economics-times

I recommend The 7 secrets of financial success to anyone who wants to learn the basics of investment and debt. I find it to be an invaluable reference. Worksheets help you figure out your financial situation and help you begin saving.

An excellent introduction into fianance for the novice or those just wanting to get into finance. Highly recommend it

This was an easy to read, easy to understand colorful financial book. It was not over the head material that I am used to reading on personal finance.

In 1990 this book was revolutionary. Today, it is mostly interesting as the first book on the subject. Nobody in todays (business) world can have missed out on the concept that time is (or can be) a competitive advantage.

If you have missed this basic fact, do read this book, it explains in rather boring terms why it is so.

Personally I think they put to much emphasis on time as a competitive advantage, and tend to disregard other factors, equally important. A more relevant reading would in my opinion be D'Aveni's Hypercompetition, that takes the concept to its logical conclusion, which Hoult and Stalk misses.

Unfortunately, neither of the authors are very entertaining writers, especially as this book is usually mandatory/recommended reading in most MBA classes on strategy.

In conclusion, good, once revolutionary, but today mostly over-rated.

Today's readers will think that this book is simply stating the obvious. That shows how much influence the book has had. Prior to the book's publication, most people felt that "getting things right" was more important than speed. This book points out that speed can actually be helpful in getting things right by encouraging you to improve your management processes so you do things right the first time.

Many companies have had trouble implementing this concept in the way it is articulated. They simplify their process, but may not improve it. This may mean that new products arrive in the market that are not really ready for the customers. That can be all right if you can quickly fine-tune the products in beta tests and the customers have that expectation because you are giving them so much benefit anyway. If you do this with me-too products that don't work, the results can be disastrous in terms of damage to your company's reputation and customer relationships.

The authors do not spend enough time on helping people understand how to improve their processes, and how to create more speed without killing stress on the people involved. For many companies, this book can be dangerous. I think this book could use a new edition that would address these two areas in more detail.

On the other hand, if you have any doubts about the potential benefits from speedier action, you should read this book. It will change your mind using excellent examples.

Have a speedy read!

Simply put, an oustanding book that has all the nuts and bolts needed to allow a company to transition to a time based focus from a cost based one. Easy to read, the logic is perfect. A must buy to have on your shelf (better yet ... on your desk). I read it first when I received my MBA ... read it again this last week .... and gave copies to top management I know around the country.

This is an excellent book for people who don't have a lot of experience as an investor. Mead examines notable blue chip companies and walks readers through their history and how it relates to the company stock. She explains what to look for in annual reports and how to figure out which companies are right for different investment needs.

Investing With Giants takes us back to our investing roots and reminds us that investing requires due diligence. Mead helps the reader return to a "think before you leap" model of investing.

As an investment club member for 6 years, I found this book exceptionally helpful in better understanding how to evaluate stocks in this uncertain market. Using the annual report section helped me to review several stocks from a closer vantage point. It helped demystify the numbers. Linda Mead writes in a very readable manner making a dry subject much more interesting.

I have had this book for years and have used it in many work/office situations. It has served me well as a reference book whenever I have had a need to keep myself and my work organized. It's also great to read through the entire book to get practical tips and information. Most of the ideas presented are very simple but it's those simple ideas which can make your life easier and save you loads of time and stress. I have found this book to be well worth the money spent and I believe that you will agree. If you want to be more organized in your work and your life - this book will help you achieve that goal!

surfergal

Now in an updated and expanded fourth edition, Susan Silver's Organized To Be Your Best!: Simplify And Improve How You Work continues to be an indispensable instruction manual enabling the reader to control multiple, ever-changing projects and priorities, intense workloads and information overload. Readers will learn to manage email, voice, fax, and other instant communications, devise a time and information management system tailored to their needs, work more effectively with others, master a messy desk and "piles of files", maximize the work space (including alternative, virtual, and home offices), and get the most from the computer and the Internet. Very highly recommended, Organized To Be Your Best! is as practical and applicable as it is "reader friendly" and workplace productivity improving.

Wow! Dubbed "The Bible of Organization" by the media, the latest edition (4th, to be exact) is not a disappointment. The author (Susan Silver) has included all the tips you need for organizing your life at work, from time management to streamlining your workspace and all the points in between.

Whether you are looking for tips on managing projects or trying to create an organized workspace, Organized To Be Your Best! is the one guide you need for balancing it all.

This is not a reference book, and it's not about "big" theory either. It's pretty practical, and good for self study. You should have access to some econometric/statistical software (i.e. EViews, S-Plus, etc.) to fully understand this book.

I want to see the table of contents of this book. How can the author and the publisher expect people to buy this book without providing the table of the contents?...

This book is awesome. It starts with bedrock concepts needed for analysis of financial data and it takes the student up to the most recent and important techniques used in the industry today. However, if one expects to fully utilize this text, one should have at least one semester of applied econometrics or some equivalent course in statistics and continuous probability, although it will be practical to study the two topics concurrently.

I don't doubt that some readers find this a five star book, and I am not quarrelling with the value they perceive. Rather, I am drawing attention to what the book actually is, which is not what the title suggests to me. The book does not deal with the problem of actually getting paid by customers (a common problem in small firms). Admittedly the editorial comments didn't claim that it does. But even the subtitle "Common Sense Business Tactics" strikes me as odd. This is an extremely high altitude book that probably works best as an accompaniment to motivational talks by the author, which I do not doubt may be inspirational.

This book exemplifies experience of excellence in becoming successful as a business owner. Getting paid gives you the basics for planning, implementing and success in becoming an entrepreneur. Mr. Saboor outlines the beginning in a well thought out process of financial gain. I would recommend this book to anyone that thinks and is sincere in starting a business and wants to Get Paid.

This book contains a number of common sense ideas that enable a high school student or a business executive to understand. The book is a must read if you plan to start a business!

Michel Dacorogna and the team at the former Olsen & Associates are well-known experts in the field of foreign exchange rate data analysis, and their book provides us with a vast, useful source of information. Unfortunately for students and other beginners, the book is written like a compilation of papers and review articles, the opposite of pedagogical, and with an awful choice of 'computerese' notation (MA(t,n)=sum(EMA(t',k)... etc) that makes Boudhaud-Potters look easy in comparison. More to the point, even their noncomputerese notation is difficult to follow. I hope for a very different second edition written pedagogically for students of this growing and important field. On the positive side, data analyses are performed using logarithmic returns, not price increments. Workers in the field who consult this text will find it helpful.

The book covers a wide range of topics related to high-frequency data in Finance. There is a very detailed approach to tackle a huge amount of data and to deal with its based stylized facts. The book triggers the reader's desire to update his knowledge in the field of finance.

This one of the few books on high frequency finance is a most welcome to the literature. The book is useful not only for people who are new to the subject but also for researchers in the field since it is a most uniform treatment of many topics. From adaptive data cleaning (chapter 4) to intraday and weekly seasonality (chapter 6) and real time trading models (chapter 11), it covers a broad range of topics specific to high frequency financial time series analysis. Chapters on volatility modeling (Chapter 8), forecasting (chapter 9) and correlation and multivariate risk (chapter 10) are enlightening especially for risk exposure analysis and risk management purposes. Finally, the the extensive bibliography is a precious source for those who would like to explore certain topics in detail. I highly recommend it for practitioners as well as researchers in the field.

Just-In-Time:Making It Happen can be an invaluable guide to implementing JIT principles in the manufacturing environment. Although it is not a cookbook, it does provide a comprehensive step-by-step to understanding and implementing a workable JIT process. Perhaps the most valuable contribution of the book is the way it demonstrates that JIT processes can coexist with MRP effectively. Sandras defines those functions that need to be incorporated in the MRP System to most effectively interface with and support JIT. However, he also describes how the MRP System can be manually augmented to allow their coexistence. But what I liked best was the practitioner's understanding of the problems facing the JIT implementer.

Gives a very good insight into JIT, making you aware of the zillion things manufacturing companies can (still!!) do to avoid waste. The book, however, does not prepare you for actual implementation. For that to happen, there is nothing to replace being an 'insider' in the manufacturing environment.

This is a great introduction to JIT. It covers main issues as the core knowlodge of this technique as well as the implementation cornerstones. It's an easy to read way to get a handle on this planning and production control. It has also tried to get a compromise with MRP without forgeting currently popular topics as the link to suppliers and customers. As a plus, there are some chapters for problem solving using quality control techniques as storyboards which are actually useful in many others environments and areas.

We have heard of the crisis in Russia for many years; however, like most tragedies of great magnitude, this situation is difficult to truly imagine. "Moscow Days" provides tangible descriptions of the plight of everyday Russians to which the average western reader can relate. It brings the impact of the dissolution of the Soviet system, and the unleashing of unrestained "capitalism" down to a quotidian level. Reading this book provided me with a greater appreciation of the ramifications of the economic and political crisis confronting Russia as well as, paradoxically, an understanding of how people are surviving the midst of this castastrophe.

While the above probably makes this book sound like a depressing reading experience the author's sardonic wit, and often mordant humor, makes this a palatable learning experience. Dutkina leaves you with a tremendous amount of respect for the resiliance of the Russian people and their stoic response to an ever changing situation which they find themselves largely impotent to affect.

I found this book reminiscent of the Croatian author,Slavenka Drakulic's works "How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed" and "Balkan Days". While bright and witty, unfortunately Galina Dutkina does not have the literary prowess of Drakulic. Nevertheless, this is a worthwhile and important read, particularly in light of how ignorant the average American is of the devastation confronting the Russian people.

I empathize with her constant fear of the crimes of the many against ordinary citizens. It could not have been easy for Ms. Dutkina to be so open about the problems in Moscow these days and to write with such intelligent restraint that the book provides important albeit unpleasant information without demonizing the Russian people or becoming pedantic.

A fantastic eloquently written account of contemporary Moscow that also manages to convey the psyche of ordinary muscovites far more perceptively than anything that I have ever read. It's like being hit by a brick. Breathtaking and achingly painful in its delivery it makes incredible reading.

Living and working as an expat in Moscow it opened to me a completely different way of viewing Russia. Maybe I was blinkered, but I owe a great debt to the author for showing me what I should have been seeing with my eyes and ears every day of the week but filtered by my western upbringing refused to see and refused to hear.

I can't recommend this book highly enough (Catherine A. Fitzpatricks translation is exceptional).

Consultant Robert W. Jacobs walks you through his "Real Time Strategic Change" program, which, he explains, has been successfully implemented in numerous companies and organizations. He discusses how and why it works, and points out why other commonly used change strategies don't. Although the book achieves its mission nicely, it gets bogged down by continuous, detailed examples of each step in the process, which provide little in the way of illumination. His excellent guidelines for change still manage to shine through. We [...] recommend this book to all those who are or will be involved with implementing individual, group or organization-wide change.

This is a great overview of Real-Time Strategic Change (RTSC), a method for involving dozens, hundreds or even thousands of people in the planning of organizational change. The meetings usually require a single bloc of three days and two nights.

The underlying theory is that people support changes that they help to plan. Processes such Future Search or Search Conference can be used by smaller groups (usually 15 to 65 people) to develop an initial plan. RTSC can bring that plan to an entire company for refinement and implementation planning.

Ford Motor Company's Mustang division used a version of RTSC to introduce total quality management in the 1980s, responding to the challenge of Japanese automobiles.

Generally speaking, RTSC involves the "whole system" - everyone who is involved in the development of a product or service as well as the customers who buy it. In the food industry, for example, an RTSC conference would include suppliers of raw materials and grocery retailers as well internal groups such as Logistics, Manufacturing, Sales, etc. Suppliers and customers can provide information on how the company stacks up compared with competitors, often by using a panel discussion format. Industry experts may also provide information on key trends.

Work is done in a combination of large and small group settings. In the large-group sessions, people are assigned to sit at round tables of eight to ten people. These are "max-mix" groups representing different departments or organizations. Following various presentations, the groups are asked to discuss what happened and formulate a brief response. This helps keep the meetings lively and creative.

In the classic RTSC format, senior managers present an overview of their proposed plan to the entire group. After small group discussions, people use post-its to write what they agree with, what they disagree with, and what questions they have. The managers have a full night to review this feedback. They return the next day to answer the questions, reinforce areas of agreement, and respond to areas of disagreement. This can be a lively event!

People then move into implementation groups to write more detailed action plans to help kick-start the change process.

The large groups generate a great deal of energy, an important factor in successful change.

While Jacobs provides a good overview for agenda development, he has little to say about the very important logistics of a meeting like this. Important topics include meeting site selection, room size, room arrangement, methods for sharing information, and audio-visuals. When I facilitated an RTSC conference, I hired someone to manage a team of 10 people devoted to conference logistics. While some practitioners have published handbooks on this topic, I don't see any that are widely available. So that is a hole in Jacobs' book.

As an OD practitioner, I highly value Jake's simple but powerful method of making change happen. His approach overcomes the root cause for so many befuddled change attempts. The whole idea that involvement must precede commitment isn't new but the easy-to-accept approach is. With a little practice, anyone with high concern for both the relevance of the change and the well-being of the people making the change can apply Jake's ideas and make almost any change scenario more effective and lasting. Similarity to most problem-solving processes with slight twists to connect a change process with the strategy of the organization provides familiarity which employees need when working differently.

For the past 4 years I have been applying Jacob's key principles to a variety of change interventions including groups from 10 to 350 employees. The natural hesitation from Senior Leaders is quickly overcome when they see the power that commitment can have in quickly lowering resistance and developing an almost unbridled desire to move to a new state. Employees who initially greet the process as potentially laborious, quickly see that "going slow now to go faster later", as a friend once said, is really worth it.

This book is a key text and resource in a Masters in Management class that I teach. Students frequently leave class with insight and return the next week telling me that they have already applied some of the thinking in their daily management of the business. To their delight, Jacob's mental model gives students enhanced ability to envision and plan change initiatives. Often I get e-mail suggesting that this book has been one of the best investments that they made during their masters program and that the book is a reference that they rely upon.

In a nutshell, my experience with Jake's philosophy and process has completely restructured my thinking about how to facilitate change initiatives of any size. The results have compelled me to vigorously teach this process to all levels of leaders in the organization and in the classroom.