Forecasting

Its hard to believe someone would choose this book over one by a similiar name for much less money.

No perspective written about the job market at one point in time can hope to be accurate for very long. This book offsets that inherent weakness by providing you with lots of places to get up-to-the-minute information. This book will be of most value to those thinking about what programs to follow for vocational training, college, and graduate school. It will also be of some help to younger people in the job market who are thinking about changing careers. The book's main weakness is in placing almost no focus on becoming your own boss by starting a business of your own.

Here is the design of this book, including some of the contents of the major sections:

Chapter 1: Are You Ready for the 21st Century? -- "Whatever you're doing today will most certainly be history ten years from now." Be "fast on your feet and entrepreneurial." "[D]o what you really love." The chapter also has a quiz to help you test how well you understand the future job environment as described in the book.

Chapter 2: Preparation for Turbulence and New Opportunities -- You will require marketable skills, have to change careers, use new career tools and change your focus, and relocate into new areas with better economic growth. Seven key changes are outlined. For example, jobs will be both rapidly created and eliminated (through downsizing and starting of new businesses). The change described about boom or bust growth in new jobs I find questionable. Job growth should be robust for at least the next 8 years due to demographics.

Chapter 3: Preparation for 33 Coming Changes -- These focus on where shortages will occur. An example is a forecast of unemployment ranging between 4 and 9 percent, and suggesting that you be wary about periods of high unemployment. As I mentioned above, this is unlikely to occur until after 2008. This is the most interesting part of the book. Most of the observations hold water to me, such as the idea that many skilled and high-technology jobs will move off shore where employment costs are much lower.

Chapter 4: Identify the Best Jobs for Tomorrow -- The fastest growing areas are in science, engineering, computer technology and health services. Job satisfaction is highest for sociologists, biologists, and dental hygienists (there's no explanation of why this is true). Many other lists are included to stimulate your imagination.

Chapter 5: Best Paying Jobs and Salary Ranges -- 229 occupations are briefly profiled with thumbnail sketches.

Chapter 6: Best Places to Live and Work -- The accuracy of thiis information very much depends on what your objectives and preferences are. So take this information with a big dose of skepticism.

Chapter 7: Medical and Health Care Careers

Chapter 8: Computer and Internet Careers

Chapter 9: Science and Engineering Careers

Chapter 10: Business and Finance Careers

Chapter 11: Education, Government and Legal Careers

Chapter 12: Art, Media, and Entertainment Careers

Chapter 13: Travel and Hospitality Careers

Chapter 14: Resolution, Personal Services, and Transportation Careers

Chapters 7-14 are basic overviews of these job areas. These will be helpful only to those who have essentially no knowledge now in a particular area. You get basic descriptions of the work, salaries, and special issues. It isn't made clear how hard it is to qualify for these jobs.

Chapter 15: Finding the Best Job for the Future -- This chapter is about places to get more and more up-to-date information.

As you can see, this is a resource book more than a "how to" book. It gives you almost no help in figuring out how to fit your career and personal life together, how to understand how a type of job will fit your personality and specific interests, and how to go about testing the potential "fit" before moving into a job or career path.

On the other hand, it is the most complete resource book I have seen. So it can play a useful role in your life planning.

After you have studied this book, I suggest that you take a psychological test to help you narrow down potential fields by how well their activities relate to your mental and emotional preferences. Then, this book will be much more helpful to you.

I also encourage you to read "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" to get another perspective on how to organize your life, especially about establishing a business and becoming an investor.

Choose a beautiful life for you and those you love! Good luck!

This is an excellent book. The author has done a great job in pulling together the elements which spell success in the quest for employment. I recommend it.

Wayne D. Ford, Ph.D., author of "The Accelerated Job Search" docwifford@msn.com

It's easy to sit back a few years after a predictive book hits the market and critique it for its shortcomings; but, it's also fun.

In The Big Ten, Jeffrey Garten undertakes the task of setting forth why he believes that the countries of China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, South Korea, South Africa, Indonesia, Poland, and Argentina are on the way to economic and political success. His major premise is the embrace of free market philosophies by each country. While this is true to varying degrees, there is a big difference between free market economics as practiced by the United States and as practiced by any of these countries.

Each of these countries retains to some degree the command and regulatory economy that is almost a death bite to emerging economies. The most egregious of these countries oddly enough happens to be one of the most successful: China. However, China's success has more to do with how awful a position they were starting from than with true free market reforms.

In retrospect, it was more than wishful thinking on Garten's part to believe that all of these countries would some day soon blossom into developed industrial or post-industrial economic and political forces. It appears that he will be right in at most four cases but more likely two or three.

The two guranteed successes appear to be Mexico and South Korea. Both have not only made the transition to free market economics; but, they have also made the transition to free market politics. I believe that any multi-ethnic country needs political freedom as well as economic freedom to truly be successful past a certain point. While not being in this category, South Korea has nevertheless made the transition, which only bodes well for them.

There is a group of six from which I believe that two are likely to emerge from to gain the type of influence that Garten eyes for them. Those two are Poland and India. I believe these two are the most likely to come from this group for the reason I mentioned above: multi-party free elective governments. I don't believe the others in this group (China, Turkey, Brazil, and Argentina) are likely to hit the same level for their own unique reasons, endemic corruption, state interference, and political repression to name a few.

The remaining two countries, South Africa and Indonesia, will be lucky if they manage to make it through the next twenty years without a bloody war, either internal or external, on their hands. Indonesia is disintegrating before our eyes from political turmoil and South Africa is doing the same from the AIDS epidemic.

History will be the ultimate judge if Garten, or even myself, is correct on this matter. So far, it isn't looking good for him.

It now looks like there are really only two, maybe three at most, success stories among Garten's Top Ten choices: China, South Korea, and possibly India. Mr. Garten's next edition should focus on these.

This is an excellent publication to read as you are putting together your future export marketing programs. It will provide you with fresh ideas on how to develop your most profitable foreign markets. It is primarily based upon Mr. Garten's experience as Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade during the first Clinton Administration. Although there is a definite political slant to its content, I recommend this book for all entrepreneurs and international trade executives who are responsible for establishing export strategies, forecasts and budgets.

Another try at using Kaplan & Norton's great two masterpiece books. If you love to buy every book in the field get this book. Otherwise, do not waste your money because there are newer and more updated books. The Balanced Scorecard is already in its third generation, using Systems Modeling with I THINK or POWERSIM, and this book is already past its glory.

I've been consulting for 30+ years and find the concepts in this book refreshing. In fact, the problem with most scorecards is that they miss the linkages that Dr. Schiemann and Dr. Lingle address in this book: People, Culture and Discipline.

I especially like the detailed evalution of important linkages to make measurements work. These authors write clearly and succinctly with real case studies, not theory.

Use this book as a reference guide of what to do when Norton and Kaplan fails.

Knowledge-worker productivity is the biggest of the 21st century management challenges. Companies can do a great deal to improve it. This book exemplifies a key element: the measurement of non financial drivers of financial success. The 'Initiatives Grid' (Table 8-1) provides guidelines how to review strategic performance measures with the board of directors or parent organization. The process of cascading the measures throughout the organization and embedding the measures into the leadership process is key. The text gives a clear view of the bricks that put together a balanced set of performance indicators, that any organization could use to focus executive teams and human resources on a unified strategy. Companies may benefit from strict use of this system, readers will gain much from applying the insights without complete implementation.

THE CITY AFTER THE AUTOMOBILE by Moshe Safdie. I found it an interesting review of urban architecture and what many might find as more desirable high density living, assuming your dream is high density living. However, in my opinion, this book offers little in the way of mobility solutions. One idea Safdie presents is the availability of U cars, presumably government provided, at airports, office buildings, park & ride lots, etc. His system would save time parking but that is so little to be gained in return for such massive trade-offs. He maintains that aspect alone would allow rail to displace airline usage in the northeast corridor, make urban rail greatly used, etc., failing to recognize the inherent weaknesses in the "transfer" system he would make worse. I could not determine how this improves on the present rental car or taxi system or why we would want to replace the existing system with a national system of providing cars for everyone everywhere. I found the logistical questions unanswered; the assignment of personal responsibility for bad driving unaddressed; as well the notion that every possible origin and destination would have to be provided with the maximum number of cars that would ever be needed at any one time at all times and in all places. The notion of all of our mobility provided by and maintained by the government is something that our society would not accept and could not afford. Mr. Safdie's demonstrated knowledge of transportation history, transportation, in general, and transit, in particular, leave much to be desired. He perpetuates that myth that streetcars were put out of business by car, oil and tire manufacturers. He believes that intercity high speed mag lev systems running at 300 miles per hour are applicable within urban areas. How many stations could you have in an urban area and allow for trains to get to and slow down from 300 MPH speeds. He talks about economies of scale disregarding the higher costs of living in dense "downtown" areas. Safdie's contention that communication and culture can exist only in high density appalls me. Melvin Y. Zucker

Persons interested in finding ways to get cities out of the auto and rail transit mess will be disappointed - because Safdie doesn't know anything about urban transportation. He does know about humane architecture and his thoughts on this subject are very good. He suggests two new urban transportation modes. One is the Utility-car, a small rentable probably electric car that is sitting around everywhere ready for you to use - if you have the right smart card to make it go. This is not a new idea as it is already being done widely in Europe and even in the U.S. The other is the Conveyor which is highly similar to Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) which has been worked on by many people around the world since the early 1970's. The Raytheon Company is building a U.S. version right now called PRT 2000. Beyond transportation, Safdie suggests we need the New Cardo, a linear downtown that has lots of street life. This idea appears in a plan for the Urban Detroit Area prepared in the 1960's by Doxiadis and Associates for the Detroit Edison Company. The book highlights the fact that architects and urban transportation planners never talk to each other. Apparently, architect's don't read the literature either. Persons interested in a advanced transportation technologies can see what is available and learn the history of this field at a website called Innovative Transportation Technologies: http://weber.u.washington.edu/~jbs/itran

Flaws there might be. Logistical errors there might be. Totally impractical aspects there might be. But none of it detracts from what this book is. Some architects build to the practical present, and some build to the ideal future. Safdie does the latter. Genius does not require anything more than vision, and this book glows with that. A new way to live; a better way to exist. Humankind has never, in all the spans of history, moved forward. It has always been dragged by a few farsighted and great individuals. Buy this book. Read this book. And see an apsect of our future that will one day be a reality. It won't be Safdie's vision through and through. But it will be Safdie's vision. Leap in on the ground floor now, as humanity prepares to embark on its next stage of growth - without even realizing it.

How is it possible to be so wrong ? That is the question which is growing in the reader's mind when looking over this book. According to Edward Luttwak, America was in the Nineties, on the verge of a final crisis which would have to precipitate it in the abyss of the Third World. Very amazing when so much people everywhere complain about its extreme domination. Today, despite dark clouds, nothing is allowing us to think that the spirit of America is lost. I hope that, unlike the Luttwak's prediction, american people is still believing in the ideas of the " Founding Fathers ", and in the triumph of the democracy. To this condition the USA will still be able to enlighten the world for a long time.

Edward N. Luttwak's text does not fit into any traditional political or economic molds. On the one hand he calls for pragmatic, standardized education which will train folks for the rigors of the modern education. He critiques a multicultural agenda which holds that teaching tolerance of other cultures is more important than raising children to be tomorrow's economic leaders. On the other hand, he calls for a value added tax similar to what exists in Europe to encourage savings rather than excessive consumption.

Luttwak's proposals, from tightening security along the US Mexico border to reforming the legal system to curb excessive and frivolous lawsuits, are all viable. The book's only shortcoming is that it comes across as aggressive to the point of being hostile. I certainly agree with much of what he has to say, but I fail to understand why he chooses to employ rhetoric of warfare and belligerence in describing the country's economic situation and the solution. I would much rather see a call for fairness and compassion in economic decisions rather than the belligerance of Luttwak. Still, his book is readable and offers solutions that are highly viable nine years after its publication.

This lucid and readable book focuses largely on the reasons (sociopolitical as well as economic) for Japan's phenomenal ascent from a resource-poor, war-ravaged island nation to its premier status today, in contrast to the accelerating decline of the U.S. This is no reactionary us-versus-them rant, as Kirkus might lead you to believe, but an objective analysis of different societies' behavior and priorities, and why we cannot continue to delude ourselves with past glories. The points Luttwak makes are even more relevant now, six years later, as much of the globe falls in thrall of the supranational corporate oligarchy.

would you consider reliable an author that cites on his book an incorrect chart?

On page 55 the table 2.1 called "water scarcities in the Middle East and Africa" includes in those geographic areas Peru, Haiti and Barbados. Peru is a South American country, and Haiti and Barbados are in the Caribbean area !!!

The outlook of the book is neither pessimistic nor optimistic, but as realistic as possible. This book should provide a great jumping off point for anyone interested in the specific areas discussed, which involve most trends affecting policy making today.

The author proves prescient on a number of points: the recent increased conflict in Palestine, the Mexican election results, the recent run up in energy costs, the movements of the various world markets on perception more than concrete results, and the growing gap between the world's 'haves' and 'have nots'.

If you are looking for something in the line of Alvin Toffler, but don't want to wade through all of his volumes, this is a great geo-real-politik starter. And he's at least willing to stick his neck out: Democracy in China by 2015!

What I found wonderfully invigorating about Global Trends 2005 is that it draws upon so many vastly different strands of contemporary knowledge and understanding and weaves them together in a manner that is at once challenging, provocative, and accessible. Make no mistake, this is a rigorous exercise in holistic thinking. But it's also a fun--if sobering--read. That's because the author writes in a personal, plain-spoken manner that conveys an exceptionally bright yet level-headed way of making sense of our world as it lurches into the 21st century. Michael J. Mazarr points out more seriously complex problems on the horizon than most of us would care to think about. Yet he never acts the part of the shrill alarmist that is so typical of books of this nature. Nor, when he shifts his focus to globalization's potential for worldwide benefit (e.g., attacking Third World poverty), does he play the chirpy cheerleader that is all too often the alternative persona of futurologists. This book is an exemplary instance of well-balanced multidisciplinary thinking about our now deeply entrenched information society and the simultaneously good and bad prospects that it presents to the interdependent corners of the globe.

This book is badly written. It contains many useless comparisons
between different methods without telling you how to achieve the
best result. You still on your own.

This is one of the most informative books I've found on the subject of mathematical modeling of financial time series. The book is largely a review of the 'state of the art' and frequently expects the reader to be familiar with or willing to 'find and read' relevant articles, but we can all do that, can't we?

The book sequentially studies
1. Standard ARIMA (autoregressive models) which are closest to familiar linear regression techniques.
2. Neural nets and Bayesian trees (as a category called 'relational data mining' by the authors)
3. Fuzzy logic approaches (described as 'membership functions'. Membership functions are defined in terms of linguistic practice, whatever that is.).

In this way, the authors develop a seemingly comprehensive outline of the field, describing fields of study in terms of increasing abstraction. Of the three, I found the fuzzy logic discussion the most interesting.

I have to express some reservations regarding the perspective taken by the authors. Their view is that of the Newtonian physicist observing the interactions of bodies entirely independent of the viewer. At no point do the authors examine the implication of 'self participation' in the marketplace. For example, what happens to probability distribution 'X' when a trading entity uses the probability distribution 'X' to take a significant position in a security? If this seems interesting, you might try looking at "Theory of Financial Risks: From Statistical Physics to Risk Management", by Bouchaud or "An Introduction to Econophysics: Correlations and Complexity in Finance" by Mantegna and Stanley.

It is a very informative book with all major data mining methods and their comparisons compressed into 300 pages. Therefore, a significant part of the book is not leisurely reading. This is typical for the books from Kluwer Academic Publishers. One has to be ready to spend enough time to go through algorithms' details, pseudo code and comparisons of algorithms to get a serious benefit for the design of one's own model.
For instance, understanding the power of first-order if -then rules over the decision trees gained from the book can significantly change and improve design.

This book is completely dated. First published in 2000, this book is chock full of the internet marketing drivel that was typical of that era. Devoid of any relevant substance for the post dot-bust, I find most of this text reminiscent of the techno-babble speak heard all to often before the dotcom bubble burst.

Anyone considering a foray into online shopping will find Age of E-Tail a worthwhile read. The commentary is insightful in places. Useful summaries of each chapter are provided but are rather hard to read due to poor graphics.

The authors focus is towards European shopping online, learning from and adapting US examples.

As an internet professional based in Asia we are developing e-tail in multiple-languages and are perhaps more aware of cultural differences between online consumers.

I also found E-Shock 2000 (De Kare Silver) a great analysis for would be e-tailers. The 2000 edition is an update on the original version from 1998 which at the time was a remarkable analysis of e-tailing.

The book is very dense, but also really fun to read. If you want to get a perspective both on US and international examples, this is your best choice.

Dynamic Technical Analysis is written by one of France's most prominent technicians.

The ideas presented within the book aren't bad. In fact, they are interesting and potentially useful. Unfortunately, due to the book's poor translations, simple ideas become very difficult to comprehend. This is not the translator's fault, really. He is obviously not a trader.

The field of Technical Analysis has its own lingo in English, and non-standard terms were used in the book. This causes great confusion, and makes ideas more difficult to comprehend than necessary.

My second complaint is the price of this thin book. It is way too expensive for the material presented!

First of all, I have to mention that this book is not for beginner. It involves a lot of technical terms and techniques that an amateur would not understand. This is probably due to the length of this book because it is so short and full of graphs, it doesn't have enough room to do much explanation and gave examples. Other than that, this is one of the better books that explains rarely discuss TA methods (Bollinger Bands, stochastic, MACD).

I managed to finish reading the book in one day which is fast for such a subject. I was very confused at the beginning 4 chapters because the author used a lot of jargons. It gets better at the later chapters when I got used to some of them and finally understand what they mean. Also, the author mentioned a lot about using some software to produce the charts but he failed to recommend one of them to the readers (actually he did but it's in french). So I have to find one on my own which is not easy but unless you have one that works similar to his, you cannot really apply what you've learned from the book.

Otherwise, the book explained Bollinger Bands, Stochastic, and MACD well. I only wish that the author can give more examples and provide more charts and resources for the readers. It would be best if the book is twice of it original length. I would recommend it if you don't mind the high price tag and have some knowledge of trading.

I don't like book translations, so i bought this book at Amazon.France, french language. I't a good companion to John Bollinger book.
This work features interesting visual approach, with studies of slopes and shapes of bollinger bands.

Overall, I think the book says things everybody (especially marketer) already knew.

For instance, the final recommended nine strategies:
- restructure organizations with a consumer-driven orientation.
- select and focus on the highest-priority consumer segments.
- develop standardized customizaton approaches.
- leverage global trends and market intelligence.
- increase the priority on innovation.
- increase the priority on value.
- choose more narrowly targeted and two-way communication vehicles.
- align communications strategies with the spirit of tomorrow's consumers
- adopt new marketing research approaches to understand tomorrow's consumer.

All these "recommended strategies" are very "unsurprised" to me. Both the recommendation basis and recommendation strategies are just average.

I gave two stars because the book was released in 1998, so it might have a little value then (though I doubt it too).

Only recommend to college student for marketing basic reading.

The concepts and indicators Shirley Roberts mentioned in this book are nothing new to me since I have been working the last two decades at an investment bank that already follows these trends quite closely.
Most of the first two chapters seemed to be elementry knowledge, however starting with chapter 3 the text begins to look a little bit more into the detail of the "Hows and Whys" of her beliefs. Numerous examples of failure and success stories of companies that have recognised trend changes help the reader fully understand the concepts she is talking about.
The author comes from a food and beverage background which is very evident in her examples but she does use other business sector cases as well.
In the book she really pushes the theme of globalisation of the world's markets and their effects on consumer behavior. However, there are only a few very limited number of non-North American case studies.
The occupation of a "Marketing Professional" will become much more difficult as consumer market becomes extremely non-homogeneous, destroying the "Mass Marketing" philosophy.. hurray hurray... this means more marketing jobs... ha ha ha ..
Although I have been in an occupation tracking these trends and statistics over the last 20 years, I was able to learn a few new and interesting things but I would say this book is an excellent read for the college graduate/entry level employee for a marketing/market analyst type occupation.

This book is good for anyone interested in long term trends. The author does a good job of identifying the specific factors influencing trends and then mentions what magazines you can read that will talk more specific about the area you are intersted in learning about further.