800-CEO-READ New Releases

The Wal-Mart Effect

by Charles Fishman

(Penguin, 336 Pages)

Wal-Mart isn’t just the world’s biggest company, it is probably the world’s most written-about. But no book until this one has managed to penetrate its wall of silence or go beyond the usual polemics to analyze its actual effects on its customers, workers, and suppliers. Drawing on unprecedented interviews with former Wal-Mart executives and a wealth of staggering data (e.g., Americans spend $36 million an hour at Wal-Mart stores, and in 2004 its growth alone was bigger than the total revenue of 469 of the Fortune 500), The Wal-Mart Effect is an intimate look at a business that is dramatically reshaping our lives.

A Perfect Mess

by Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman

(Little, Brown, 304 Pages)

A groundbreaking book that sheds new light on ideas of order--and shows how chaos, disorder, and mess make our world a better place! Like Freakonomics, here is a book that combines counterintuitive thinking with stories from everyday life to provide a striking new view of how our world works. Ever since Einstein's study of Brownian Motion, scientists have understood that a little disorder actually makes systems more effective. But most people still shun disorder--or suffer guilt over the mess they can't avoid. No longer! With a spectacular array of anecdotes and case studies of the useful role mess can play, here is an antidote to the accepted wisdom that tight schedules, neatness, and consistency are the keys to success. Drawing on examples from business, parenting, cooking, the war on terrorism, retail, and even the meteoric career of Arnold Schwarzenegger, coauthors Abrahamson and Freedman demonstrate that moderately messy systems use resources more efficiently, yield better solutions, and are harder to break than neat ones. A PERFECT MESS will help readers assess what the right amount of disorder is for a given system, and how to apply these ideas onto a large scale--government, society-- and on a small scale--in your attic, kitchen, or office. A PERFECT MESS will forever change the way we think about those unruly heaps of paper on our desks.

Made to Stick

by Chip Heath, Dan Heath

(Random House Inc, 288 Pages)

Mark Twain once observed, "A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on." His observation rings true: Urban legends, conspiracy theories, and bogus public-health scares circulate effortlessly. Meanwhile, people with important ideas–business people, teachers, politicians, journalists, and others–struggle to make their ideas "stick."

Why do some ideas thrive while others die? And how do we improve the chances of worthy ideas? In Made to Stick, accomplished educators and idea collectors Chip and Dan Heath tackle head-on these vexing questions. Inside, the brothers Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickier, such as applying the “human scale principle,” using the "Velcro Theory of Memory," and creating "curiosity gaps."

In this indispensable guide, we discover that sticky messages of all kinds–from the infamous "kidney theft ring" hoax to a coach’s lessons on sportsmanship to a vision for a new product at Sony–draw their power from the same six traits.

Made to Stick is a book that will transform the way you communicate ideas. It's a fast-paced tour of success stories (and failures)–the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who drank a glass of bacteria to prove a point about stomach ulcers; the charities who make use of "the Mother Teresa Effect"; the elementary-school teacher whose simulation actually prevented racial prejudice. Provocative, eye-opening, and often surprisingly funny, Made to Stick shows us the vital principles of winning ideas–and tells us how we can apply these rules to making our own messages stick.

Change or Die

by Alan Deutschman

(Harpercollins, 320 Pages)

"CHANGE OR DIE. What if you were given that choice? We're talking actual life and death now. Your own life and death. What if a well-informed, trusted authority figure said you had to make difficult and enduring changes in the way you think, feel, and act? If you didn't, your time would end soon�a lot sooner than it had to. Could you change when change mattered most?"

This is the question Alan Deutschman poses in Change or Die, which began as a sensational cover story by the same title for Fast Company. Deutschman concludes that although we all have the ability to change our behavior, we rarely ever do. In fact, the odds are nine to one that, when faced with the dire need to change, we won't. From patients suffering from heart disease to repeat offenders in the criminal justice system to companies trapped in the mold of unsuccessful business practices, many of us could prevent ominous outcomes by simply changing our mindset.

A powerful book with universal appeal, Change or Die deconstructs and debunks age-old myths about change and empowers us with three critical keys�relate, repeat, and reframe�to help us make important positive changes in our lives. Explaining breakthrough research and progressive ideas from a wide selection of leaders in medicine, science, and business (including Dr. Dean Ornish, Mimi Silbert of the Delancey Street Foundation, Bill Gates, Daniel Boulud, and many others), Deutschman demonstrates how anyone can achieve lasting, revolutionary change.

Change or Die is not about merely reorganizing or restructuring priorities; it's about challenging, inspiring, and helping all of us to make the dramatic transformations necessary in any aspect of life�changes that are positive, attainable, and absolutely vital.

The Black Swan

by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

(Random House Inc, 224 Pages)

Connected

by Daniel Altman

(Farrar Straus & Giroux, 288 Pages)

What if you could look behind the headlines of the global economy to see how it really worked? Instead of listening to pundits, politicians, and protestors, you could see firsthand how everyone from migrant workers to central bank governors lived their lives. Then you could decide for yourself where the big trends were heading.

Now you can. Connected: 24 Hours in the Global Economy isn’t another polemic for or against globalization. Daniel Altman takes you on a whirlwind journey through more than a dozen cities, gathering points of view from moguls, ministers, and the men and women on the street. At each stop, you’ll hear how the world’s workers played their parts in the events of a single day. Starting with their stories, related in their own words, you’ll take on pressing questions in new ways: Can poor countries become rich too quickly? Can corruption ever be a good thing? Do companies need crises in order to stay competitive? What determines the global economic pecking order? Most important, you’ll learn how the billions of decisions made by individuals can and do change the future.

Connected: 24 Hours in the Global Economy is part travel guide, part owner’s manual—an absorbing, accessible, and essential road map for every citizen of the global economy in the twenty-first century.

Everything Is Miscellaneous

by David Weinberger

(Henry Holt & Co, 288 Pages)

Human beings are information omnivores: we are constantly collecting, labeling, and organizing data. But today, the shift from the physical to the digital is mixing, burning, and ripping our lives apart. In the past, everything had its one placethe physical world demanded itbut now everything has its places: multiple categories, multiple shelves. Simply put, everything is suddenly miscellaneous. In Everything Is Miscellaneous, David Weinberger charts the new principles of digital order that are remaking business, education, politics, science, and culture. In his rollicking tour of the rise of the miscellaneous, he examines why the Dewey decimal system is stretched to the breaking point, how Rand McNally decides what information not to include in a physical map (and why Google Earth is winning that battle), how Staples stores emulate online shopping to increase sales, why your childrens teachers will stop having them memorize facts, and how the shift to digital music stands as the model for the future in virtually every industry. Finally, he shows how by going miscellaneous, anyone can reap rewards from the deluge of information in modern work and life. From A to Z, Everything Is Miscellaneous will completely reshape the way you thinkand what you knowabout the world.

The Dip

by Seth Godin

(Portfolio, 96 Pages)

The best business books change the way you look at something - forever. The Tipping Point, The Long Tail, and Purple Cow are simple books about simple topics . . . but they changed the way millions do their jobs.

Every new project (or career or relationship) starts out exciting and fun. Then it gets harder and less fun, until it hits a low point - really hard, really not fun. At that point, you might be in a Dip (which will get better if you keep pushing) or a Cul-de-sac (which will never get better, no matter how hard you try). The hard part is knowing the difference and acting on it.

According to bestselling business author Seth Godin, what really sets superstars apart from everyone else is the ability to give up on Cul-de-sacs while staying motivated in Dips. Winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt - until they commit to beating the right Dip for the right reasons.

This is equally true for entrepreneurs, pop singers, weightlifters, and car salesmen. Today's world rewards the people and organizations that are the best in the world at what they do. If you can be #1 in your niche, you'll get more than your fair share of profits, glory, and job security. But you'll never be #1 at anything without picking your shots very carefully.

The Dip is a short, fun-to-read book in the tradition of Fish, packed with powerful ideas and a graph that changes everything. It will forever alter the way people think about quitting - and success.

Seth Godin is the author of the bestsellers Permission Marketing, Unleashing the Ideavirus, Purple Cow, Free Prize Inside!, All Marketers Are Liars, and Small Is the New Big. He is also the editor of The Big Moo and one of the most popular business bloggers in the world (www.SethGodin.com). He lives in Westchester, New York.

Extraordinary Circumstances

by Cynthia Cooper

(John Wiley & Sons, 368 Pages)

Book Description

A courageous narrative of one woman's victory over corporate wrongdoing.

Written in an autobiographic style, Extraordinary Circumstances takes the reader through the journey of Cynthia Cooper–former WorldCom employee and Time magazine’s 2002 Person of the Year–and her compelling story in exposing the largest corporate fraud in history.

Following Cooper from her early upbringing in Mississippi, to her high-level position in WorldCom, to the issues of fraud that she confronted, to the fall of WorldCom, Extraordinary Circumstances is an insider’s guide to the decision-making process that led her to "blow the whistle" and the role her personal faith and ethics played during this challenging time.

Cynthia Cooper (Brandon, MS) was named one of Time magazine’s 2002 Persons of the Year, along with fellow whistleblowers Coleen Rowley and Sherron Watkins. Ms. Cooper was inducted to the 2004 AICPA Hall of Fame, and is the first woman to receive this distinction. Ms. Cooper is also the 2003 recipient of the Accounting Exemplar Award, which is awarded annually to an individual who has made notable contributions to professionalism and ethics in accounting practice or education. Ms. Cooper is the tenth recipient of the Accounting Exemplar Award and the first woman to receive the award. As the former vice president of the internal audit department at WorldCom, she is best known for her detection and reporting of the massive corporate fraud that was taking place at some of the highest levels of the company. After the collapse of WorldCom, Cooper continued to work at WorldCom (now MCI) but in 2004 she resigned her position as the Chief Audit Executive for MCI to form her own company, through which she speaks to both professionals and students across the country to share some of the lessons she has learned and to emphasize the importance of strong ethical leadership.

How to Prosper During the Coming Bad Years

by Howard Ruff

(Berkley Pub Group, 304 Pages)

From the back cover

The devaluation of the American dollar, with the subsequent inflation, is eerily similar to the chaotic markets of the 1970s. The factors that created the stagflation and the gold and silver bull markets of the late seventies and early eighties are back. As Yogi Berra said, "It's deja vu all over again." Only this time, they're even more exaggerated--offering once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for middle-class Americans, if they look beyond the Wall Street stock-market propaganda. This book can help you panic-proof your life and your finances, and reap huge profits with relatively small investments in gold, silver, certain ETFs, mutual funds and mining stocks.

How to Prosper During the Coming Bad Years in the 21st Century is a must-have survival and moneymaking guide for people who want to profit from the rough economic seas that are upon us--and come through with their share of treasure.

Howard J. Ruff is the NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of the original How to Prosper During the Coming Bad Years, still the bestselling financial book in history. Ruff recommended gold at $125 and silver at $2 in 1975, and sold out in the late seventies with gold above $700 and silver at $35. He also sold out of the dot-com boom near the top, and continues to guide investors toward prosperity in the new millennium.

What Every Body Is Saying

by Marvin Karlins, Joe Navarro

(, 256 Pages)

Where's Your Wow?

by Robyn Freedman Spizman, Rick Frishman

(McGraw-Hill, 192 Pages)

Find the WOW that turns attention into money, profits, and career advancement

To achieve business success, it's important to have a quality product or service. But it's also vital to have the WOW factor: that indefinable “something” that makes you really stand out. This fast, fun, and exciting handbook by two media experts lays down the law when it comes to wowing customers and clients--sixteen laws, in fact, delivered in short, sweet, super-accessible bites that propel readers to staggering heights of success.

Whether you want to build a career, your work, your service, even yourself, Where's Your Wow? shows how to create any of those things into a dynamic brand that will attract customers and guarantee success. This is the proven, pro-active way to WOW the world!

2011

by Richard Laermer

(McGraw-Hill, 256 Pages)

In this fast and furious time machine of a book, Richard Laermer shows you how to use-and in some cases abuse-the trends of the next decade (or two) that really matter. As an author with a functional crystal ball, a veteran marketing innovator, and media master, Laermer foresees a fabulous future-if you start planning for it today.

Sometimes you see a business evolve and think, “I wish I'd thought of that.” With his trademark razor-sharp style, Laermer reveals the most functional forecasting secrets of professional trendspotters. Divided into nine categories, with more than 72 “short-short” chapters and dozens of outrageous sidebars, this captivating book shows you the ways to:

-Read the signs

-Influence the trends

-Embrace new and reject stodgy

-Anticipate change

-Ask experts the right questions

-Seek out visionaries and snub fakers

-Separate the trends from fads

-Use technology-for everything

-Cash in on being ahead of the competition!

2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade is packed with eye-popping predictions (and realities) on how you'll live, work, play, buy, sell, talk, text, laugh, and more. You'll discover how miniscule attention spans will increase a need for velocity...how to work while you're sleeping...how to wash off mediocrity...and why today's communication devices will become obsolete. With 2011you'll learn how to participate in change instead of trailing it.

Laermer calls trends as he sees 'em-from what's dead to what's sensational to what's novel and what's next. If you're looking for surprising observations, shocking statistics, sublime insights, and wholesome food for thought--read this book.

The Big Squeeze

by Steven Greenhouse

(Alfred a Knopf Inc, 320 Pages)

Inside Steve's Brain

by Leander Kahney

(Portfolio, 288 Pages)

Book Description
Steve Jobs has turned his personality traits into a business philosophy. Here’s how he does it.

It’s hard to believe that one man revolutionized computers in the 1970s and ’80s (with the Apple II and the Mac), animated movies in the 1990s (with Pixar), and digital music in the 2000s (with the iPod and iTunes). No wonder some people worship him like a god. On the other hand, stories of his epic tantrums and general bad behavior are legendary. Inside Steve’s Brain cuts through the cult of personality that surrounds Jobs to unearth the secrets to his unbelievable results. It reveals the real Steve Jobs—not his heart or his famous temper, but his mind. So what’s really inside Steve’s brain? According to Leander Kahney, who has covered Jobs since the early 1990s, it’s a fascinating bundle of contradictions.

Jobs is an elitist who thinks most people are bozos—but he makes gadgets so easy to use, a bozo can master them. He’s a mercurial obsessive with a filthy temper—but he forges deep partnerships with creative geniuses like Steve Wozniak, Jonathan Ive, and John Lasseter. He’s a Buddhist and anti-materialist—but he produces mass-market products in Asian factories, and he promotes them with absolute mastery of the crassest medium, advertising.

In short, Jobs has embraced the traits that some consider flaws—narcissism, perfectionism, the desire for total control—to lead Apple and Pixar to triumph against steep odds. And in the process, he has become a self-made billionaire. In Inside Steve’s Brain, Kahney distills the principles that guide Jobs as he launches killer products, attracts fanatically loyal customers, and manages some of the world’s most powerful brands.

The result is this unique book about Steve Jobs that is part biography and part leadership guide, and impossible to put down. It gives you a peek inside Steve’s brain, and might even teach you something about how to build your own culture of innovation.

About the Author
Leander Kahney is news editor for Wired.com and primary author of its popular Cult of Mac blog. He is also the author of two acclaimed books, The Cult of Mac and The Cult of iPod. As a reporter and editor, Kahney has covered Apple for more than a dozen years.

Nudge

by Richard Thaler, Cass Sunstein

(Yale Univ Press, 304 Pages)

Book Description
Every day, we make decisions on topics ranging from personal investments to schools for our children to the meals we eat to the causes we champion. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. The reason, the authors explain, is that, being human, we all are susceptible to various biases that can lead us to blunder. Our mistakes make us poorer and less healthy; we often make bad decisions involving education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credit cards, the family, and even the planet itself.

Thaler and Sunstein invite us to enter an alternative world, one that takes our humanness as a given. They show that by knowing how people think, we can design choice environments that make it easier for people to choose what is best for themselves, their families, and their society. Using colorful examples from the most important aspects of life, Thaler and Sunstein demonstrate how thoughtful “choice architecture” can be established to nudge us in beneficial directions without restricting freedom of choice. Nudge offers a unique new take—from neither the left nor the right—on many hot-button issues, for individuals and governments alike. This is one of the most engaging and provocative books to come along in many years.

Community

by Peter Block

(Berrett-Koehler Pub, 216 Pages)

Modern society is plagued by fragmentation. The various sectors of our communities--businesses, schools, social service organizations, churches, government--do not work together. They exist in their own worlds. As do so many individual citizens, who long for connection but end up marginalized, their gifts overlooked, their potential contributions lost. This disconnection and detachment makes it hard if not impossible to envision a common future and work towards it together. We know what healthy communities look like--there are many success stories out there, and they've been described in detail. What Block provides in this inspiring new book is an exploration of the exact way community can emerge from fragmentation: How is community built? How does the transformation occur? What fundamental shifts are involved? He explores a way of thinking about our places that creates an opening for authentic communities to exist and details what each of us can do to make that happen.

The Necessary Revolution

by Peter M. Senge, Bryan Smith, Sara Schley, Joe Laur

(Currency, 432 Pages)

Turning Learning Right Side Up

by Russell Ackoff and Daniel Greenberg

(Wharton School Publishing, 224 Pages)

In the age of the Internet, we educate people much as we did during the Industrial Revolution. We educate them for a world that no longer exists, instilling values antithetical to those of a free, 21st century democracy. Worst of all, too many schools extinguish the very creativity and joy they ought to nourish.

In Turning Learning Right Side Up, legendary systems scientist Dr. Russell Ackoff and “in-the-trenches” education innovator Daniel Greenberg offer a radically new path forward. In the year’s most provocative conversation, they take on the very deepest questions about education: What should be its true purpose? Do classrooms make sense anymore? What should individuals contribute to their own education? Are yesterday’s distinctions between subjects–and between the arts and sciences–still meaningful? What would the ideal lifelong education look like–at K-12, in universities, in the workplace, and beyond?

Ackoff and Greenberg each have experience making radical change work–successfully. Here, they combine deep idealism with a relentless focus on the real world–and arrive at solutions that are profoundly sensible and powerfully compelling.

• Why today’s educational system fails–and why superficial reforms won’t help
  The questions politicians won’t ask–and the answers they don’t want to hear




• How do people learn–and why do they choose to learn?
  Building schools that reflect what we know about learning
• What values do we want students to learn in a 21st century democracy?
  ...and why aren’t they being learned?
• How can tomorrow’s transformed schools be operated and funded?

A plan that cuts through political gridlock and can actually work.

Six Disciplines® Execution Revolution

by Gary Harpst

(Six Disciplines Publishing, 208 Pages)

With all of the pressures successful business leaders have today, none is more urgent or challenging than learning the ability to execute strategy. While larger businesses have the luxury of budgets and resources to meet this challenge, it s the small and midsized businesses that now have a tremendous opportunity to level the playing field, leapfrog the expensive, outdated approaches of the past, and attack the challenge of execution in a revolutionary way. The key insights are:

Based on breakthrough research, field testing and proven best-practices, the thought-leading vision described by Gary Harpst in Six Disciplines® Execution Revolution sets a new course for how small and midsized businesses can finally confront the never-ending challenge of executing strategy.

As a follow-up to the success of Six Disciplines for Excellence, Harpst's new book, Six Disciplines® Execution Revolution, details the elements of a complete strategy execution program, clarifies how it could only have happened now, and explains why such a program will soon become a mainstream requirement for your business.

Mind Capture

by Tony Rubleski

(Morgan James Publishing, 196 Pages)

Product Description

FINALLY! A New Business Book That's Not Boring And Long Overdue. In mind capture you'll discover: *Ways to quickly investigate, cross pollinate and then detonate ideas into your marketing and sales efforts for maximum profits *Proven ways to crank up sales immediately and make your marketing sizzle *Simple strategies to save you time and money from becoming a marketing victim *Actual exhibits of successful marketing and publicity techniques in action *Why the shift from sales pitch to great content is critical to your success *How to quickly stand out in the age of media chaos and advertising noise to capture attention, repeat business and referrals Each generation a bold, unique, disruptor emerges to shake up the scene and status quo with a unique perspective on business. If you're looking to positively impact your sales, market, and industry you've found the perfect book.

About the Author

Tony Rubleski is currently the president of Mind Capture Group, based in Spring Lake, Michigan. He focuses on referral, retention and repeat marketing strategies for a wide range of industries including real estate, insurance, telecom, casinos, retail, direct sales, banking to a wide range of entrepreneurs and sales teams. A highly sought after speaker and agent of change, his live seminars and keynote talks continue to receive rave reviews from meeting planners coast to coast.

Executive Warfare

by Dalessandro

(McGraw-Hill, 288 Pages)