Reviews (25)

Concise, helpful, and interesting
This chapter turned book, provides some nice insights into the intersection of Collins's business practices and the nonprofit sector.A helpful read for those interested in social enterprise.

Five Challenges for Non-Profits to Achieve Greatness
I have direct experience in the social sector with over twenty-five years as an advisor or board member of several, varied non-profits. "Good to Great and the Social Sectors" resonated with me as it fills a very deep void in social sector leadership guidance.
Provides the Missing Link for Nonprofits to Grow from Good to Great
"Good To Great" remains my favorite leadership book, for a variety of reasons. The only shortfall has been in applying some of its tenets to our nonprofit organization. This monograph is very useful in making the book work for an organization that is driven by a different kind of results. The monograph also allows you to get this info without having to buy another copy of Good to Great,so it is well worth the cost for its small size. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business Organization    3. Business/Economics    4. General    5. Management    6. Nonprofit organizations    7. Organizational change    8. Sociology    9. Sociology - Social Theory    10. Strategic planning    11. Business & Economics / Management   

Editorial Review

Economics is not widely considered to be one of the sexier sciences. The annual Nobel Prize winner in that field never receives as much publicity as his or her compatriots in peace, literature, or physics. But if such slights are based on the notion that economics is dull, or that economists are concerned only with finance itself, Steven D. Levitt will change some minds. In Read more

Reviews (1164)

Fluff and Nonsense
The underlying theme of this book seems to be that if one can come up with enough provocative theses and find some support, however tenuous, for them, perhaps one can write a thin, light weight book which will attract attention and thereby gain one's 15 minutes of fame.
Compelling, but superficial arguments
The storytelling and economic science are the backbone of this compelling book and the scattered topics aren't enough to minimize Levitt's or Dubner's effort.The superficiality of the ideas is, however, and the wild concepts that the self-proclaimed freakonomist advances are easily put to question by simple thought experiments.For instance, the most controversial proposition that Levitt makes is that the legalization of abortion in the '70s was the single most important factor in the steep decline of crime in the US in the '90s, and that can be scrutinized easily.Levitt says that the people who would have been born to those mothers in the '70s would have gone on to live lives of the unwanted and been more likely to commit crimes in their late teens and early twenties (the '90s).Since millions were aborted, they weren't there to commit those crimes later.This eerie idea may be hard to stomach, but that's not the reason it should be doubted.If the aborted children would have a higher chance of becoming criminals, they would, no doubt, also have a higher chance of becoming poor, but the poverty rates for people above 18 remained relatively stable through the '80s and since.
It's about time Statistician speak out
I originaly bought this for my son (in college on the mainland) based on an article I read in the sunday paper. When I saw it in the library I decided to pick it up and see if the book was any good. Well I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this was a very worthy book. After all how many people would ever consider a Statistician's opinion, well this is one time where you should. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business/Economics    4. Economics    5. Economics (General)    6. Economics - General    7. Economics - Theory    8. Psychological aspects    9. Social aspects    10. Sociological aspects    11. Business & Economics / General   

Reviews (93)

Beyond expectations for firms searching for answers
I admit I was skeptical of the promises this book made.The book went beyond my expectations.It gives a structured framework for culling newness out of tired competition.
Profound Insights into Marketing and into Life!
The authors show us examples of companies who were not satisfied with the socially accepted business paradigms of their industry and were eventive enough to create a whole new market for themselves with their intuition, grit and determination. Exciting! May even change your life!

If you do not own your own business, his could be fun reading
I have never made the time to review a book, but this book came highly reccommended by other reviewers.Since I cant know their business backgrounds, I'd like to help someone else in making the decision of reading this book.
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Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business/Economics    4. Investments & Securities - General    5. Market segmentation    6. Marketing - General    7. Marketing Management    8. New products    9. Product Management    10. Strategic Planning    11. Business strategy   

Reviews (82)

Re-reading the Classics
The canon of Sales Lit goes back only a couple of decades.In that canon, Neil Rackham's first "Spin Selling" takes a special place as one of the classics or founding texts.So, if you need help preparing a meeting with one of your largest accounts, take the time to re-read this classic text.
Revealing selling process
SPIN Selling illustrates the validaty of the method by showing how real Fortune 500 sales forces have improved by asking the right questions to uncover customer pain.This book will enlighten sales managers and any representatives who manage large sales transactions. Also, executives can benefit from the insights about large sales. I have personally improved my sales numbers greatly after utilizing the ideas in SPIN Selling.This book deserves a place in all-time sales manual classics.

Great book on asking the right questions
A very good and interesting book and very easy to read. For me this book was very convincing for 2 important reasons: 1. SPIN selling is based upon scientific research of many sales calls for many years. 2. The idea of SPIN selling is about the fact that customers decide whether they buy somehting (or advance the sales call) upon their own ideas, their own beliefs, their own assumptions.
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Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business/Economics    4. Sales    5. Sales & Selling - General    6. Sales & Selling - Techniques    7. Selling    8. Business & Economics / Sales & Selling    9. Sales & marketing   

Reviews (11)

Valuable Knowledge
This book was used in our MBA finance course. Many parts of financial management in this book are useful for a financial leader. This book has easy, logical, and coherent valuation formulas related to WACC and other financial measurements. Certainly speaks real life application - I intend to keep this book beyond my MBA program.

Great Explanations
Overall, this text is well put together.It has good explanations and examples in each chapter.If you choose to take the time and do the self test questions at the end of each section, the answers are in the back.Also, the end of the chapter problems have answers that you can check your work.I haven't used the supporting web material yet, but there are tools and supporting material to download.

good enough for undergrads + serious MBAs
Terrific intro-level book to corporate finance -- those thinking the book is too basic could not be more wrong: top MBA programs around the country are adopting this book back into their cirricula. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business/Economics    4. Corporations    5. Economics - General    6. Finance    7. Management - General    8. Budgeting & financial management    9. Business & Economics / Finance   

Editorial Review

This grandfather of all people-skills books was first published in 1937. It was an overnight hit, eventually selling 15 million copies. Read more

Reviews (434)

Outstanding!
Dale Carnegie is one of the authors I have admired for so long. There are numerous reasons why this book is a classic one. He deeply believes that in every person there is good and you can approach it. Of course, there are many negative people who don't like this book because they see everything in black and white. Carnegie on the other side advocates a really delicate, positive and humane approach to everyone around you. It comes very close to "treat the others as you want them to treat you". I am sure that if everyone read and apply the principles in this wonderful book, the world will be a better place. I am sure that you will be pleased as well with his talent to really understand what drives people. Some of the key and basic motivators he discussed are sex and being important. His viewpoint is very close to the one of the bestselling author of scientfically guaranteed male multiple orgasms and ultimate sex. After all genius things are usually simple. Carnegie explores the human nature and common hot buttons together with the reader and gives you tools to manage and push them at your will with the help of numerous examples. I liked that the book is practical, easy and fun to read, and most of all that it delivers great value. I can not say the same for many other books. Definitely get a copy especially if you are a "good" person and prefer to treat people with respect and dignity.

If only...
If everyone in the world read this book just once, it would be such a more enjoyable place to live in...

Classic of Self Help Genre
This book may be the one that Created the genre.And what was true then is just as true today.One of the loveliest parts about this book are the stories and anecdotes from the time when it was written.It was a simpler time back then.And the people faced such different dilemas than we do today.Yet, the more things change, the more things stay the same.The humanity of this books comes through loud and clear. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business Communication - General    3. Business/Economics    4. Careers - General    5. Interpersonal Relations    6. Personal Growth - Success    7. Psychology    8. Psychology, Applied    9. Success    10. Self-Help & Practical Interests    11. Self-Help / General   

Reviews (44)

"the book" for all executives and managers
It is not a book focus on "managing career transmission" as suggested by the title of the book. Actually it is the guide book on all management related topics on management effeciveness, leadership, negotiation and organizational behavior. Very clearly articulated, easy to read and down to earth. Another excellent example of Harvard's high intellegence assets.

Great Topic - kudos Mr Watkins!
My husband took the book out from the library for me and after reading the first few chapters I decided that this was a book to own. As you will keep going back to re-read the roadmap to help you on your new venture(s).
Most helpful!
Sound, practical advice for anyone climbing the corporate ladder. Great exercises and guidelines for conversations with new bosses as well as new underlings. Great help for those first 90 days and beyond. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business/Economics    4. Decision Making & Problem Solving    5. Executive ability    6. Leadership    7. Management    8. Strategic planning    9. Structural Adjustment    10. Management & management techniques   

Reviews (61)

The Antithesis of Winner-Take-All
If you became hopelessly depressed after reading "The Winner-Take-All Society" by Frank and Cook, then "The Long Tail" will provide you with some solace. Nothing ever reaches its logical conclusion, and economic rewards will not aggregate to the top ad infinitum. The ability to make an infinite number of copies of the "best" song or movie or book contrasts with the infinite shelf space available on the internet. "The Long Tail" demonstrates why that shelf space will be a highly democratizing force. People are always looking for something new, and the traditional, monopolistic channels (or gatekeepers) are under siege, even now.

Pop-science goes marketing
The big thing these days seems to be science writers like Malcolm Gladwell coming up with best-sellers that, charitably put, are very light on facts and very long on sometimes outlandish assertion. Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired magazine, joins the parade with his silly - yes, silly - claim that businesses like music and movies are no longer driven by hits, but by the "long tail." That it is the thousands of titles that people buy or rent infrequently. Somehow, according to Anderson, the idea of web merchants making a zillion titles available and some of those titles being sold or rented once or twice will be the "transformation . . . coming to just about every industry imaginable." Uh, no it ain't. Nowhere in the book does Anderson factor in the reality that someone pays for the production of all those videos and music tracks that rent or sell infrequently. Nor does he account for the reality that not every web merchant can acheive the volume of an Amazon or eBay. In other words, Anderson has discovered the obvious: if you make 30,000 movies available for rental, let's say, through a Netflix, many of the cult titles and dogs will be rented. Anderson pounds on this "long tail" effec while glossing over the fact that the neighborhood video rental store won't carry 30,000 titles. The profits from the occasionl rental of the 30,000th item on the list won't match the cost of acquiring and keeping it in stock in a store, while it makes little difference to a Netflix.
Insights that influence Google's strategic thinking.
98 Rule: Netflix reckoned that 95 percent of its 25,000 DVDs rented at least once a quarter. Amazon using an independent academic research on its book sales suggested that 98 percent of its top 100,000 books sold at least once a quarter.Digital space cost per DVD is very cheap and represent almost no physical inventory space excepting magnetic medium storage.In the sale of one or two DVDs, the traditional retail runs out of steam because it can turn inventory fast enough to pay for physical space, but the economics of online retail keep going.Eventually, Amazon will localize and print digital media using high-speed printers producing a book in seconds from an electronic catalog, the birth of a book replication. DVDs will be replaced by wireless iPods, who are paying subscribers to iTunes, will increase the speed of distribution and volume of sales of the media they prefer. The 80/20 rules are changing.
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Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business/Economics    4. Consumer Behavior - General    5. Economic Conditions    6. Economics (General)    7. Economics - General    8. Internet marketing    9. Market segmentation    10. Marketing    11. Marketing - Research    12. Sales & Selling - General    13. Technological innovations    14. Business & Economics / Economic History   

Reviews (125)

Pretty Good
Yeah I was forced to read this by my boss...but it was quick and worthwhile.I am an experienced manager but I still picked up some valuable tips. This is worth while reading- short, to the point, and informative

Universally applicable!
This is one of my favorite books. It is geniusly simple, respectful and powerful. I was surprised to find out that I can easily apply the 3 principles in almost every relationship. So many people around deserve to be praised and taught a lesson and it is very important HOW you will do it because the final result can be very positive or just the opposite. It is a very valuable book which is very well written and is a fast read. I also highly recommend the other books from the One Minute Manager series because every book has a lot to offer and they will be especially helpful if you are in a business environment.

Timeless

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Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business/Economics    4. Entrepreneurship    5. Management    6. Management - General    7. Motivational    8. Business & Economics / Management    9. Management & management techniques   

Editorial Review

With first-chapter allusions to martial arts, "flow," "mind like water," and other concepts borrowed from the East (and usually mangled), you'd almost think this self-helper from David Allen should have been called

Reviews (236)

Lots of good ideas, but not the whole story
I've been trying to organize my life for over 20 years, and have read innumerable books on the subject. While each one has offered something to add to the puzzle, none of them has told the whole story.
Great book
This book totally helped me out.Great book.I use a plugin for Gmail on Firefox called GTD that integrates these concepts into my email and my productivity has gone through the roof.Awesome book.

This book has made me a lot of money
I got a very valuable piece of advice from this book:
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Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business Life - Health/Stress    4. Labor Productivity    5. Personal Growth - Self-Esteem    6. Self-Help    7. Time Management    8. Business & Economics / Time Management   

Reviews (17)

EC 301 Intermediate Micro
Easy to read, at least more so than accounting.If you can afford it, buy it.

Unneccessarily Long
This textbook takes microeconomics which can be explained in a technical, exact manner and makes it abstract and foreign.
A good book for intermediate level students
Organization of the books is good. Topics are discussed with enough clarity and each topic comes with lots of graphs and illustrations (which I think are a great help at that level). The level of algebra and math is at an intermediate undergraduate level (economics major). I think it is a complete book for anybody who wants to have an understanding of microeconomics. I am a Ph.D. student of economics now and if I am going to teach an undergrad micro course, I will certainly choose this textbook. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business/Economics    4. Economics - General    5. Economics - Microeconomics    6. Microeconomics    7. Business & Economics / Economics / General   

Editorial Review

Buffett, the Bard of Omaha, is a genuine American folk hero, if folk heroes are allowed to build fortunes worth upward of $15 billion. He's great at homespun metaphor, but behind those catchy phrases is a reservoir of financial acumen that's generally considered the best of his generation. For example, in an essay on CEO stock options, he writes, "Negotiating with one's self seldom produces a barroom brawl." This is his way of saying that an executive who can give himself compensation totally disproportionate to his performance surely will. There are uncountable gems of financial wisdom to be harvested from these essays, taken from the annual reports he writes for Berkshire Hathaway, his holding company. Just to pick one more, here's a now-famous line about those he competes with when making stock-market investments: "What could be more advantageous in an intellectual contest--whether it be chess, bridge, or stock selection--than to have opponents who have been taught that thinking is a waste of energy?"Read more

Reviews (56)

Right to the Point

They call him Warren Buffett for a reason
This excellent book was hard to put down.Mr. Buffett is as innately talented a writer as he is a businessman.The bookfunny, entertaining and highly informative, is sure to add significantly to the knowledge of any aspiring investor.Buffett takes topics like corporate accounting malfeasance and makes you laugh at them while at the same time providing profound insight into the inner workings of the corporate enviornment.This title is definatly one you will want to own.

Great summary of Warren Buffett's thoughts
Good book! Definitely one of the bests written about Warren Buffett.
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Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business & Economics / Accounting / General    3. Business & Economics / Consolidation & Merger    4. Business & Economics / Investments & Securities    5. Business / Economics / Finance    6. Business/Economics    7. Corporate Finance    8. Accounting    9. Consolidation and merger of corporations    10. Corporate governance    11. Corporations    12. Finance    13. Investments    14. Stocks    15. United States   

Editorial Review

Using the story/parable format so popular these days, Read more

Reviews (123)

Helpful Insight
I've been on a leadership book kick lately, and this is one of my all-time favorites. It's short, easy to read, and is one of the best explanations of cognitive dissonance for the layman I've ever seen. It doesn't work for everybody though - some people are turned off by the "fable" format and simple writing style. I still find it very helpful, and it's the kind of book that can have a dramatic impact on some of its readers. It certainly does a good job of making the point that by focusing on our own behavior we can make any situation better.

Not About Leadership
This book is not really about leadership.It is about being nice to people.And remember, any problem you have with another person in life is your fault.So, apologize, start over, and be nice.

Leadership and Self-Deception
This is an excellent resource on dealing with conflict, in the business world or in family life.The authors present their ideas in a story format that is very easy to read.I would recomment this book to anyone, we all need the lessons taught in this book. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business/Economics    4. Careers - General    5. Economics - General    6. Leadership    7. Organizational Behavior    8. BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Leadership   

Reviews (6)

Best book on interest rate models
This is the best book available on interest rate models. Very detailed. Much more focused and readable than Rebonato's book. More pragmatic and explicit than Musiela and Rutkowski. Not as theoretical as Hunt and Kennedy. James and Webber also looks very good, but I'm not that familiar with it. All other books have only bits and pieces on interest rates.

The best book I have read on the subject
With all the due respect to the other authors I would say that if one is interested in a good theoretical book whihc is also good on the implementation side then the book of Brigo and Mercurion is definetly the best book I have ever read on the subject. New stuff and nice overview: hard to beat!
In the late nineties I went through Brigo's innovative work on stochastic nonlinear filtering with differential geometry techniques. I was favorably impressed by results and style, particularly in his dissertation and in his 'geometry in present day science' very readable overview. Interesting results are found and nicely told with accurate -but not pointlessly complicated - advanced mathematics for the problems at hand, I reasoned. Read more

Subjects:  1. Business / Economics / Finance    2. Finance    3. Group Theory    4. Mathematics    5. Probability & Statistics - General    6. Science/Mathematics    7. Statistics    8. Business & Economics / Finance    9. Interest rates    10. JEL classification: G12, G13, E43    11. MSC (2000): 60H10, 60H35, 62P05, 65C05, 65C20, 90A09    12. calibration    13. pricing    14. stochastic calculus   

Editorial Review

Essayist and cultural critic Barbara Ehrenreich has always specialized in turning received wisdom on its head with intelligence, clarity, and verve. With some 12 million women being pushed into the labor market by welfare reform, she decided to do some good old-fashioned journalism and find out just how they were going to survive on the wages of the unskilled--at $6 to $7 an hour, only half of what is considered a living wage. So she did what millions of Americans do, she looked for a job and a place to live, worked that job, and tried to make ends meet. Read more

Reviews (979)

Next week on The Simple Life, Barb joins Paris and Nicole for shift work at the local Wallyworld!
She Made It Even Harder To Get By
Ehrenreich is the kind of journalist I despise. One who thinks her insights are so important that it doesn't matter how much she inconveniences others to make her point.
Bring your own grain of salt.
This is not a bad book, but it's not a good one. Although I certainly gained some insight from reading this book, I was disappointed (and surprised) by Ms. Ehrenreich's (or the editor's?) lack of fact-checking/ attention to detail, and/or embellishment.