Enterprise Books

This book is basic but a necessity for any designer's bookshelf. Can be used a reference for years to come and includes pictures to illustrate what's being taught, that also jump-starts creative juices.

This is a concise, easy to read book that seems to cover a large variety of publications and projects. I can open it up to any page and get new ideas and insights on projects I'm working on.

This book explains the basics (and some more advanced concepts) of good graphic design without overwhelming the reader with technical terms nor "dumbing down" the vocabulary for the novice. There are plenty of colourful examples and the book follows its own advice! This book lacks, however, the specific steps to accomplish the different design goals, but this is probably due the many publishing packages available. It assumes the reader will figure that out for himself (or herself.) The book is a compact 200 page document that is filled with useful information from cover to cover and is a great addition to any designer's reference library.

Yet another great book from the folks at Before & After. I have the Before & After Page Design book and subscribe to the PDF magazine. Even with all that, I still liked the addition of this book. It covers the usual business situations like newsletters, stationery, logos, forms and charts. The ideas illustrated and dissected here were found to be light bulb creating. I was able to apply a few of the tips right away to some projects I was working on at the time.

Some of the nuggets I enjoyed most were the comparison and discussion of what typefaces are best for what text that can be applied to all sorts of type, logo creation and thought process and the charts. The charts were not just your average pie charts, but great design elements.

Again, I'm impressed by another Before & After project. The illustrations and explanations help new and intermediate designers improve the craft. I'm sure seasoned professionals can pick up a few tips too.

I am a former graphic worker and I now teach this matter to students who have no ideas of the state of the art.
The book is professionnal and easy to use, and all examples are so helpfull to any people who need advices in business graphics.

This book was a page turner for me as it allowed the reader to follow the lives of middle school age kids into adult life. While these young people said and did many things which had some negative consequences, there were also some positive consequences many years later. It shows young people, parents, school educators and Christian workers how we need to be proactive in helping those bullied to use strategies to combat those doing the bullying. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has teenage children and those working with this age group! The author, Jennifer E. Calvert gave me an extra copy so I could donate it to a Christian school here in New Zealand. The head librarian wrote, "On behalf of all of us at Bethlehem College I wish to thank you most sincerely for the book you have donated. "Best Friends Forever" certainly has the potential to inspire the students and help them to gain confidence too. We especially appreciate your getting it autographed by the author! The book is sure to be well read, especially by the College age girls."(Grades 7-12) Rita F. Williams (New Zealand)

I read your book "Best Friends Forever" and I think it is great! I wish I had it when my kids were in middle school. They are in their 20's now. I think it should be required reading for every 7th grader. I believe it could really help alleviate school violence and teach kids how to deal with Bullies. I do have a niece who is 13 and just finishing 8th grade. I think this book would be great for her. She is very smart, young for her grade and a bit shy. She has been in a Christian school all her life but will be starting 9th grade at a public high school. Best Friends Forever will be a blessing to her. Thank You!

Kathy Mulz

Jennifer Calvert's "BFFs" shows a real insider's knowledge of teens and tweens and their behavior, and it's no wonder -- Calvert has years of "on-the-ground" experience as a counselor and teacher at a North Carolina middle school. The book teaches moral and religious lessons without being preachy as we follow the tale of a girl who got picked on constantly in middle school, the friend she made and the two bullies themselves (a pleasant quirk here, that the bullies are not demonized but actually allowed to grow up in the book and change their own ways). It's a quick read, a fun read (easy for kids to get through as well) and one I can't recommend highly enough. Also would be very appropriate for church youth groups looking for something contemporary to study.

BFF has a great story line that can be used as a functional tool for teenagers and teachers alike. This should be required reading for every teenager. Congratulations Jennifer!

Jennifer Calvert's book is a book that bears reading and re-reading. It is a captivating and heartwarming work of fiction and the reader is drawn into the story on the opening page. The book should be added to the mandatory reading list for middle school students and their parents because of the great help and direction it provides in solving personal problems. Ms Calvert's characters' interactions and their dialogue present problem solving strategies in easy to remember choices and steps and these will be remembered by the reader long after the story is over.

Simply captivating and better written than a Canadian mining story has any right to be.

About how a gang of off-beat penny stock mining promoters (led by "Toxic Bob" Friedland, ex-hippie, convicted LSD dealer, alleged environmental disaster perpetrator and one time school chum of Steve Jobs) took some of the world's largest mining companies on a dizzying auction for some desolate caribou pasture that just happened to contain some of the richest ore deposits ever discovered.

Bob Friedland is the loadstar of the story: a vain and loathsome character but brilliant as an auctioneer of fear and greed as he escalates the bidding into the stratosphere.

This book contains some valuable lessons for executives and the stock buying public. For executives: have your temperature checked regularly for "deal fever": walk away when the bidding gets too intense, you're probably overpaying. For the public: Beware of Toxic Bob's inside tips that to prop up an overvalued stock you need a dynamic impressario with a "good story" and some theatrical "props". Brings to mind certain Silicon Valley impressarios....

Tremendous read for anybody who has an interest in this sector, or for that matter good business books. Good insights on the tactics used in making a deal for a world class deposit (at least in a seller's market). I started yesterday morning and couldn't put it down all day. My wife did make me walk the dog, and I took a few trips to frig, but was so engrossed I finished it all yesterday. That's saying something because I usually only finish about a fourth of the books I start.

The real story that reads better than fiction. The book gives a great background for the current activity that is starting again in one of the largest mineral discoveries in Canada.

Although it starts out a bit slow, it is a well written and , for the most part, accurate. I worked at INCO and was involved in the early stages of the acquisition and can say that the description of events and personalities was very accurate.

I was lucky enough to work on the Voisey's Bay discovery. Jacquie interviewed almost all of the players; she did did an excellent job of catching the excitement we all felt in Labrador during 1994-1995. Her book tends to confirm many "rumors" too.

This is such an awesome book for kids! My son checked it out so much from the library that I decided to buy it for him for Christmas. The recipes are simple, all begin (and most can end) in the bread machine. They are fun and delicious recipes that all kids will love to bake!

This book is so easy to use, that i would recomemnd it for anyone, not just children. It has illustrations and very easy directions. I bought this for my first attempt at bread making and it was a great sucess!

I had never baked bread or used a bread machine before I got this book. I have made the white, french, honey wheat, oatmeal and dinner roll recipies and each of them turned out great!

I recommend this book to anyone regardless of age because it is well written, fun and easy to understand.

(Thanks Ann)

I love it! It has recipes for every occasion and is extremely creative. It is the only bread book I use out of the twenty that I own.

My eight-year-old son now makes fresh bread for the whole family! Electric Bread for kids is a great book - the recipes are fun and really, truly delicious! It's also a terrific book for groups of kids at sleepovers or other parties. This book makes a wonderful gift!

An easy to understand book for kids with a great message. I read this book to my nephew and niece over the holidays and they loved the book (great illustrations too). Mookey is one incredible rabbit -- he shows kids that they can do anything and to have fun along the way!!

I bought the book for my two year old nephew, and he loves the book. He asks my sister to read it to him for his bedtime story. He loves the Bunny Rabbit illustrations!

Kudos to the author/illustrator of Bunny Rabbit on the Moon! Working with children, I was happy with the book's message that you can do anything you want if you put your mind to it,and that it is important to experience new things in life. The illustrations were framed nicely and contained delightful details. I highly recommend this book. It would make the perfect gift for families with young children.

I enjoyed reading the book and sharing it with those around me. The book playfully describes little mookeys big ideas and his adventures in accomplishing them. I think my favorite part is how little mookeys story and the ability for us to accomplish big dreams ourselves becomes real when you look at the moon. I read the story to my kids during a camping trip. Afterwards we all watched the moon and discussed some of our "big dreams". It made for a great evening but also opened our eyes to what we can accomplish if we set our heart and minds to it.

I bought this book for all the kids on my Christmas shopping list. I love the underlying message of this book, and the illustrations are adorable.

Because it's so intimate a portrayal of real-life experiences, this book moved me to tears. Each story relates, with differing degrees of depth and breadth, an individual and a family's encounter with the Holistic Approach to NeuroDevelopment and Learning Efficiency (HANDLE), tracing their stories before, during, and after the unique therapy program. Anyone interested in addressing issues with diagnoses like autism spectrum disorders, stroke, head injury, CHARGE Syndrome, Tourette's Syndrome, Down's Syndrome -- and "ordinary" learning disabilities -- ought to read this book.

The stories in this book give hope to us all. For more than a decade I have worked with adults and children with neurodevelopmental disabilities. The usual treatments involve behavior modification and drug therapy. Little time is spent in observation and evaluation such as described by Judith Bluestone in this book. The Handle Institute's methods offer hope through its methods that have no reliance on drug therapy. This is a book for patients, family members and professionals.

Compiled and edited by Lisa Brenner, The Churkendoose Anthology: True Stories of Triumph over Neurological Dysfunction is a collection of uplifting testimonies offering a positive message of hope to individuals afflicted with neurodevelopment problems ranging from attention disorders, learning disabilities, Tourette's Syndrom, or an acquired brain injury, to Cerebral Palsy, sleep disorders, Vestibular Dysfunction, Down's Syndrome, and obsessive-compulsive behaviors. True success stories of the HANDLE (Holistic Approach to NeuroDevelopment and Learning Efficiency) approach in helping young people and their parents. Enhanced with an informative commentary by Judith Bluestone, The Churkendoose Anthology is highly recommended as an engaging and encouraging read, especially for anyone having to cope with a neurological dysfunction.

The Churkendoose Anthology is a touching compilation of true stories of individuals and families who have triumphed over behavioral dysfunction without the use of drugs. It is an inspiration to all who know someone or suffer themselves. Professional therapists, MDs, especially including pediatricians will benefit from reading and learning about this unique way of healing a multitude of behavioral issues.

Going through life as parent of a "special" child, one navigates a maze of physicians, experts, specialists, and amateur diagnosticians. Desperate for help, such parents try a range of treatments and tactics, sometimes destroying their families and their sanity in the process. Ms. Bluestone and HANDLE do not have a "magic bullet," but the simple and authentic wisdom in the HANDLE approach teaches us all that there really ARE honest and practical strategies to help individuals who don't fit any of the models in the medical literature. My son has benefitted greatly from the HANDLE precepts, and this book tells true stories of others whose lives have been forever changed. Ms. Bluestone's own story is an inspiration, and she brings to her work the unique empathy of one who has "been there" and found her way out. HANDLE respects individuality and eschews labels; the accounts of these HANDLE clients are compelling and dramatic. Perhaps the most important thing this book provides is hope, which is often in painfully short supply for "marginalized" people. I congratulate all these writers for recounting their journeys, and I think thousands of people can benefit from stepping into the Churkendoose shoes for a few hours. I recommend this book to those with open minds, tired spirits, and vital hearts.

Lucie and Lucy have written a book to inspire you to preserve family history in a fun and heartfelt way. This colorful book is filled with hundreds of photos to show you examples of what other families have done. It will help and encourage you to select and collect ideas and keepsakes and then give you creative ways in which you can preserve them. What better way to connect with those you love than to create an heirloom - a personal lasting "Family Original." As a grandma who feels strongly about passing along family lore, history and values to grandchildren, I highly recommend this book.

I had the pleasure of meeting co-author Lucy Lewis at this year's Book Expo America, and Family Originals was such an impressive book that my wife and I each went home with a copy - and if you want a book that will truly inspire you to turn family history and memories into a living, shared celebration of life, you will too.

If you are you like most of us, with a drawer full of faded photographs and a yearly struggle to remember every nephew's birthday, this book is full of practical tips that include a step-by-step game plan for organizing your family photos, a treasure trove of places that memories may hide, from recipes to exercise journals, and nearly 100 pages of themes ranging from holidays to old vehicles to your religious faith. But much more than that, it gives you a recipe for building the stories, the memories, and the shared values that form your family's "culture" - and as an author on organizational culture and communications skills, the authors' focus on developing this sense of "who we are" and passing it along really resonated with me.

The book itself is a stunning visual achievement, thanks to the design efforts of David Hunt - ideas are literally popping off of every page, with hundreds of suggestions and seemingly a cast of thousands - their contributor acknowledgements alone represent two full pages of small-point type. This is nothing less than a tool to bring your family closer, and build relationships that stretch beyond our lifetimes into history.

-Rich Gallagher, author of The Soul of an Organization and Great Customer Connections

This book is such an innovative way to learn different ways to keep my family keepsakes and memeories alive. It has spawned on to even new ideas and then realizing I already had some of my own to share. Tell everyone about this book because preserving our family history is important to those who are young.

At first glance this book might make you feel guilty about all of your family projects that haven't gotten done, but the exact opposite is true. The authors have made it easy to find and embrace a project that is perfect for the task at hand. They encourage real people with real schedules to start small, and they give us unique and motivating ideas. My personal favorites are the ideas for preserving my mother-in-law's recipes, the dictionary of family expressions, and the self-addressed postcards to document family vacations. But there are hundreds more, all presented with clever and hysterical family photos and graphics to stimulate your own creative juices. I highly recommend this book to any family who has ever been on vacation, had a birthday party, or loved a grandparent -- which is just about all of us.

Family Originals is a wonderful book that will have you reading it once just for the fun of it, then going back to start your own lists and projects. There are so many good ideas and examples that even I stopped my procrastinating ways and swung into action to record more of our priceless family memories! It is great fun to give a copy to all of your extended family to get them going, too. The ideas really begin to flow, prompted by this well organized and creative book.

This book does a good job to summarize the past and current IT industry trends. The author high-level summarizes what he saw in the past and what he forsees in the future. This is a book for you to read and then think about what it means to your business.

However, there are some chapters not easy for everyone to read. Recommend to read ch1 and ch2 - if you are interested in the past IT trend; ch3 - the main concept of the book and the last chapter - conclusion. If you don't understand web services, then you can read other chapters.

As a 22 year IT veteran, I've never before seen anything like the paralysis that now grips the industry. Buyers are awash in technology and afraid to take another step forward for fear that it will simply add to their problems instead of help solve them. Suppliers are out of sorts because the old spaghetti rules don't work any more ... throw a bunch of tech at the wall and see what, if anything, sticks. And everyone is spinning around in circles looking for the answer.

The author might not have all of the answers, but he points the industry in a direction that it needs to go, which is a dang good starting point. His answer: recognize that customers are now an integral part of the IT value chain. His words: �� with the arrival of the Internet, for the first time in this business�s history, IT customers were intentionally and systematically creating value for other IT customers.�

Amazon.com and others, he argues, were driving other organizations to reach for new technology goals. The customer was driving the industry, not the suppliers, as has been the case traditionally. Interesting insight. And the author goes on to say what this means to the long term growth and viability of the industry.

A good read, particularly as we as an industry try to sort out the lessons of the recent past and plan where we go from here.

I liked this book a lot.

As an IT manager, sometimes you need to sympathise with your users when things go wrong (as well as solving the problem, of course) and this book does it for me by opening with a chapter called "Computers Have Always Been Difficult"!

However, this is not a quick and dirty "IT Infrastructure Planning for Dummies". At times, it's really big picture stuff. Moschella's background in economic history allows him to make an astute comparison with a former explosive period of technological innovation, the late 1920s, when, rather tellingly, progress was hampered by the prospect of war - a worrying parallel.

We are walked through just about every public and industry sector - health care, government, education, banking, music, advertising, retail, airlines - with examples of where customers, not suppliers, have taken the lead in IT, adding value to a product or service for other customers. This 'seizing the power' approach may sound a little odd to you as an 'IT consumer', but the Internet and inter-networking (through our everyday hardware and software applications) has thrown up many challenges and opportunities - ones the IT supplier industry is no longer in a position to progress adequately, Moschella argues.

At every stage, incisive arguments are backed by industry evidence, as you would expect from an author with top-level experience at leading researchers International Data Corporation (IDC) and now also at Merrill Lynch.
Along the way, there is also some heartening praise for all those committed IT innovators and developers who make genuine progress on a daily basis; a change from so much analysis that relies on throwing rocks in all directions.

The outlook - which may come as a pleasant surprise, given the economic and political disasters of the last 18 months - is optimistic. Computers and content can only get better.

Does it tell you what to do next ?

The conclusion marks out 10 IT themes and shows which key industries are leading the field - just so that you know where to look. The work finishes with a kind of game plan on "How to take the IT lead as a customer", identifying four key areas you need to tackle with their respective goals mapped out. Easy as falling off a web log.

This book won't transform your operations overnight, but it will help you understand and secure a long-term future for your organisation.
And by the way, it's very well written. In plain English.
Even dummies can manage this.

This is an excellent book on the near term future of IT. It says that the next IT growth is based on customer innovation. No incremental improvements to existing or leadership in emerging markets are is likely to be sufficient to drive a major industry expansion (page xiv). The shift from supplier to customer dominated industry represents a huge cultural and business change and challenge.

The emerging customer-centric era requires customer leadership, including vision, motivation, skills, and decision making capabilities. Customers must show the same level of faith and commitment than IT suppliers have provided in the past. The customer motivation is the single most important risk of the future success of IT (page 230). This is closely tied to executive attitudes towards technology (234).

This also means that traditional venture capital backed start-ups will play a diminishing role in the industry.
The responsibility is on the leadership of existing industries, with a relative absence of start-ups and therefore a relatively reduced role of entrepreneurs (143).

"The sad thing is that so much of (this) energy flowed into a flawed industry vision ...unless the IT industry embraces some sort of shared long-term vision and direction, the use of technology could either drift aimlessly or continue to squeeze diminishing returns out of proven areas of investments" (40).

Many of the key customer-centric applications have already been identified. These include music, advertisement, payments, health care, e-learning, government services, and community interaction (26).

Web Services and Semantic Applications are marketed as the next big thing concepts. Web Services implement process nets with modular components. Many viable Web Services already exist, such as e-mail, credit card processing, and news feed. Web Services may lead to the emergence of new kind and more specialized service companies that provide better economies scale, or skills, or more flexibility, and may create shareholder value. This dis-integration differs from the dot-com vision - processes instead of businesses are horizontalized. On the other hand, the dot-com collapse has shown the risks of outsourcing.

Semantic Applications are capable of understanding other applications. They require industry standardization, which is seen everywhere; in the joint initiatives in electronics, automotive, manufacturing, medical, chemical, and travel industries (115).

The book considers e-learning as a major opportunity, and LMS (Learning Management Systems) as the last great enterprise horizontal software market, in the lucrative tradition of ERP, CRM and so on (156).

Communities are still at the heart of the Internet activities. They rival and exceed those of e-business and e-learning realms (166-167).

Government's role in information society is thoroughly described and evaluated (185-206). Public policy is increasingly important IT industry factor (43). Example are e-learning, online gaming, voting, identification, security, spectrum allocation, public information services, integrated government databases, antirust, regulation and tax policies, copyright and patent law (42).

The best part of the book is a critical approach to the so-called horizontal business model. On a company level this model is associated with a highly focused business strategy. The belief was that there will be dominant market leaders, "gorillas", and that these leaders are start-ups that are able to replace much of the established economic order (34). The belief on this mental model and the overreliance on the PC industry mind-set was one of the main causes of the Internet bubble (28-29). History does not repeat itself. Many Internet-related businesses have no clear market leaders and have remained very competitive.

A major weakness of the book is that it leaves C out of IT. It fails to recognize the importance of telecommunications or mobile industry and the convergence as the basis for the next technology-based ICT growth. On page 56, the book says "mobile systems are not going to be the dominant computing platform any time soon, and they are unlikely to fundamentally later the way businesses and other organizations are run". This becomes again evident on page 169 where the writer hints that the high international usage of mobile phones is due to the lack of voice mail or bad service and high prices by foreign telecom monopolies. This blind spot also means the lack of global perspective, because in large parts of Asia and Europe the integrated multi-media consumer electronics offerings (instead of "computers" and "software" still sold by the IT industry) of the mobile industry have already dwarfed "old" IT as the consumer supplier.

I still give this book five stars. Highly recommended, but read with caution.

Let's face it, there are way too many prognostications about technology, business and the consumer. The Internet Bubble generated a mountain of exuberant "vision" books, many that their authors now have good cause to be embarrassed about.

In contrast, this book strips away "irrational exuberance", and gives a sober and well-grounded perspective of how technology has really changed the world thus far, and what likely lies ahead - leaving the rose-colored glasses behind.

The driving premise is a simple, but profound one: the pervasive success of the PC and the Internet have created a population of customers that are finally educated enough about IT possibilities, that they are actively driving the future of the market. While this is given for most mature markets, remarkably it's a relatively new development in IT.

The implication for business executives: if you're passive in your vision and use of technology, your doomed to be regularly surprised by your competitors' IT-based business breakthroughs.

The implication for IT suppliers: the reality of other major markets like CPG, Auto and Retail is now upon you; get to know your customers' worlds VERY well, for that - not the technical agenda of your development labs - is defining your future.

Moschella is not a showman, but a serious and experienced analyst of the technology industry. As a result, the book dives deeper on occasion than the casual reader may like. But for the business executive whose biggest decisions must now anticipate IT's future, it's a very worthwhile read.

Very informative. Really needed the sample forms.

I ran a daycare myself for several years and thought I had everything I needed to be a great daycare provider. After reading this book,I realized I had a lot more to learn. Cyndi Beauchemin covers absolutely everything from soup to nuts. After searching for good daycare information, I don't need to look any further.Anyone who cares a great deal for children, and wants to provide the best for them ,needs this book. From Child Abuse Hotlines to Daycare Forms, it's all here. You will use this daily to provide the best daycare you can AND YOU WILL BE SUCCESSFUL.

This workbook is an outstanding resource for anyone thinking of starting a Home Day Care! It would also be a valuable book to have if you are already doing Home Day Care. The book asks dozens of questions you may not have even thought of needing to be answered. It contains sample forms, contracts and schedules. It will answer so many questions and help you avoid so many pitfalls that I can't imagine starting or running a Home Day Care without this workbook. I highly recommend it! Cyndi knows of what she speaks and it shows.

This book has every piece of paper you could imagine would be necessary for running a day care.

As an author myself ("I Killed A Bunch of Folks"--a fine book but a slightly different genre) I can appreciate the amazing attention to detail Ms. Beauchemin has put into her work. She's thought through it all, and has really made my wife look like a professional in her day care business.

This book is absolutely excellent!
I think if you were to choose a reference to start your business, this is the one to choose. It has every aspect of childcare that you could hope to have to start your business.
Take a look at the info you get in this book for yourself. I don't think you will regret it.

The book is very to study and to know about e-business, it is an excellent referent to study.

He fully understands the relationship between collaborative technology as it relates to project management in a large enterprise environment.

As he so well points out... "the speed which one implements technology relating to process management in order to accomplish large tasks" will differentiate success from failure. This is a "must read" for senior management if they wish to survive in a complex "project management", collaboration /Internet environment. How to utilize technology to accomplish this is the key!!

A great resource for management.

Mr. Shield clearly gets it!!".

He fully understands the relationship between collaborative technology as it relates to project management in a large enterprise environment.

As he so well points out... "the speed which one implements technology relating to process management in order to accomplish large tasks" will differentiate success from failure. This is a "must read" for senior management if they wish to survive in a complex "project management", collaboration /Internet environment. How to utilize technology to accomplish this is the key!!

A great resource for management.

If you are coming from an APICS viewpoint on ERP, this book is consultant-speak only. It is however a prime mover on a very important issue, how will those 1996-1999 implemented ERP systems move forward now that Y2k spending has been digested in Fortune 2000 companies?

An excellent overview of a very complex and timely subject. I especially liked the ERP/E-Business Matrix and the discussion of regions, companies and assumptions underlying it. I found the discussion of "adaptive" vs. "disruptive" changes helpful and insightful. Very concise and to-the-point, a quick & easy read, but one which should be internalized over a longer period of time. Covered a lot of ground in less than 200 pages. Overall, an excellent addition to my bookshelf.

Would, however, have liked to see a bibliography & some footnotes for the statistics cited