economics-times

Ok - a few nuggets - very few. What annoys me most are books that are written to promote the authors business. They're self serving and never provide a full "how to" guide.

I'm curious - were the other reviewers relatives of the author?

Ken Blanchard says, "I believe 'High Trust Selling' will become one of the enduring classics of business and personal growth literature."

Sales happen when trust exists; but in the sales profession, there's more to steady success than being a trustworthy person--although that's certainly where it starts. Long-term sales success happens when high trust exists--when you are a trustworthy salesperson running a trustworthy sales business.

Duncan teaches that despite what you've read or been taught to this point in your sales career, it takes more than fortitude and flattery to become great in the sales profession. That's because establishing high trust with prospects and producing high sales with clients is about your ability to develop and maintain loyal relationships, not your propensity for persuasion. Another thing to note is that high trust selling is not about you; it's about them--the clients and prospects whom you serve. The fact is that you'll never be genuinely successful in the sales profession if you're self-centered. You can go to the bank on that.

Here's something else you can bank on: If you are a trustworthy salesperson running a respectable, reliable sales business, you will succeed in the sales profession...in less time than you think and with much less stress than you're accustomed to. More than that, with high trust on your side you will climb to the top of your industry and remain there.

In fact, I believe the sooner you apply the practices and principles within the pages of this book, the sooner you will see results!

High Trust Selling is the most helpful book for sales professionals in a decade. It's thought-provoking analogies, real world style and fresh instruction make this a must-read for anyone in the sales industry. Having been in sales for nearly 20 years, I can truly say that this book is a certain best seller and I highly recommend this book to anyone who is serious about making a career out of sales.

The cover claims that the book has been "revised and updated for the digital age," but Winston's information on technological tools is both superficial and already dated. The term, "PDA," does not even appear in the index.

I bought this book thinking it would be just another book on cleaning out your mess type of talk. I've been there and done that, but seeing some of the content first I realized there was more to it. I have gotten several tips from the book that will help me a lot. For example, having a file for a staff meeting to collect ideas of things to talk about for an agenda. The only problem is that the book is very centered around filing and paper, and not enough on the electronic systems. Everything mentioned with regards to paper files can be used on a computer as well, but I think this book needs yet another update to get into more details. Overall, I really liked this book, must be a compulsion for organization on my part!

I recently purchased the 2001 edition, because my very old and tattered copy had to be retired from excessive use. I read the first edition of this book 1983, because a successful executive assistant recommended it to me when I landed my first secretarial job. The skills I acquired in those early days provided an important foundation...to which I attribute my following career successes.

Ms. Winston's update for the "digital age" is presented in the same no-nonsense style that held my attention over the years. Her suggestions on how to integrate technology into our organizational systems are timely and helpful.

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for skills that will benefit their career...and last a lifetime.

This is a well-written, interesting book. However, in my opinion, it tells only part of the story. It looks at how Netscape formulated its strategy, but not at how (or whether) this strategy was executed.

This is like explaining a football game entirely on the basis of the diagrams that the coaches drew on the chalkboard. What actually happened on the field gets no attention.

For example, the authors claim that one of Netscape's strategies was to leverage Internet standards. However, the reality is that with its browser Netscape thumbed its nose at Internet standards, particularly when it dominated the market. Even today, its browser generally is seen as less compliant with standards than is Microsoft Explorer.

Another alleged Netscape strategy was to "eat your own dogfood," which means using your own products. The reality is quite different. For example, Netscape released a production version of Enterprise 3.0 and kept its own web site on Enterprise 2.0 for several months afterward.

In 1996, a key component of Netscape's web server was something they called LiveWire, which provided scripting and database connectivity. I adopted it for my web site in the second half of 1996. However, after several months of trying to get it to work reliably, we had to abandon it, moving to Java servlets instead.

Meanwhile, as of late 1997 (when I stopped following it), Netscape's web site still had not adoped LiveWire. They let other users suffer with the bugs and problems in LiveWire, while they ran their own site using the older technology of CGI/Perl. That means they spent at least 1-1/2 years in real time (multiply by 7x to get Internet time) NOT eating their own dogfood. In contrast, Microsoft used their competing Active Server Page technology immediately on their sites.

To return to the football analogy, my epitaph for Netscape is that it is a company that told the press and its shareholders that it was aiming to play in the Super Bowl, but disdained to practice blocking and tackling.

While Netscape's executives were formulating these nifty strategies, Sun and Microsoft were getting their code in shape. In my opinion, that is most of the story.

Probably fine as a business tome, but as an entertaining read, I found this a failure. I hardly got through the first few pages; the books starts with a long, obvious and patronising exposition about how internet has transformed our lives and what a revolution it's been. It reminded me a lot of "The Road Ahead" by Bill Gates.
Microsoft has been commercially successful, but at the cost of integrity. It has none whatsoever. This may indeed be Microsoft's downfall in the end, because the hatred towards this company is reaching a fever pitch. More and more users will realise that they can get by using other operating systems and products, supported by companies who have a less selfish vision for the future of computing.

One thing that I especially enjoyed about this book is that it almost completely avoided any gratuitous Gates/Microsoft bashing that appears to be vogue these days. Instead, Cusumano and Yoffie take the reader on a detailed yet interesting dissection of the organizations and decision making processes of the top brass at both Microsoft and Netscape. I also liked the way the authors would candidly point out where bad decisions/strategies were made, but fairly analyzed why they failed, and why they might have seemed like good decisions at the time. The allusions and comparisons to judo strategy in business were interesting as well.

Warning!!! DO NOT PURCHASE THIS BOOK!!!

It is a complete wast of money.
Even though this book was written a few years ago, there is absolutely nothing in it that could even possibly be helpful. Basically, they just give you a little synopsis of 100 different potential business, from catering, daycare, tutoring, etc ; Businesses that are going to cost you a lot more than you could ever make in profits. And most of the websites they give you(few and far between) and just about all of the newsgroups they give you are gone.

There are many books out there about how to make money at home with your computer, and just save yourself the time and most importantly, the money, and look somewhere else...

Finally a making money at home book that is worth buying! This is an outstanding, easy read loaded with ideas for everyone. The 100 computer-based businesses listed each come complete with resources to follow up on in addition to what to expect in the area of salary. Paul and Sarah Edwards seem to really have a knack for communicating what so many of us are looking for. Of course the book contains all of the important money and business issues as well. I highly recommend this book as a "one-stop-shop" on the subject.

My name is Stacy and I really have found Making Money At Home With Your Computer to be an asset! This was the very first money making book I have ever received. My friend got it for me for Christmas because she new I wanted to work at home. I started reading this book, the ideas were flowing through my head rapidly. My pen couldn't keep up with my ideas! I couldn't believe all the ideas I had to make a living at home for myself. I read the entire book and couldn't believe how informative it is. Today, I am a stay at home mom, working at home with my own profitable website. I have to say and I do recommend this book to anyone looking for a how to do it book. People wanting to know how to get started and ideas for home businesses, this is the book to get! This is one of the best resource books out there for anyone wanting to make money at home. This book has helped me grow my ideas for new avenues of opportunities. If you are wanting to learn how to stay at home and make a living, I strongly recommend reading this book first!

~~~~ Stacy

Some people on the reviews complained about the book not just being Covey talking...but if you notice the book is written by three people (yeah, Amazon only shows 2, but I have the book in front of me) The CD is a good highlight to explaining the basics to the First Things First principles. The cd says to get the book for using the meat and potatoes of the book...BUT there is also a 3 Disc set out there which is Unabriged and tells it all (for some reason I can't find it on Amazon...but have found it in searching around the net) So if you want the basics to remind yourself of what you are doing (Review regularly to make it a part of your life is a common self improvement strategy) is quicker than re-reading the book over and over... especially when given the gift of traffic to slow down and enjoy the CD.

Are you ready to work? Really? If not - don't waste your time. But if you are, don't miss this book and don't miss the audio tapes! If you are willing to have your life work for you, and you are willing to pay the price of having to change your current life style, you will see in S. Covey's books all you need. These are not "quick fix" literature. These are ever lasting set of principles and distinctions that once you have and master - you cab be the source of self expression, love, self fulfillment, contribution and service to your self and the rest of your family, employees, friends etc. GO FOR IT!!! (Ronen Ben-Naphtali)

In our days, the society's pressure for obtaining more and more material things has made us forget about the really important things. We don't have time for our most loved beings, and we always have something "urgent" to do.

Stephen Covey in this audio-cassette, show us that this kind of conduct is product of not hearing our inner voice, not following our principles. Sure, money is important but how many people, at th e ime they die would like to be more time at the office? Not a lot. When in an experiment, people is asked what would they do if they know they are going to die in six months, the most common response is to be more time with the loved ones. With the techniques that the author describe in his book, you will be able to create "time zones" that would help you to stay focused in the most important things of your social, spiritual, mental and physical dimensions, giving you a better quality of life.

Another book that I recommend you, related with this theme of time management is: "Time Shifting, creating more time to enjoy your life" by Stephan Rechtschaffen.

This is the abridged version of the review

If 'apple pie' and a business version of 'words to live by from mother', is up your alley, then Tom Peters The Pursuit of WOW!, is the soft cover management book for you!!! Peter's book is an amalgamation of 'everything you were ever taught' and that has slipped your mind, on how to do good business. Primarily aimed at management and entrepreneurs there is a little something for everyone, broken into 210 sections, which are sorted into 13 categories, Peters for the most part, has an informal narrative style that utilises case studies, interviews, personal experience, examples and photographs that are consumer friendly. The end result is that WOW! can be opened at any page or read from beginning to end (although I wouldn't recommend it all in one sitting).

Entrepreneurs' Dream
Another chapter, another group, this time Peters brings together a group of 11 entrepreneurs for "a free-for-all discussion on the perils and joys of starting your own business". The distinct feeling of 'one- up-man-ship' starts to leave a nauseous roiling in the gut, and even Peters himself states "pick your metaphor". Little to no structure is present, while ideas from passion and creativity to staleness and demotion are wildly bounced around.

Attaining Perpetual Adolescence
Peters uses chapter 12 to espouse the value of the 'big concepts' that make a difference (in his humble opinion) to the success of an entrepreneur/manager. Iconoclastic, Inquisitive, Audacious, Crazy, Passionate, Advanced immaturity and Self-improvement, to mention just a few. The problem is, without application, they are just words and words that are hard to spell at that. One gets the distinct impression that he has put the most popular jargon and buzzwords of the moment into a hat and written a sentence on the resulting selection. Hype? Definitely. Practical application? Dicey at best.

In summation, one can't help but be left with the feeling that Peters was beginning to run out of things to write, the format of the chapters became shorter as the book progressed, furthermore the input from him lessened and had less 'wow' the more you read. The knowledge that Peters imparts for most is known, but through laziness, busyness or lack of practicality is not used. Overall the book was generally entertaining, with a sprinkle of enlightenment, and worth a read (if you can get it from the library). Ultimately, the pursuit of 'WOW!' was more like an 'amble after ordinary'.

Tom Peters does it again with another gut wrenching hatchet job on dullard business practices. Sharpen-up your Harry Lorayne or Bob Trudeau memory systems because this time Mr. Peters gives you 210 concrete reccomendations how you can build over-excellence or "WOW!" into your company (Or the next PTA bake sale). Brimming with everything from one-liners to multi-page essays, this book screams "MUST!" if you intend to drive your organization up to the next level (or perhaps drive your own life). Leave your steel tip shoes at the door 'cause after devouring this volume you'll want to give a good swift kick in the ass to anyone who says "It can't be done."

The Pursuit of WOW should be almost like a bible for conformists wanting to re-engineer their thinking and approach to global business. People are often fearful of not knowing how to. With Peters' insight to how fear can be overcome, more entrepreneurs, and developers should be coming in for a new dotcom renaissance, when applied generously. Open your hearts and jump into the oceans of Life.

I think The Trust is absolutely riveting. It's worth reading for the chapter on the Pentagon Papers alone--a drama that has you on the edge of your seat, even though you know what happened! But The Trust is a lot more than that. The decisions behind what runs, and what does not run, in The New York Times are complex and difficult. For the first time--as far as I can tell--the authors, with the skill and caring of fine novelists, show us who these people are and why they do (and did) the things they do. If you want to know how The New York Times came to be what it is, read this book. It's a story of human courage, frailty, jealousy, ambition, loss and success. In short--the story of a family. It's right out of Balzac. I really loved it.

This exhaustively researched and really gripping book tells the story of Sulzberger/Ochs family and their relationship to the New York Times. As the family behind the Times, they were players on the stage of American history for most of the twentieth century. The family itself and the characters in it are fascinating-- the subjects range from Iphegene Ochs frustration that she as a woman would never be considered the heir to the throne, to the way that Adolph Ochs wheeled and dealed his way into building the NYT, to the hard family choices behind the publication of the Pentagon papers, to modern attempts from within the company to break the family power. It's a wonderful glimpse at one of the most powerful families of our time. It's worth noting that this book is not a business case history and that the reader will not find an explicit overview of any of the strategies that made the Times what it is.

This is a monumental work of multiple biography and institutional history.

It is cumpulsively readable, like a good novel. This book became my trusted companion during many relaxing evening hours and solitary restaurant meals.

It is also admirably crafted. As in their previous book The Patriarch (about the Bingham family of the Louisville Courier-Journal), Tifft and Jones write beautifully and with great skill for handling detail and narrative.

They also have the ability to balance candor and fairness, steering a sober, high-minded course between warts-and-all skepticism and obsequious hagiography. As a reader you sense you are getting a careful portrait of each major character's personality, strengths, foibles, fond traits, and character flaws, while never getting the feeling the authors are doing either a flack job or a hatchet job.

That's not to say certain characters don't come off better than others. For example, the authors seem consistently sympathetic toward the modestly talented, often hapless but usually wise "Punch" Sulzberger, the dominant figure at the Times from the mid 60s through the mid 90s, while casting his wife Carol as a shallow, cold-hearted Nancy Reagan type. But the book rings of truth and authority, and so one generally trusts the authors' assessments.

While this book overwhelmingly is concerned with people, not events, it provides a valuable account of the internal debates over whether and how to publish the Pentagon Papers. It also illustrates the paper's vigorous post-war anti-communism, its cozy relationship with the Eisenhower administration, its internal battles over editorial voice during the political and cultural upheavals of the 1970s, and its generational differences over homosexuality (contrasting Punch's bigotry with his son and successor Arthur Jr.'s determination to make the Times a progressive place for gays to work). Two consistent threads run throughout the book: the Sulzbergers' ambivalence over their Jewish heritage, and their determination to place journalistic excellence and family control of the paper over the business strategems and high profits necessary to please Wall Street.

This book will be of great interest to journalism junkies. But it also commends itself to all lovers of serious biography.

This is a terrific new book by a Washington Post reporter who followed AOL for the newspaper through its ups, its way ups, its downs and its way downs (now). The most appealing part of the book is that the subject is approached without malice. Klein could have taken a muckraking, expose the crooks attitude, but he did not. Perhaps this is because he spent so much time with "the boys at AOL" during the time he covered them for the Post.
The book appears to be very thoroughly documented and balanced. In the end, however, we are left with one, strong conclusion: AOL cooked the books to get the merger done with Time Warner and continued to cook them as long as possible to keep the numbers up after the merger. They did so, as has been documented previously, by booking phony ad sales when money flowed both ways and counting as revenue money that had not yet arrived.
This book is lively, a quick read and not harshly judgmental toward AOL, even while presenting strong indications that negative judgments would be justified. As at other high flying enterprises in the 1990s, AOL people often used company money like it was Iraqi dinars looted from the central bank. The "expensed" lavish trips and parties and rode their stock options to the stars. Almost every reference to Steve Case finds him in a different city, often other continents. Why work when you can travel in high style?
There is no doubt that a kind of stock and money madness enveloped AOL. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect, for some, will be the revelations about how much money was wasted both by AOL and its stock optioned employees on their own. While the record is shocking, I have a feeling that Klien barely scratched the surface in this regard.
It is clear, from this book and other reporting, that AOL should never have taken over Time Warner, any more than a mouse should try to eat an elephant. AOL was flying high on the combination of its subscriber revenues, temporarily inflated ad revenues and, more importantly, the expectations of investors that the Internet had no known limits (it did). Most of this had to be known Steve Case and his high spending, high flying group at AOL. They went ahead with the merger anyway, at all costs. Turns out, they lost their jobs and, for many of them, their fortunes. This was not a good merger that went bad, this was a merger that should never have even been considered, much less finished.
This book should be interesting to anyone who follows American business, who invested in tech stocks during the gold rush and anyone else who simply wants to learn about human nature and money. Highly recommended.

This is a terrific new book by a Washington Post reporter who followed AOL for the newspaper through its ups, its way ups, its downs and its way downs (now). The most appealing part of the book is that the subject is approached without malice. Klein could have taken a muckraking, expose the crooks attitude, but he did not. Perhaps this is because he spent so much time with "the boys at AOL" during the time he covered them for the Post.
The book appears to be very thoroughly documented and balanced. In the end, however, we are left with one, strong conclusion: AOL cooked the books to get the merger done with Time Warner and continued to cook them as long as possible to keep the numbers up after the merger. They did so, as has been documented previously, by booking phony ad sales when money flowed both ways and counting as revenue money that had not yet arrived.
It is clear, from this book and other reporting, that AOL should never have taken over Time Warner, any more than a mouse should try to eat an elephant. AOL was flying high on the combination of its subscriber revenues, temporarily inflated ad revenues and, more importantly, the expectations of investors that the Internet had no known limits (it did). Most of this had to be known Steve Case and his high spending, high flying group at AOL. They went ahead with the merger anyway, at all costs. Turns out, they lost their jobs and, for many of them, their fortunes.
There is no doubt that a kind of stock and money madness enveloped AOL. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect, for some, will be the revelations about how much money was wasted both by AOL and its stock optioned employees on their own. While the record is shocking, I have a feeling that Klien barely scratched the surface in this regard.
This book should be interesting to anyone who follows American business, who invested in tech stocks during the gold rush and anyone else who simply wants to learn about human nature and money. Highly recommended.

Although I have read a lot about the AOL-Time Warner merger and its aftermath, the national financial press did not do full justice to the story. Stealing Time does, however, and I highly recommend the book to you.

Alec Klein has a particularly good vantage point, having covered AOL for two years for The Washington Post. In the course of that assignment, he discovered that AOL was using sleazy advertising sales practices and illegal accounting to "achieve" its earnings growth. Primary motives for these despicable practices were power hunger, greed and a desire to pump AOL stock while the merger was pending (it was an all-stock deal). When the book focuses on those parts of the story, Stealing Time is riveting reading.

The bulk of the book covers what Time Warner was thinking (apparently not very much) as the merger developed and was pursued through the regulators . . . and the very ugly aftermath while AOL collapsed and the absurdity of the "synergy" concepts were exposed as bankrupt.

The book is enlivened by many anecdote-rich episodes (such as Jeff Bewkes calling Steve Case out in an executive meeting) and detailed interviews with those involved.

You will also get many insights into why so many dot-coms failed. AOL was stripping those who needed its advertising of as much cash flow as possible through indefensible negotiating tactics.

The advertising sales practices described here rank with the accounting at Enron as the sleaziest business actions taken by a major company that I have read about. It's enough to make you want to cancel your AOL subscription! . . . if you still have one.

If I liked the book so much, why didn't I rate it at five stars? Well, I think the book should have focused more on AOL and less on the aftermath at Time Warner. The inevitable shuffling of the deck chairs among the soon-to-be-fired or -retired executives isn't all that interesting. Sure, Time Warner was abused by AOL. But watching all of the ugliness of the abuse didn't make the story any better.

As I finished the book, I realized that any time that a "big picture" CEO is looking for partners . . . that's a recipe for disaster. Avoid those stocks!

I listened to both this and "Difficult Conversations." I found that "Diffiicult Conversations" offered much more helpful, concrete advice, and the material was much better organized. I was disappointed that the emphasis of "Firece Conversatons" was almost entirely on business related conversations. Example after example focused on her executive clients. After listening to this program, I felt no more prepared for conversations with friends and family than before. There were a few helpful ideas, but they were presented much more clearly in "Difficult Conversations." "Difficult Conversations" gave me real, practical strategies that have made a big difference in my ease in bringing up tricky conversations and working through them with positive results.

I think the most important point that this book struck home for me was that you, and only you, are responsible to bring up things that matter to you. If something is bothering you, you need to find the courage to have a conversation with the person that can make a difference. Many people go through life putting off those "difficult" conversations, and letting things just happen by default. This book makes it clear that those very conversations that people avoid are the really important ones that can change your life. By having them, you can change your destiny.

I have seen this great book unfolding over the years as I have learned from her training sessions and listened to Susan Scott and seen her fierce determination to communicate about the "the art of communication". So much of our interaction and communication over the years is rendered ineffective because we use the wrong words, avoid conflict, or have the "put off to later" attitude. Susan has captured the answers to clear communication in a way that makes it possible for all of us to be great communicators. The exercises are extremely helpful and the step by step approach helps to make more concrete the skill sets. Her examples enliven and enrich the concepts and make them real. There have been many books written on communication. This one captures at the deepest and yet most basic level the simple rules to make "all" conversations effective both in business and in our personal lives. Ultimately we all have the same objectives: to improve relationships, to listen better, to communicate more effectively, and to be understood. Thank you, Susan, for giving us the very best way to get there "one conversation at a time!"

What an incredible disappointment!! I have to agree with the point of view of one other reader...this book has absolutely nothing new to tell anyone about organizing... the writers try to pretend there is a different spin to their method, but it just ain't true! I read the book hoping that someone would give me some refreshing ideas that would enable me to throw away my daytimer forever. Imagine my suprise when we get down to the nitty-gritty and up pops the picture of a daytimer-type organizer page, as well as other materials taught at Franklin Covey seminars!! Hey, if that had worked I would not have picked up this book! Bottom line I got from the book: creative people have to learn to stop and focus some of the time. Consider yourself right-brained in a left-brained world and do the best you can. There is nothing new under the sun!

Have recommended Organizing for the Creative Person to many people. The approach is easy to understand and not judgemental. It starts with the idea that people need to understand and accept their messy tendencies before they can cope with them. Problem solving approaches may at first seem simple but they are not. Just recently a young graduate student told me nothing had helped with her tendency to clutter and to have trouble with time except this book. The only problem she had with it was keeping it. Her sister kept borrowing it!

I have read this book about twice now and I believe the authors completely understand right-brained (RB) people and wrote the book in a way that works well for RB's. My belief is that the people that gave this less of a review were perhaps not as much in the RB mode as they suspected. The book uses diagrams, formatting, summaries, examples and specific advice very well, making it easy for us RBs to understand why we're different and how to make the most of it.