leadership principles on the way people’s brains function in different situations. He uses scientific data to illustrate how negative stress shuts down productive activity while positive stress inspires high performance. Additionally, leaders are responsible for helping teams of workers build mutual trust that allows each member to realize his or her full potential. Leaders themselves must earn employee trust to be effective in leading others toward attaining organizational goals.

To learn more, please visit http://www.bizsum.com/summaries/boundaries-leaders

New summary available for The Strategist

Entrepreneurs, business owners, and company presidents have big dreams. Dreamers often birth successful businesses, make countries great, revolutionize the marketplace, and in many cases, improve the quality of life for each generation. Entrepreneurs are trailblazers and often leaders, but they are not necessarily strategists. When leadership changes, it can mean the end of a company’s era, unless the next generation of leaders learns the secrets of becoming the strategists for their businesses. In The Strategist, Cynthia A. Montgomery offers insights into how leaders can become strategists, build successful companies, and create unique, valuable services that can stand the test of a downward economy and changing times.

The Empress Has No Clothes

It is not uncommon for successful people to feel that they are imposters. They often think they are the only ones who feel this way, but this could not be further from the truth. In The Empress Has No Clothes, Joyce M. Roché and Alexander Kopelman discuss the impostor syndrome in detail in hopes of helping people manage and conquer their fears. They explore the complex reasons why the syndrome exists and the situations that trigger it in different people.

To learn more, please visit http://www.bizsum.com/summaries/empress-no-clothes

Do Cool Sh*t

Contrary to popular belief, it is possible for people to have enjoyable careers and work with like-minded people who share their interests. In Do Cool Sh*t, Miki Agrawal, a young, successful entrepreneur, shares her journey of finding work she loves rather than working only to make money. For her, making money is not how she defines success. Rather, success is about doing the absolute best with the capabilities a person has rather than putting in hours in exchange for a paycheck and a boring existence. Her belief is that people truly can have it all.

According to Agrawal:

*People who step outside their existing social networks to make new connections may find it difficult at first, but it could create opportunities to meet potential investors for new business ventures. Without taking chances, these connections will never be made.

*Before asking for something, it is important for individuals to first understand exactly what they want. Clear proposals will make recipients more accepting of the "ask."

*Although there is a place for passion, entrepreneurs also need to stop and identify what they are good at. It is difficult to be successful in a venture without the skill set to back it up.

*Opportunities do not have to be strictly entrepreneurial--there is also an "intrapreneurial" approach where people expand their reach with their existing employers by growing their internal programs. This can only happen in work environments where creative thinking is encouraged.

*Part of the journey to success includes creating a list of admirable people. Entrepreneurs must connect personally with the people they admire in order find mentors who can help them launch their businesses.

*Teams are vital to success. Not investing the time to hire the right people can result in constantly re-hiring and training new people.

*If people are not willing to change the way they do business, they will never get the chance to experience new things. New experiences are vital for achieving success.

*The type of communities people spend time with strongly influence the types of people they become. Part of creating new lifestyles and mindsets involves finding new people with whom to spend time.

To learn more, please visit http://www.bizsum.com/summaries/do-cool-sht

Peer-to-Peer Leadership

In a world of globalization and ever-increasing connectivity, organizations need to fully leverage the autonomous, multifaceted capabilities of all employees in order to succeed. It is no longer effective to artificially designate “leaders” and “followers.” Instead, everyone must be empowered to take the lead as opportunities arise and circumstances change. Peer-to-peer network architecture, based on sharing of both information and power, offers a roadmap for building this egalitarian, organic type of leadership. In Peer-to-Peer Leadership, Mila N. Baker explains the model’s importance, reveals the source of its power, and describes how any organization can use it to create value.

To learn more, please visit: http://www.bizsum.com/summaries/peer-peer-leadership

Become the Real Deal

Regardless of people's business goals, whether they aspire to reach the highest levels of leadership or become influential within their own spheres, they must do what it takes to be viewed as the "real deal." Become the Real Dealby Connie Dieken takes people through the three layers of self development toward becoming sincere leaders in a world that lacks transparency.

There are three layers of the self that people must master if they want to become great leaders; inner presence, verbal presence, and outer presence. Some key points in understanding these layers are:

• People must invest time to understand who they are and establish their inner presences or they risk losing the ability to stay centered when they allow others to define them.
• Leaders with centered presences are good listeners. They recognize that not everything is about them and demonstrate a willingness to listen and learn from the ideas of others.
• People who are "worriers" should deal with the anxiety of perfectionism by shutting down their inner critic.
• People who are "egotists" need to work more on how they relate to other people to build trustworthy relationships. They are quick to shut other people down with negative comments.
• Those with strong, centered verbal presences think about how their messages will be received rather than focusing only on how these messages will be delivered.
• People who identify as "the mouse" need to focus on what other people say so they have more confidence when it is their time to make a contribution to the conversation.
• When leaders recognize the "motor mouth" trait in themselves, they need to ensure their messages are beneficial to the audience, rather than simply looking for an opportunity to speak.
• The outer presence is about how people respond to others based on what they see on the outside. This is established by facial expressions, tone, dress, and body language.
• "Ghosts" are people who lack an outer presence. They are rarely noticed in meetings due to their lack of contribution. They need to find their personal power and work to become more visible.
• "The pretender" personality types are often overbearing around other people. They can change this impression of themselves by admitting to mistakes and listening to others.

Getting from College to Career

In Getting from College to Career, Lindsey Pollak provides 90 tips designed to help young people land the perfect job and become successful and happy in their careers. This is a modern take on career advice with tips on everything from what to do (and not do) on social media to how to dress for an interview. Pollack relates her own experiences and includes interviews with dozens of professionals.

What You Need to Know About Marketing

Marketing has a somewhat negative reputation in modern society—it is often thought of as an attempt to get people to buy things they neither need nor want. This, however, is based upon a misconception that marketing and sales are synonyms. Not only are the two concepts not the same thing, they are actually in many ways the opposite of one another. As Simon Middleton explains in What You Need to Know About Marketing, sales begins when a company has a product it needs to sell to a customer, while marketing begins when a company attempts to understand what the customer wants or needs to buy. It is a matter of learning what those wants and needs are and how they can best be satisfied. Therefore, the customer’s satisfaction lies at the very heart of marketing.

It's Not the Size of the Data

It’s Not the Size of the Data: It’s How You Use It combines rigorous research, numerous case studies, and step-by-step instructions on how to design and implement a marketing analytics dashboard. Koen Pauwels teaches managers to stop getting lost in data and bring clarity to every short-term and long-term marketing decision. Through the use of dashboards and analytics, businesses learn how to integrate data with marketing strategies to increase company success.

Data Crush

Advances in technology combined with the proliferation of data—the information gleaned from consumers’ movements online, through emails, over their phones, and in stores—has opened up many possibilities and opportunities for businesses and has also made running a successful business more complex. To keep up with the changing times and their competitors, companies have to keep up with the changes that have occurred, get savvy with the data they do have, and prepare for the inevitable fast-moving changes that will occur. Christopher Surdak predicts in Data Crush that by the year 2020, consumers will encounter more customized, relevant messages wherever they go, whether they are at work, on vacation, or at home. Companies that are setting themselves up now for such changes will thrive.

Step Up

It is the people who step up to exercise leadership in critical moments that ultimately achieve greater success within their organizations. However, few people are able to recognize the moments that are opportunities to exercise leadership. In Step Up, Henry Evans and Colm Foster identify six common “leadership moments” every professional should recognize along with what actions they must take when they encounter them. By demonstrating leadership in each of the six moments, leaders will be able to improve their overall performances and further their careers.

Work Smarts

If there is anyone who knows the secret ingredients to success, it is Betty Liu. As an award-winning financial journalist and Bloomberg Television anchor, she has had the opportunity to interview billionaires, CEOs, politicians, and celebrities about what it is like at the top and how to get there. In her book Work Smarts, Liu shares advice and insights gleaned from these interviews. She offers practical tips on important job skills such as networking, asking for a raise, and negotiating. Also covered are less obvious aspects of getting ahead, such as the importance of being likeable, how to think like an entrepreneur, how to bounce back from a layoff, and how to overcome fear.

HBR’s 10 Must Reads On Strategic Marketing

Thanks to changing customers and a changing business environment, marketing techniques also need to change in order to be successful. Although it is no longer at the front end of the sales funnel, marketing is increasingly becoming a strategic partner in driving improved business results. In turn, these results are becoming more and more dependent on understanding and serving customers in innovative and thoughtful ways. HBR’s 10 Must Reads On Strategic Marketing provides valuable insights into the changing landscape of the marketing function, as well as practical steps for reinventing their marketing processes to better serve customers and drive profitable growth.

The Essential Advantage

In a business world where restructurings and mergers have become the norm, many business leaders are looking for ways to make cuts that allow them to keep top talent while still running flourishing companies. In The Essential Advantage, Paul Leinwald and Cesare Mainardi offer insight into the secrets of making strategic cuts that not only cause a business to grow in lean times, but also give it an advantage over its competitors. These advantages include strategic coherence, elements of a capabilities-driven strategy, creating value, and living coherence every day.

Yes to the Mess

In Yes to the Mess, Frank J. Barrett presents a new pattern for leading and collaborating in organizations. Like experienced jazz players, leaders need to adopt the art of unlearning rigid, routine-based practices and embrace approaches that encourage simultaneous performance and experimentation. When people within an organization feel comfortable providing novel ideas and supporting each other in the fluid exchange of insights, the result is innovation. Jazz bands are flexible, organized, and combine sufficient constraints and synchronization to foster diversity. Innovative organizations can do the same to inspire exploration and experimentation by allowing their people to respond to intuitive insights.

HBR Guide to Project Management

Project management is a daunting task for both those who are new to the business world and seasoned veterans. Keeping a diverse group of people focused, motivated, on budget, and working together toward a common goal is always a challenging undertaking. In HBR Guide to Project Management, tips, advice, and tools are presented that will help both new and veteran project managers deliver results effectively and efficiently. From planning to build-up, implementation, and closeout, the HBR Guide to Project Management guides project managers through each step of their projects, thereby increasing their chances of delivering quality results on time and on budget.

HBR's 10 Must Reads On Strategy

Strategy forms the foundation of all successful companies, but developing an effective strategy and successfully executing it is a challenge for many. HBR’s 10 Must Reads On Strategy brings together articles written by business thought leaders that focus on key issues related to all aspects of strategy. By reading these pieces, leaders will gain insight into how to deal with the different facets of setting strategies and making them a reality.

Winning the Story Wars

Throughout the ages, stories have brought societies together and helped their members create a shared sense of the world. In fact, storytelling strategist and creative expert Jonah Sachs believes that stories have become the only means of communication with the power to build enduring connections between consumers and brands—connections that inspire people to reach higher, live better, and dream bigger than ever before. In Winning the Story Wars, Sachs pinpoints the roots of this power and how companies can tap into it. He also exposes the weakness of conventional marketing messages focused on human inadequacy and deficiency, explaining why modern consumers are hungry for value-based stories that help them see the potential in humankind and in themselves.

Negotiating Success

Negotiations occur in every aspect of our lives. Often people view negotiations as win-lose situations. However, it does not have to be that way. In Negotiating Success, Jim Hornickel suggests that “mutuality” is an effective way of approaching negotiations with the ultimate goal of having both sides win. He outlines techniques that can be used to build rapport with negotiating partners and reach the best possible outcome.

This is How To Get Your Next Job

Anyone who thinks skills, education, and experience should be enough to snag a coveted position needs to think again. In This Is How to Get Your Next Job, Andrea Kay informs readers that behavior, attitude, and appearing to be a “good fit” are what tip the scales when an employer selects a new hire. Kay believes job hunters who are having a hard time getting hired need to pay attention to how they “seem” as much as what they have to offer. By paying attention to the “dos and don’ts” of job hunting and presenting a “best self” that matches the wants, needs, and preferences of the employer, any candidate can gain the competitive edge and land his or her dream job.

Delight Your Customers

What passes for good service is often simply ordinary service, with each customer treated exactly the same as the previous one. Customers receive little acknowledgement or appreciation as workers perform their tasks and move on to the next person in line. According to Steve Curtin in Delight Your Customers, this happens because organizations and their employees emphasize the mundane job functions of service work when they should instead be focusing on the true essence of the job: giving customers the best experience possible. By focusing on job essence, enterprises can empower employees to elevate overall customer service skills.

Emotional Intelligence for Project Managers

Project managers require more than knowledge to succeed at their tasks. Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to recognize emotional cues are now essential tools for team leadership. In Emotional Intelligence for Project Managers, Anthony Mersino explains how emotional intelligence, the ability to recognize and understand emotions as well as employ them in the decision-making process, is a crucial asset in successful project management. Effective project managers (PMs) can use emotional intelligence to communicate clearly, set the tone and goals for their projects, engage and motivate team members, foster collaboration, and counter stress and discord. Without these interpersonal competencies PMs risk seeing even the best organized projects fail.

The Necessity of Strangers

As Alan Gregerman explains in The Necessity of Strangers, strangers rarely figure into one’s thinking about business or personal success. However, the ability to engage, learn from, and collaborate with strangers who are very different is the real key to creating remarkable breakthroughs, growing enterprises, finding and delighting new customers, and making the most of life. Strangers are essential to greater success. They lead people to new ways of doing things, help bring out the very best in others, and influence others’ thinking about how they can grow their enterprises. The ability to engage the right strangers in the right ways can determine whether or not people ever reach their full potential.

As We Speak

As We Speak provides the tools and techniques that will help speakers improve their communications with others, whether it be at a meeting, a large presentation, or in one-on-one interactions. By learning to speak with intent and clearly understand what the listener cares about, a speaker can learn to establish a bond with the listener, which is critical if the speaker wishes to influence. Peter Meyers and Shann Nix explain the variety of opportunities speakers have to communicate with their audiences beyond the spoken word, including their eye contact, vocal techniques, facial expressions, and body language. This valuable knowledge can assist any individual in strengthening their communications skills.

I Hear You

In I Hear You, Donny Ebenstein presents a blueprint for business professionals that outlines how they can learn how to communicate in a kind and constructive manner that helps to get things done. By showing people how to alter established mental patterns, Ebenstein sets the stage for business professionals at all stages of their careers to become better at the difficult conversations that can cause conflict in the workplace. He teaches people how to shift perspective, overcome their own defenses, and make important changes happen in the workplace.

In The Face-to-Face Book, Ed Keller and Brad Fay seek to expand the definition of “social marketing” to include websites like Facebook and Twitter along with face-to-face conversations and other forms of word-of-mouth communication. They review topics such as new research and understanding of how social influence helps determine consumers’ responses to advertisements, how to make a brand more “talkworthy,” and how engaging “influencers” can benefit a brand. They also discuss the often under-recognized role that social influence plays in determining the success of marketing and advertising of brands, products, services, and companies.

How to Talk to Absolutely Anyone

Effective communication skills are essential in every aspect of life. When done well, communication can lead people to the mutual understanding that is needed to make progress. Unfortunately, many people feel that they do not have the confidence or skills required to talk with others. This may be due to fear of rejection, concerns about how one appears to others, or a lack of comfort talking to people one does not know. In How to Talk to Absolutely Anyone, Mark Rhodes provides a four-stage framework for personal interactions and provides practical tools to help people become better at talking to others in any environment.

The Other Side of Innovation

Companies fail to innovate when they put more energy and resources into generating “big ideas” than they do implementing them. In The Other Side of Innovation, Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble demonstrate how the execution of an innovation initiative is just as important to the process as generating the idea itself. Drawn from their ten years of innovation research on the world’s most respected companies, the authors offer innovation leaders the framework to build teams and plans capable of facilitating the successful execution of any innovation initiative.

HBR Guide to Getting the Right Work Done

The HBR Guide to Getting the Right Work Done brings together more than two dozen articles on personal productivity, including many excerpts from the pages of the Harvard Business Review. The Harvard Business School Publishing collection provides advice on prioritizing work, avoiding distractions and procrastination, managing mental and emotional energy, and developing good work habits. It teaches how to delegate effectively and secure a pay raise by aligning work with corporate objectives. Readers can choose from a number of simple tools, such as to-do lists and e-mail automation, to reduce stress.

Mass Career Customization

The path to success in the corporate world looks very different than in the past. Organizational structures have changed; they have become flatter, resulting in fewer management positions. Employees’ views about work-life balance have also changed, and people need varying degrees of job flexibility at different times of their lives. One potential solution to these challenges is for organizations to shift from a rigid corporate ladder for advancement to a corporate lattice where employees can move laterally and up and down over time. In Mass Career Customization, Cathleen Benko and Anne Weisberg describe why this model is better than traditional approaches, like flexible working arrangements, and discuss what steps companies can take to adopt the Mass Career Customization (MCC) framework.

The main challenge of leadership is that it is poorly understood, and the public associates leadership with scandal and distrust. Also, people in leadership roles often do not understand how to lead. In The Leadership Contract, Vince Molinaro presents a fresh look at leadership, and offers a tangible, concise, and easy-to-understand document that outlines what leadership is: making tough decisions, obligation, hard work, and community. Molinaro explores the risks and rewards of leadership in the context of these concepts. He captures key lessons gleaned from his experiences as a consultant for leaders in a variety of organizations, and reframes leadership as an opportunity to build successful and sustainable organizations.

The Profitable Consultant

The Profitable Consultant tells beginning management consultants how and why to get started. Jay Niblick advocates and explains processes called “education-based marketing” and “the diagnostic sales process.” Consultants learn how to generate sales without selling, except for closing. These strategies are unconventional, but becoming widely popular. Consultants can employ many described strategies that will make business come to them. The Profitable Consultant also makes detailed cases against undercharging and accepting undesirable clients and for other practices that increase profitability, how to price consulting, and how to develop materials that provide residual income.

Every day, people face decisions small and large that must be made without a clear picture of the risks involved. In Risk Intelligence, Dylan Evans provides the tools and techniques to make such decisions easier and more fruitful. It turns out that different people have different levels of risk intelligence (RQ), which explains why some people consistently make wise decisions while others always make bad choices. Some aspects of RQ might be innate, but Evans’s research into individuals and groups who are especially good at assessing risks shows that anyone can boost his or her RQ. All it takes is a commitment to assign numbers to possible outcomes and carry out some simple calculations. Evans also explains the road blocks that society and the brain put in the way of making such a commitment and provides ways to overcome them.

Simply Management

Simply Managing is a shortened and updated version of Henry Mintzberg’s 2009 book Managing, and is based on his observations of 29 managers working in different fields. The book explains what management is and is not; what managers do and do not do; and the craft, science, and art of management. Mintzberg suggests that managers are constantly working amid chaos and that many managers are flawed, but that they can often correct their own shortcomings by focusing on what they do best. Moreover, Mintzberg suggests that instead of focusing on the stories of heroic managers who save their companies, managers ought to strive for the more natural goals of leading people, solving problems, and implementing plans for the future.

Social Machines

According to Peter Semmelhack, by 2020, at least 50 billion products will be sharing information over the Internet. In Social Machines, he argues that the traditional business model of creating a product that does not use digital technology is obsolete, and companies that cling to this business model are doomed to fail. He explains the significance and benefits of designing and building social machines and presents several examples of companies that have already made the leap to integrating technology to improve the social presence of their products. He also provides practical advice for understanding the design requirements for building social machines and implementing digital technology in almost any industry.

Change is something that can always be counted on. This is especially true in the world of marketing and advertising. For decades, marketing campaigns told consumers why they needed a product, and until the invention of the Internet, consumers were okay with this. Today, consumers are looking for relationships more than anything else. They want to feel as though a brand understands them and cares about them. In order for a brand’s marketing campaign to be effective, it must speak to consumers’ core motivations and desires. In Laddering, Eric V. Holtzclaw examines the history of advertising—how it began and what caused it to shift to the new paradigm it is experiencing today.

The Collaboration Economy

In The Collaboration Economy, Eric Lowitt puts forth a call to action for the public, private, and social sectors to work together to improve the environment, the economy, and ultimately, the world. Lowitt believes that this improvement can only come through collaboration. Whether it is the economy, water, energy, food, or the use of resources, each system must be healed in order for future success to occur. Through a global, rather than self-centered, perspective, CEOs and companies can create change. The responsibility falls on everyone. The most serious problems in society cannot be solved by turning inward to isolation, but rather through sharing thoughts and expertise from different areas to find a solution. Moreover, the goal should not be short-term profits, but instead, long-term sustainability.

The workplace has become project-driven to the point that project management is not only a business activity but an academic field and profession unto itself. While many resources exist for improving communication among members of project teams, there is a gap in the project management profession for tools that facilitate communication with other stakeholders. In The New One-Page Project Manager, Clark Campbell and Mick Campbell fill that void by augmenting existing tools and methodologies with the One-Page Project Manager (OPPM), a simple graphic interface that communicates plans and tracks performance relative to them. This updated edition will help project managers take advantage of the new AgileOPPM™ and the MyOPPM™ template as they work to improve their up, down, and out communication.

Baked In

In Baked In, Alex Bogusky and John Winsor apply their expertise as marketing and advertising veterans who are able to feel the pulse of the changing 21st-century business world. They guide the reader in understanding the most intuitive, efficient, and modern methods of marketing, which is to “bake it in,” or to design products and services that market themselves.