Archive for July, 2008:
Vault SEO Guide to Minority Investment Banking Programs 2008 Edition Vault Career Library
Vault SEO Guide to Minority Investment Banking Programs 2008 Edition Vault Career Library
This annual Guide describes diversity programs at 50 major investment banks–diversity internship and entry-level programs or efforts; profiles of diversity team members, part-time/flex-time options, family leave policy, quantitative information regarding diversity staffing levels, and special programs or historical details.
The Micro Economy Today with DiscoverEcon with Solman Videos
The Micro Economy Today with DiscoverEcon with Solman Videos
Brad Schiller’s text, The Microeconomy Today, 10/e, is noted for three great strengths: readability, policy orientation, and pedagogy. His accessible writing style engages students and brings some of the excitement of domestic and global economic news into the classroom. Schiller emphasizes how policymakers must choose between government intervention and market reliance to resolve the core issues of what, how, and for whom to produce. This strategic choice is highlighted throughout the full range of micro, macro, and international issues. Every chapter ends with a policy issue that emphasizes the markets vs. government dilemma. And Schiller packs his chapters with the facts of economic life—real stories and applications, not fables. This is a book that teaches economics in a relevant context with careful pedagogy. Schiller 10e is for students motivated by real-world policy issues who want to become economically literate. This is a book students actually READ. Schiller is also known for its cutting-edge and current coverage of today’s issues.
Adobe Creative Suite CS3 Web Standard
Adobe Creative Suite CS3 Web Standard
Adobe CS3 Web Standard for Windows. This is the replacement product for Studio 8. It includes Flash CS3 Pro Dreamweaver CS3 Fireworks CS3 and Contribute CS3. This CS3 version does NOT include Flash Paper. Does NOT include full printed User Guide in the box; Fulfillment will include: 30-50 page Getting Started Guide in the box; A PDF of the unabridged User Guide on the CD/DVD; Generic doc fulfillment card outlining policy and our commitment to the environment in the box 2; Online help (both on web and on the desktop) which includes readily accessible training beyond what manuals include. Full printed User Guides will be available at adobe.com
Fast Profits in Hard Times 10 Secret Strategies to Make You Rich in an Up or Down Economy
Fast Profits in Hard Times 10 Secret Strategies to Make You Rich in an Up or Down Economy
Do you think you can’t profit if the economy is in serious decline? Many investors believe you can earn substantial profits only if it’s strong. In this groundbreaking book, Jordan E. Goodman, “America’s Money Answers Man” and an expert with thirty years of experience in the financial media, proves how wrong they can be. FAST PROFITS IN HARD TIMES reveals ten simple-to-implement but little-known investment venues that can make it easy for you to earn high returns even when the economy is down.
Goodman describes how these ten strategies work. He gives you a realistic appraisal of how much time and effort you’ll need to spend on each, and tells you how much money you need to get started, what kind of returns you can reasonably expect, how liquid each investment is, and how to minimize the risks both before and after you plunge in.
Together with this book’s detailed resources-Web sites, associations, companies, and more-the insider tips in this book are geared for the average American, not full-time investors. Just one of these strategies could be your path to a much more comfortable lifestyle…this year and every year.
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars scott’s review
i found the book to interesting ideas…i have read Mr. Goodmsan’s other books and find him to be able to explain his concepts in a manner anyone could understand and find his books an easy read,…unlike like a textbook would be
1 Star Same old, same old
I heard the author on a local radio show promoting this book, and with his background, thought it would be good. I was disappointed to find many of the same old ideas. How long do we have to hear about property tax sales and below market real estate? Many of the chapters are things you’ve been reading about for the past 30 years and is on every late night, get rich quick, these people did it, infomercial. The real problem I had is that nothing is in depth and you really need more and better in depth books to know what you want to do to really get into any of these ideas. It was helpful with some suggestions, but a lot more research and detail needed. The author does give a lot of links to other sources.
4 Stars Something for every level of “financial” knowledge
Fast Profits in Hard Times well worth the money. It highlights ten successful strategies for wealth accumulation that work in rising or falling economic conditions. By wealth accumulation I mean money earned on investments. You still need seed money to start the process, of course.
Everyone knows it’s easy to make money on investments when the stock market is bullish. Buy low and sell high. Even the worst mutual fund manager can’t help but look like a star under this scenario. But what do you do when the bears come out? How do you generate a healthy return when stocks are dropping? This book helps answer these nagging questions.
The text is less than 250 pages, so it’s an easy read. The style of writing is direct; it’s like Jordan E. Goodman is sitting across the table from you in a conference room. There are ample call-outs and highlights to make sure you catch and remember the most important points of each of the ten chapters.
My favorite chapters are the ones on high-yield equities, dividend reinvestment programs (DRIPs), bonds and the mysterious foreign exchange. The chapter on stock options is solid, but I think it underemphasizes the risk associated with these leveraged investments. A summary chapter at the end of the book on risk vs. return is something I longed for. Also I found the chapters on tax liens and below-market-value real estate and trusts to be a bit too timely. It seems like everyone is pushing these vehicles nowadays in the foreclosure-rich environment. But make no mistake; the chapters are well-written and chock-full of information.
I’m still chuckling about the chapter on investing in vending machines.
Armchair Interviews says: For the novice investor, Fast Profits in Hard Times is a goldmine with ten solid veins. For experienced investors, there are some good tidbits.
5 Stars New Helpful Business Strategy Book
This new book comes at an excellent time, given the volatility uncertainty, and unpredictability of the stock market.It is clearly written, easy to understand, and offers very useful and practical strategies for weathering the financial turbulence of today.
Asking Questions The Definitive Guide to Questionnaire Design For Market Research Political Polls and Social and Health Questionnaires
Since it was first published more than twenty-five years ago, Asking Questions has become a classic guide for designing questionnaires?the most widely used method for collecting information about peoples attitudes and behavior. An essential tool for market researchers advertisers, pollsters, and social scientists, this thoroughly updated and definitive work combines time-proven techniques with the most current research, findings, and methods. The book presents a cognitive approach to questionnaire design and includes timely information on the Internet and electronic resources. Comprehensive and concise, Asking Questions can be used to design questionnaires for any subject area, whether administered by telephone, online, mail, in groups, or face-to-face. The book describes the design process from start to finish and is filled with illustrative examples from actual surveys.
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Practical and Workable
This book is very practical and has many workable ideas that will work in the academic disciplines. It is important to form questions that will give workable answers. This book helps in this area.
5 Stars Great perspective on questionnaire fundamentals
This edition offers insight about the building blocks of questionnaire development, and more importantly, getting to the right answers. A good focus on the fundamentals and a valuable resource.
5 Stars The definitive questionnaire design book
This book is a tremendous resource for any social science research methodology course. It should be used as a stand-alone text for a questionnaire design course or as core reading material for a general research methodology class (undergraduate or graduate). As a social scientist, I have used it to successfully create web-based questionnaires that have received great response rates, which I believe are a direct result of the depth and breadth of the knowledge conveyed in the book. In addition, the text itself is easy to understand, interesting, and intellectually stimulating (qualities that are lacking in many other questionnaire design books).
2 Stars Dry and Outdated
I found this book to be a bit dry and behind the times, especially in terms of using the Web for surveys. There’s also not much about polling. Unfortunately, that was my main reason for buying it. It is one of the few books out there about surveys and polls and there is some helpful information, but I will have to look elsewhere for my needs.
Tags: Academic Disciplines, Cognitive Approach, Core Reading, Definitive Work, Health Questionnaires, Illustrative Examples, Mail, Market Researchers, Methodology Class, Methodology Course, Political Polls, Questionnaire Design, Questionnaire Development, Research Methodology, Social Science Research, Social Scientist, Social Scientists, Twenty Five Years, Workable Answers, Workable Ideas
Why People Buy Things They Dont Need Understanding and Predicting Consumer Behavior
Why People Buy Things They Dont Need Understanding and Predicting Consumer Behavior
* The 14 justifiers that give consumers “permission” to buy.
* Trends impacting why people purchase what they do.
* How to sell even more to these customers.
* The future of discretionary spending.
User Ratings and Reviews
2 Stars Not the kind of book I was looking for
I thought this was a book to help consumers realize why they buy things they don’t need, and thereby stop doing it. But it’s the opposite — it’s aimed at helping businesses tap into our buying impulses and sell us MORE stuff! If you’re a business looking to raise your sales, you might like this, but it was not at all what I wanted.
2 Stars Kind of goes on and on
The comments by others about how the book at time rehashes statistics are true. At times I found myself glossing over pages just because it was number after number. I lost interest.
I also got to the point with the author’s repeated fixation on 9/11 that I had to put the book down. Enough is enough. That fixation only revealed to me the fact that the author’s insight and point of view is very limited to the current and is United States centric. The author doesn’t address a broader global view of wants and have a historical perspective of why people want to help other spot future trends.
5 Stars Understand how marketers manipulate you!
This book is written for marketers.
If you’re a consumer, don’t fail to read it – especially if you shop too much and save too little!
Delves into the reasons consumers want things and can be manipulated into believing they need them.
- Eric Tyson
Author of Personal Finance for Dummies and Mind Over Money: Your Path to Wealth and Happiness
3 Stars An interesting study of the modern consumer
Its an interesting study.
I found that much of the people is a rehash of statistical studies in words. You may as well just look at the mathematical figures rather then read the words.
The other issue is the book was written not long after 911 and its long terms effects were over estimated by the writer.
4 Stars i wish I read this when it first came out!
Because I sell luxury home and gift items, I was drawn to the title of this book. Sometimes that is not always a good indicator of what is inside, but in this case it was dead-on. The book helped me understand what I’ve seen over the last few years, as well as gave me some insight into where things are heading (and why). I keep talking about the book, and the list of friends and associates who want to borrow the book keeps growing, although I may not want to give it up. Only a few more pages to go….
The Experience Economy Work Is Theater and Every Business a Stage
The Experience Economy Work Is Theater and Every Business a Stage
Sometime during the last 30 years, the service economy emerged as the dominant engine of economic activity. At first, critics who were uncomfortable with the intangible nature of services bemoaned the decline of the goods-based economy, which, thanks to many factors, had increasingly become commoditized. Successful companies, such as Nordstrom, Starbucks, Saturn, and IBM, discovered that the best way to differentiate one product from another–clothes, food, cars, computers–was to add service.
But, according to Joseph Pine and James Gilmore, the bar of economic offerings is being raised again. In The Experience Economy, the authors argue that the service economy is about to be superseded with something that critics will find even more ephemeral (and controversial) than services ever were: experiences. In part because of technology and the increasing expectations of consumers, services today are starting to look like commodities. The authors write that “Those businesses that relegate themselves to the diminishing world of goods and services will be rendered irrelevant. To avoid this fate, you must learn to stage a rich, compelling experience.”
Many will find the idea of staging experiences as a requirement for business survival far-fetched. However, the authors make a compelling case, and consider successful companies that are already packaging their offerings as experiences, from Disney to AOL. Far-reaching and thought-provoking, The Experience Economy is for marketing professionals and anyone looking to gain a fresh perspective on what business landscape might look like in the years to come. Recommended. –Harry C. Edwards
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Lightning from a clear sky
When asked to review JRR Tolkein’s “Lord of the Rings” – Oxford Don and literary critic C.S. Lewis declared “this book is like lightning from a clear sky. It represents “the conquest of new territory.”
This is precisely how I felt upon my first reading of “The Experience Economy” by B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore. As I have enjoyed many subsequent readings (9 and counting since my first), I have found the book and, more importantly, the thinking and worldview behind the book to hold up to an immense amount of criticism, curiousity and even the occasional cynic.
I suppose that there will always be those to criticize that to which they have, in many cases, directed only cursory attention–a perusal, skim, or “quick read-through”. For those of us who have taken the time to become more familiar with the “4-Es”, the “3 (or 5) Ss”, THEMEing, and a far greater number of 2×2 matrices than you are likely to find in any 5 popular business best-sellers, we know that the writing team of Pine and Gilmore have produced what Tom Peters called “a brilliant, absolutely original book”. When applied in “real life” the theory holds up–even during the harshest tests of every day business practice. Among business books, I have found this to be rare, indeed.
Reading and performing vivisection on this work has inspired this veteran of more than 30 years of business battle to renew my hope in the “Authentic” possibility that the true customer can be served by any of today’s profit-driven, egocentric businesses. The most woeful example of these businesses who reside beneath the heavy shadow of Wall Street and increasingly unreasoned and unreasonable growth expectations may be able to break free from the bondage of self-servitude–into the glorious light of customer(guest)-focused Experience staging.
If you doubt that the application of the principles espoused in this book can change your business…I challenge you to read, learn and apply the lessons of “The Experience Economy”.
5 Stars Secret behind business success
A Harvard educated friend of mine told me about this book which created some interest, until I found out the most successful companies in the country were using this technique to rapidly expand their profitability. Then I couldn’t wait to order it and find out for myself how these concepts applied to small business.
I wasn’t disappointed and have recommended the book for years because even though it’s a radical concept, it works. If you have ever wondered if price is the most important element in finding business success, this book will convince you otherwise. It’s not about money- it’s about the customers experience and when you know how to master this technique you will win customers for life along with word of mouth marketing that will be invaluable for your long term business success.
5 Stars excellent service
This was fast and accurate, and the quality was just what was advertised. Thank you!
3 Stars too much ‘flowers’ in conveying the message
When I bought this book, I hoped Mr Pine will more describe about the ultimate power of new era, the experience economy, and how that change should be adapted quickly for many variety industries settings to get survive. Meaning, I expect to find a practical guidance to overcome the battle.
I found many ideas poured into this book mostly already existed in some other books (not written by Joseph Pine, for sure), for instance putting the experience as value added in consumer goods to increase consumers’ emotional benefits. In doing so, the manufacturer can have premium price to outdo the competition. I’ve heard of it as many as the idea of how to serve consumers in a new different way by using internet as interactive tool to preserve their satisfactions and to use it as new channel of distribution. I really hope he came up with new striking and distinctive ideas, not those hackneyed ones.
I somewhat think this book a little bit hard to understand. Mr Pine used and picked up some unusual vocabularies to convey his message. I always fall asleep everytime reading it. Surprising that it takes me a week to consume 2-3 pages whilst I spend a week to finish Harry Potter – Goblet of Fire in English version.
However, I thank to Joseph for inspiring me some new vocabs.
5 Stars Top Notch
Rarely do we get a truly new model to work with. This book provides a genuine breakthrough in how our life experience can be designed.
Tags: Business Landscape, Business Survival, C Edwards, C S Lewis, Clear Sky, Commodities, Conqu, Economic Activity, Economic Offerings, Economy Work, Experience Economy, Food Cars, Intangible Nature, James Gilmore, Literary Critic, Nordstrom, Service Economy, Starbucks, Successful Companies, World Of Goods
Start Your Own Blogging Business Startup
Start Your Own Blogging Business Startup
Turn Your Blog Into Big Bucks
Blogs are one of the internet’s fastest-growing phenomena-and one of the best and easiest ways to make money online. Learn how to choose a topic, start a blog and attract thousands of avid readers. Then use your blog to generate income from advertisers, promotions, affiliate links and other techniques-all from your own home.
We’ll reveal how to:
- Attract visitors and hold their interest
- Entice advertisers to promote their products on your blog
- Earn an affiliate fee when your visitors shop at some of the most popular websites
- Promote your blog and get listed on top blog search engines
Successful bloggers reveal their expert strategies for maximizing profits. Pick up this book and get started on the road to riches-without leaving your desk!
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Just what I needed!
Starting Your Own BLOGGING BUSINESS was exactly the help I needed! My material? I know it backwards and forwards. But I was baffled as to how to successfully monetize my blog. J.S. MCDougall answered all those questions and didn’t write it in ‘computereze’. I was able to read it, and understand it, and immediately start implementing some of the suggestions.
As a blogging novice–or someone who has decided to step up the game–this book was a great help!
Kristin
3 Stars Book for Beginners — Only
If you don’t know what a blog is, but for some reason decide you want to start one, then this would be a great place to start. The first third of the book covers “what is a blog”.
The next portion deals with promoting your blog. These may be good for someone just entering the blogging world, but most of us have heard of Technorati and RSS feeds. Even if you haven’t, you’d be better off with a book that covered more strategies with more depth.
The book gives an overview of the “business” of blogging, but the details are so sparse and basic that you’ll have to pick up another book on the subject anyway.
It does a decent job of weighing the pros and cons of different blog services, but, to me, that alone is not worth the price.
Again, if you are a newbie, this book is a good, quick way to get caught up. If not, save yourself the money and buy a different book.
4 Stars the blog quickguide
it’s a perfect guide in order to start a personal or professional blog. The book give you quick, clear ang true blogging tips. You will learn all the basics blog secrets.
5 Stars Concise, clear and to the point
This is the first of the three books on blogging that I’ve read that doesn’t contain fluff or drivel. It is a nice, quick read, and yet it gives you all the information you need to get started, while being concise and very clear. I like this book, because it will get me started in developing the three blogs that I want to post.
4 Stars Start Your Own Blogging Business
This book is truly a tool to be used when you desire to learn how to market online. The small history on blogging made me feel comfortable enough to get a blogging space without fear. The internet is a powerful tool, and with books like Start Your Own Blogging Business, the source for beginning your career on the internet.Start Your Own Blogging Business (Startup)
PrimeTime Women How to Win the Hearts Minds and Business of Boomer Big Spenders
PrimeTime Women How to Win the Hearts Minds and Business of Boomer Big Spenders
In her new book PrimeTime Women™, Marti Barletta provides the only comprehensive resource on the market for readers searching for practical applications to get into the minds, souls, hearts, and wallets of this influential demographic. This hands-on approach delivers strategic thinking and tactical ideas geared toward understanding and leveraging this enormously influential market.
Features:
* An inside look at what makes PrimeTime Women™ tick
* Never-before published research, developed in partnership with agency powerhouse DDB
* Strategic thinking, planning, and tips from marketers who have successfully targeted PrimeTime Women™
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Prime Time Women Good Target for the Environment
The power of the purse may be the most potent tool available to protect the environment. As Marti Barletta makes clear in her book, “prime time” women – those 50-70 – have enough clout to tell companies what to make, not just buy what manufacturers sell, all based on how they spend their money. “Prime Time Women” should make any producer quake: women want cleaner air and water, and as this book shows, they’ve got the marketplace muscle to get companies to pay attention!
5 Stars How Could Marketers Not Get It??
I’ve always considered Tom Peters the guru of marketing. I bought Barletta ‘s book because of his comments on the cover — that PrimeTime Women should be the centerpiece of every marketing/strategic plan. As always, I now agree with him wholeheartedly. This book makes an excellent case about why this is the market to go after, not the youth market. Barletta draws on statistics from the New Strategist, AARP, the U.S. Census Bureau and other organizations, and combines them with her consulting firm’s own proprietary research to come up with a true “how to” book, with strategies and tips that companies can put into action right away. I’ve since bought her other book on marketing to women, and plan to spread her name as the consultant to hire before the competition does.
5 Stars The nature and extent of a “prime marketing opportunity”
Those who have already read Marti Barletta’s Marketing to Women will welcome this sequel in which she develops in much greater depth her core concepts with regard to the purchasing power of what continues to be “the world’s largest market segment.” Of special interest to many readers is The GenderTrends(tm) Marketing Model that reveals in her first book why and how women reach different brand purchase decisions. She shares in PrimeTime Women some revealing and valuable new insights from all-new research and DDB Worldwide which will be of substantial value to senior-level executives – including but not limited to those primarily responsible for marketing – in all companies, regardless of their size or nature. Barletta carefully organizes and then presents her material within ten chapters which are divided between two Parts: Understanding PrimeTime Women(tm) and The Field Guide for Marketing to PrimeTime Women(tm), followed by an especially informative appendix which identifies “The Best Resources in the Business.”
I presume to offer an admittedly unorthodox suggestion: After reading the Foreword and Introduction, proceed immediately to the final chapter in which Barletta offers an Executive Summary which includes a brief but brilliant explanation of “the seven building blocks” for understanding, reaching, and then increasing share of “the world’s largest market segment.” My opinion is that reading this final chapter establishes a frame-of-reference and thematic context for absorbing and digesting the material that precedes it. One reviewer’s opinion….
As is her custom, Barletta makes brilliant use of a number of reader-friendly devices throughout her narrative that facilitate and expedite reviews later of key passages. They include clusters of bold face items, bullet points, and checklists. For example, in Chapter Seven, “The GenderTrends(tm)Marketing Model Applied to Women, a systematic and simple tool which is designed to achieve three objectives:
“1. structure the complexities of gender differences into an organized view of female gender culture;
2. show how to use the principles of female gender culture to enhance each element in your marketing mix; and
3. apply the resulting insights to the five stages of the consumer’s purchase path.”
In the same chapter, when examining the purchase decision process, Barletta focuses on the differences between men and women, and, the differences between PrimeTime Women(tm) and younger women. Then in the final chapter, “Notes to the CEO,” she briefly discusses the aforementioned “building blocks” and this material offers a value-added benefit to non-CEO readers who are senior-level executives: She provides them with a convincing, research-driven argument to support whatever changes must be made in terms of (a) how their respective organizations view women 50-70 years old, (b) how they position what they offer to them, and most important of all (c) how they nourish and thereby sustain a relationship with them.
How important are relationships to women? As Barletta observes, “Women think that people are the most important and interesting element in life, and they are oriented this way from birth…Women see themselves – and everybody, really–as part of an ensemble company. Their core unit is `we’ (sometimes `we two,’ sometimes a larger group). They take pride in their caring, consideration, and loyalty to and from others…Women’s first instincts are to trust and share, and their mentality is rooted in revealing, not concealing.”
While explaining “how to win the hearts, minds, and business of boomer big spenders,” Barletta also obliterates a number of misconceptions about female consumers in general and those who are 50-70 years old in particular. Did you already know that women control an estimated 80% of all household spending and the percentage is even high for PrimeTime Women(tm)? Also, that women make 55% of all investment decisions, 55% of all decisions concerning consumer electronics, comprise 60% of all home improvement buyers and make 80% of all home improvement decisions, control more than 60% of new car purchase decisions, and 66% of decisions to purchase computers? With regard to income, between 1990 and 2003, women’s inflation-adjusted median income grew 26%, while men’s grew only 8%.
“PrimeTime Women are the healthiest, wealthiest, most educated, active, and influential generation of women in history. This is their PrimeTime. And it’s your prime marketing opportunity.” Because of Marti Barletta, that “window” of opportunity is rapidly closing. What are you waiting for?
5 Stars MARTI UNDERSTANDS RESPECT
What I loved about this book was that it just exudes respect for customers. Unlike a lot of books in this area, Marti Barletta isn’t trying to teach ‘tricks’ about how to pretend to please women. She’s much more serious than that. She’s deeply informed, highly thoughtful and utterly determined that no company can really succeed without taking women very, very seriously. And she won’t let women be ripped off by anything second-rate. This means that companies that want to win women’s business have to take seriously the research she’s done and the care and insight she uses to analyze it. There are a lot of “sell stuff to women” books out there that don’t respect women at all, but just see them as easy pickings. They’re phoney. But this book – and Marti Barletta herself: they’re the real deal.
5 Stars I learned a ton…
PrimeTime Women is a breeze to read – like sitting around with Ms. Barletta, chatting. And in the room are dozens of fascinating, ready-to-rumble women, chiming in every so often.
The overarching theme of PrimeTime Women really isn’t the money they control – it’s the fact that they are taking control of their lives. This is a phenomenon unique to Baby Boomers (and a bit older). After fifty is better than before fifty. There has always been a small percentage of women who bloomed in their later years. For Boomers it’s become a generational ethos.
The second part of the book is nuts ‘n bolts. I was swept away by many of her “word-of-mouth” marketing paradigms. She eschews the cheesy WOM tactics so often used today in favor of real, truly inspired marketing/PR/promotional techniques.
The Sushi Economy Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy
The Sushi Economy Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy
Now in paperback, the highly acclaimed exploration of sushi
