Every era has its merger every era has its story. For the New Media age it was an even bigger disaster: the AOL-Time Warner deal. At the time AOL and Time Warner were considered a matchless combination of old media content and new media distribution. But very soon after the deal was announced things started to go bad and then from bad to worse. Less than four years after the deal was announced, every significant figure in the deal -save the politically astute Richard Parsons has left the company, along with scores of others. Nearly a $100 billion was written off and a stock that once traded at $100 now trades near $10.What happenedWhere did it all go wrongIn this deeply sourced and deftly written book, Nina Munk gives us a window into the minds of two of the oddest men to ever run billion-dollar empires. Steve Case, the boy wonder who built AOL one free floppy disk at a time, was searching for a way out of the New Economy. Meanwhile Jerry Levin, who'd made his reputation as a visionary when he put HBO on satellite distribution, was searching for a monumental deal. These two men, more interested in their place in history than their personal fortunes, each thought they were out-smarting the other.

Are you ready for the inevitable day whenyou will have to act as parent to your parentsProtecting Your Parents’ Money is the essential financial handbook that will help you navigate this confusing and difficult transition, providing a game plan for tackling complex issues like estate planning, retirement income and savings, and long-term health care. Most important, it will help bridge the communication barrier between parents and adult children, which often makes the process much more difficult than it needs to be. Important topics include: ?Personal Finance 101, the Senior Years: The essential definitions and workings of the myriad investment options and financial requirements your parents will deal with in retirement. ?The Move: How to find the right nursing homes or retirement communities, comparing costs and factoring your parents’ assets into the mix. ?Understanding Medicare: What it is, how to qualify for coverage, and what it means for your parents’ finances. ?Elder Fraud: How to look for telltale signs that your parents have been victimized.

WHAT'S MINE IS YOURS is about Collaborative Consumption, a new, emerging economy made possible by online social networks and fueled by increasing cost consciousness and environmental necessity. Collaborative Consumption occurs when people participate in organized sharing, bartering, trading, renting, swapping, and collectives to get the same pleasures of ownership with reduced personal cost and burden, and lower environmental impact. The book addresses three growing models of Collaborative Consumption: Product Service Systems, Communal Economies, and Redistribution Markets. The first, Product Service Systems, reflects the increasing number of people from all different backgrounds and across ages who are buying into the idea of using the service of the product-what it does for them-without owning it. Examples include Zipcar and Ziploc, and these companies are disrupting traditional industries based on models of individual ownership. Second, in what the authors define as Communal Economies, there is a growing realization that as individual consumers, we have relatively little in the way of bargaining power with corporations. A crowd of consumers, however, introduces a different, empowering dynamic. Online networks are bringing people together again and making them more willing to leverage the proverbial power of numbers. Examples of this second category include Etsy, an online market for handcrafts, or the social lending marketplace Zopa. The third model is Redistribution Markets, exemplified by worldwide networks such as Freecycle and Ebay as well as emerging forms of modern day bartering and swap trading such as Zwaggle, Swaptree, and Zunafish. Social networks facilitate consumer-to-consumer marketplaces that redistribute goods from where they are not needed to somewhere or someone where they are. This business model encourages reusing/reselling of old items rather them throwing them out, thereby reducing the waste and carbon emissions that go along with new production.WHAT'S MINE IS YOURS describes how these three models come together to form a new economy of more sustainable consumerism. Collaborative Consumption started as a trend in conjunction with the emergence of shared collective content/information sites such as Wikipedia and Flickr and with the recent economic troubles and increasing environmental awareness, it is growing into an international movement. The authors predict it will be a fully fledged economy within the next five years.In this book the authors travel among the quiet revolutionaries (consumers and companies) from all around the world. They explore how businesses will both prosper and fail in this environment, and, in particular, they examine how it has the potential to help create the mass sustainable change in consumer behaviors this planet so desperately needs. The authors themselves are environmentalists, but they are also entrepreneurs, parents, and optimistic citizens. This is a good news book about long-term positive change.

Technology is not the answer. It is also not the problem. What matters insteadAwareness, Engagement, and Wisdom.Wisdom 2.0 addresses the challenge of our age:to not only live connected to one another through technology,but to do so in ways that are beneficial, effective, and useful.

A completely updated and revised edition of a bestselling book that has helped tens of thousands of people learn how to network effectively, Success Runs in Our Race is more important than ever in this fluctuating economy. With scores of anecdotes taken from interviews with successful African Americans -- from Keith Clinkscales, founder and former CEO of Vanguarde Media, to Oprah Winfrey -- Fraser shows how to network for information, for influence, and for resources. Readers will learn, among other things, how to cultivate valuable listening skills, which conferences blacks are most likely to attend when looking to build their business network, and how to effectively circulate a rsume.More than a guide for personal achievement, this is an information-packed bible of networking that also seeks to inspire a social movement and a rebirth of the "Underground Railroad," in which successful African Americans share the lessons of self-determination and empowerment with those still struggling to scale the ladder of success.

It was an inconceivable deception: over $65 billion stolen in the world's largest Ponzi scheme. Including new and revealing interviews with those who worked closest to himand his family, Betrayal is an in-depth, penetrating look at the man who perpetrated history's most notorious financial crime. To the people who knew him, Bernie Madoff was a kind and honorable person; a loving father and husband; generous to his employees and charitable even to strangers. On Wall Street, he was known as a wise elder statesman, wildly successful in his investments but never too risky with people's money. He was so revered and trusted that thousands placed their life savings with him, and he in turn provided them with early retirements and affluent lifestyles.But on December 11, 2008, Madoff confessed that he'd lied to them all. The monthly financial statements he'd sent customers for decades were all works of fiction. Their money was gone.Despite the crush of media attention on Madoff's scam, little is known about Madoff himself. What could lead a seemingly good man to ruin the lives of everyone who ever cared about himWhat caused Bernie Madoff to commit an unspeakable act of betrayal, bankrupting his family, his friends, his mentors, and thousands of investors who depended upon him for their livelihoodsBetrayal: The Life and Lies of Bernie Madoff is about the man who realized that he could have everything he wanted if he simply lied to the people who trusted him the most. Author Andrew Kirtzman tracked down more than a hundred people from Madoff's past, from the first girl he ever kissed to family members who played in his house as children; from his secretaries to his drivers; from traders at his company to his inner circle of friends. He pored through thousands of pages of court records; private e-mails; phone-conversation tran*s; and census, military, and immigration records. The result is a fascinating story about the rise of a deeply immoral man.Kirtzman describes Madoff's feelings of inferiority and humiliation as a child, and his obsession with making money to prove himself worthy as he grew older. He reveals Madoff's construction of a criminal enterprise at a young age, long before he's ever claimed it began. He paints a picture of a loving yet strange family that ran a multibillion-dollar corporation like a small family restaurant. He offers an inside look at life within the company and the characters who worked on the infamous seventeenth floor. He reveals the details of an underground flow of cash that no one has known about until now. And he chronicles the desperate moments leading up to Madoff's fall, from the perspective of the people who spent the last hours with him before his house of cards collapsed.

The classic bestseller on socializing now fully updated for social interactions in a digital ageHow to Work a Room is the classic bestselling book on improving communication and socializing skills, and using them to create and leverage connections. This Silver Anniversary Edition is fully revised and updated to include the role of technology and social media in networking, as well as Susan RoAne's proven tips for using digital strategies to your advantage plus practical hints for starting conversations and strengthening rapport with strangers. How to Work a Room: The 25th Anniversary Edition is a vital tool for business professionals, job seekers and career changers of all ages.

From America's most trusted financial advisor comes a comprehensive guide to a new and utterly sane financial choice. In Die Broke, you'll learn that life is a game where the loser gives his money to Uncle Sam at the end. There are four steps to the process: Quit Today No, don't tell your boss to shove it...at least not out loud. But in your head accept that from this day on you're a free agent whose number one workplace priority is your personal bottom line.Pay Cash You should be as conscious of spending as you are of saving. Credit should be a rarely used tool for those few times (buying homes and cars) when paying cash is impossible.Don't Retire Your work life should be a journey up and down hills, rather than a climb up a sheer cliff that ends with a jump into the abyss.Die Broke It sounds terrifying, the one intolerable outcome to your financial life. And yet, in truth, dying broke might be your best option for a life without fear: fear of failure and privation now, fear of impoverishment in the long run.

The marketing revolution is here, so get on the right side of the barricade and become a part of it! Let's thank Mr. and Mrs. Consumer and their little Consumerlings who have seized power from the corporations and are now firmly in control. In Punk Marketing, Laermer and Simmons take an irreverent, penetrating look at the seismic change in the relationship between the people who sell stuff products, services, entertainment and those who purchase it. They demonstrate that to survive in business, a revolutionary approach is needed one they have branded "Punk Marketing" and it's one we all need to understand, for the traditional divisions among commerce, content, and consumers are continuing to blur ever more rapidly.Never dull, sometimes controversial, but always a helluva lot of fun, Punk Marketing presents a manifesto for any businessperson needing to engage consumers or any consumer seeking to understand and employ their newfound power. And here's the good news: It's based on principles that have existed forever. In an age of digital video recorders, "branded" entertainment, cell-phone TV, multiplayer online games, and never-ending social networking, a coherent approach to marketing has never been more vital. With Punk Marketing, there's a built-in plan to equip you with tools to make all this change work out just fine, thanks.Punk Marketing is the first shot soon to be heard 'round the world of a long-awaited and breathless uprising that businesses want, deserve, and desperately need.

A riddle: Five frogs are sitting on a log. Four decide to jump off. How many are leftAnswer: Five WhyBecause there's a difference between deciding and doing. Written by Mark L. Feldman and Michael F. Spratt of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Five Frogs on a Log offers readers an entertaining and no-nonsense field guide to the mergers and acquisitions jungle, packed with insight and instruction for executing corporate change and capturing shareholder value. Whether you're buying another company or acquiring a new vision of the future, this book proffers an unconventional perspective and a practical, readily accessible set of solutions to the single greatest challenge facing today's managers: executing rapid transitions ion mergers, acquisitions and gut wrenching change. Designed for corporate managers and CEOs caught up in the whirlwind of change, every chapter provides accessible ideas and wisdom for navigating the most demanding business transitions. The authors offer a unique hands-on perspective based on their work with top Fortune 500 firms. As they state: "Increasingly, the companies that win are those that learn faster, act quicker and adapt sooner. They will compress time by making and executing early, informed decisions about economic value creation, ruthless prioritization and focused resource allocation. They will use these decisions to take early firm stands on management deployment, organization structure and culture. Their actions will increasingly be linked to long-term, sustained economic value creation." The advice and expertise offered in this book can be used to solve a range of operational problems from speeding up new product development to merging two businesses; from changing company culture to repositioning a business in a while new marketplace. Whatever the challenges and opportunities facing you, your company, your industry, Five Frogs on a Log will move you from deciding to doing.

A bold, pioneering book that shows how businesses can survive and thrive in the digital media revolution Not so long ago, the business landscape was easier to chart. The routes connecting customers, companies, products, and services were predictable, reliable, and understood. Today, that landscape has been upended, and in its place a "C-Scape" has emerged a world where consumers, not producers and marketers, make the choices; where content, not distribution, is king; where curation becomes a primary currency of value; and where convergence continues to revolutionize every part of every business. In C-Scape, Larry Kramer leads the reader through this new, evolving world where the challenges are daunting but the opportunities are huge.A seasoned journalist turned superstar digital entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Kramer learned early on to survive and overcome the forces that are remaking the business landscape: the digital media revolution. Why mediaEvery aspect of every business is increasingly carried out through the media. From advertising and marketing to sales and customer service, from product design to manufacturing, everything that happens anywhere in business is ever more likely to happen on a screen or handheld device. That means any business could fall to the same threats facing the newspaper business and the music industry unless that business learns to navigate the four Cs. Kramer's explanation of this new landscape is a revelation; his visionary advice is both crucial and urgent. No leader, whether at the helm of a small business or a conglomerate, will read this book without seeing the business world anew and finding practical ways to put this book's four powerful precepts immediately to work.

Inspired by the Simple Sabotage Field Manual released by the Office of Strategic Services in 1944 to train European resistors, this is the essential handbook to help stamp out unintentional sabotage in any working group, from major corporations to volunteer PTA committees. In 1944, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)—the predecessor of today’s CIA—issued the Simple Sabotage Field Manual that detailed sabotage techniques designed to demoralize the enemy. One section focused on eight incredibly subtle—and devastatingly destructive—tactics for sabotaging the decision-making processes of organizations. While the manual was written decades ago, these sabotage tactics thrive undetected in organizations today: Insist on doing everything through channels. Make speeches. Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Refer all matters to committees. Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible. Haggle over precise wordings of communications. Refer back to matters already decided upon and attempt to question the advisability of that decision. Advocate caution and urge fellow-conferees to avoid haste that might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on. Be worried about the propriety of any decision. Everyone has been faced with someone who has used these tactics, even when they have meant well. Filled with proven strategies and techniques, this brief, clever book outlines the counter-sabotage measures to detect and reduce the impact of these eight classic sabotage tactics to improve productivity, spur creativity, and engender better collegial relationships.

Cofounder of the Stanford d.school Bernie Roth shows you how the power of design thinking can help you achieve goals you never thought possible.Did you know that achievement can be learnedAs Bernie Roth explains, achievement is a muscle. And once you learn how to flex it, you'll be able to meet life's challenges and reach your goals.Based on a legendary course Roth has taught at Stanford University for several decades, The Achievement Habit employs the remarkable insights that stem from design thinking to help us realize the power we all have within to change our lives for the better. By ridding ourselves of issues that stand in the way of reaching our full potential, we gain the confidence finally to do things we've always wanted to do. Combining design thinking, problem-solving, creativity, communication skills, and life adjustments, readers will learn: Why trying and doing are two different things Why using reasons (excuses), even legitimate ones, to explain one's behavior is self-defeating How to change your self-image into one of a doer and achiever How subtle language changes can resolve existential dilemmas and barriers to action How to build resiliency by reinforcing what you do rather than what you accomplish How to be open to learning from your own experience and from those around you Our behavior and relationships can be transformed if we choose to, we can be mindful and control our intentions to create habits that make our lives better. And with this thoughtful book as your guide, you can.

In this illuminating study of corporate America's most critical issue leadership world-renowned leadership guru Warren Bennis and his co-author Burt Nanus reveal the four key principles every manager should know: Attention Through Vision, Meaning Through Communication, Trust Through Positioning, and The Deployment of Self. In this age of "process", with downsizing and restructuring affecting many workplaces, companies have fallen trap to lack of communication and distrust, and vision and leadership are needed more than ever before. The wisdom and insight in Leaders addresses this need. It is an indispensable source of guidance all readers will appreciate, whether they're running a small department or in charge of an entire corporation.

Home Sweet Home:How to buy your first home, your next home and save on taxes when you sell.A-Z of Investments:From annuities to zero-coupon bonds, go from owing money to OWNING money. Get out of debt (and stay that way).Estate Planning Long-Term Care:Learn how to protect yourself and your family.

In the most challenging economy of our lifetime, where should you turn for guidanceTo the stories of those who have made it the leaders who battled adversity, forged their own paths,and succeeded . . . because they knew what made them tick. As people everywhere confront the global economic crisis, "success" may seem elusive at best, impossible at worst. Yet history proves that a new generation of success stories will likely emerge from this era of financial chaos. And this new book prepares you to be one of those success stories by analyzing the inner qualities that have propelled the forward-thinking leaders of our time: drive, determination, and self-awareness.As strategists for the internationally renowned consumer and political research firm Penn, Schoen Berland Associates, Michael Berland and Douglas Schoen are experts in how successful people think . . . and how they win. Now they share what they've learned with firsthand accounts from some of the world's most successful people in nearly every field including the founder of Starwood Resorts; a world-famous chef-restaurateur; the CEO of NBC Universal; a supermodel turned entrepreneur; the head of Este Lauder; the commissioner of the National Hockey League; the president of Hearst Magazines; and the creator of CBS's 60 Minutes. Berland and Schoen have discovered that true success is about more than "winning." True success has an emotional quotient: it's about determining your innate strengths, deciding what you truly want, and striving tirelessly to achieve it. Berland and Schoen describe the five archteypes of success: visionaries, natural-born leaders, do-gooders, independence seekers, and independents who follow their dreams. In this unprecedented collection of stories from some of the most successful people in fashion, sports, entertainment, and business, Schoen and Berland demonstrate that success isn't about changing who you are; rather, it's about figuring out what makes you tick and leveraging that knowledge to your advantage. This book shows through compelling first-person storytelling that the most successful people understand their own natural abilities and how to use their best qualities to create a fulfilling life and then tells you how to do the same.

Why are otherwise smart and competent people such lousy investorsIndividual investors give up as much as two-thirds of their potential investment returns in misguided efforts to beat the market and most don't even realize it.Ashvin B. Chhabra, chief investment officer of one of the world's largest wealth management firms, explains that an important idea has gotten lost amid the relentless pursuit of investment returns. Rather than trying to beat the market, your primary goal should be to construct an investment strategy that creates a solid safety net and enables you to pursue your dreams and aspirations.With no more guarantee of lifelong jobs or pensions, all of us bear the burden of investing wisely. But many of us focus on the wrong set of investment activities, such as identifying the next great start-up or star fund manager, or simply beating a market benchmark. Even the standard framework for investing, modern portfolio theory, offers an incomplete solution. Meanwhile, the grand debates in finance, such as indexing versus active management, prioritize the wrong set of issues.We need a framework that shifts the focus of investment strategy from portfolios and markets to individuals and the objectives that really matter: protection against unexpected financial crises or retirement planning. Whatever matters most to you paying for your kid's education, starting your own business, endowing your favorite charity, or traveling the world you need a road map to help you achieve both your essential and aspirational goals.In The Aspirational Investor, Ashvin B. Chhabra outlines a groundbreaking yet intuitive approach to managing wealth, based on the identification of key goals and the careful allocation of resources and risks. The Wealth Allocation Framework will help you connect your investment portfolio with your life's goals, and accommodate the three seemingly incompatible objectives that must underpin every sound wealth management strategy: the need for financial security in the face of unknowable risks, the desire to maintain current living standards despite inflation, and the opportunity for life-changing wealth creation.Chhabra's pioneering work illuminates some surprising facts about how people get very wealthy, and reinterprets the success formulas of investing greats such as Warren Buffett and David Swensen. Chhabra also offers a novel perspective: If the markets don't really care about you, as surely they do not, then why should you spend all your time and effort trying to beat them?Raising the bar for what we should expect from our investment portfolios and from our investment advisors The Aspirational Investor is a thoughtful, practical guide for any investor, regardless of income or wealth level.

For almost forty years, Yankelovich Partners has helped America's biggest companies understand and reach their customers. Their breakthrough MONITOR studies-annual surveys that analyze the values, beliefs, attitudes, and expectations that shape consumer decisions-not only pinpoint current trends, but predict where the market will be in the future.Rocking the Ages: The Yankelovich Report on Generational Marketing (HarperBusiness; May 21, 1997) by J. Walker Smith and Ann Clurman turns the spotlight on America's generation gap and transforms what was born as a political and social rallying cry into a sound foundation for profitable marketing. Defining the essence of three generations-the Matures (born between 1909-1945), the Baby Boomers (1946-1964), and the Generation-Xers (1965-1978)-it explores in telling detail the experiences, life skills, values, personal and professional aspirations, likes and dislikes, and hopes and fears that distinguish each generation. Drawing on this unprecedented data, it elucidates how and why each generation reacts to a vast range of marketplace issues-including technology and cyberspace, healthcare and fitness, media and entertainment, retailing and financial services.From highlighting generational differences regarding such basic concepts as work itself-Matures regard it as an inevitable obligation, Boomers as an opportunity for self-fulfillment, and Xers as simply a paycheck-and gratification-delayed by Matures, demanded instantaneously by Boomers,virtual in the case of most Xers-to describing the widely differing versions of the American Dream each generation harbors, Rocking the Ages offers invaluable insights into how to market a product or service to reach one, two, or all three generations.

Leading pricing expert Rafi Mohammed shows businesses how to reap a financial windfall and foster growth using the underutilized and often overlooked strategy of setting prices. The 1% Windfall reveals how modest incremental changes to an everyday business practice pricing can yield significant rewards. Illustrating the power of pricing, a study of the Global 1200 found that if companies raised prices by just 1%, their average operating profits would increase by 11%. Using a 1% increase in price, some companies would see even more growth in percentage of profit: Sears, 155%; McKesson, 100%; Tyson, 81%; Land O'Lakes, 58%; and Whirlpool, 35%.The good news is that better pricing is more than simply raising prices. Instead, the key is to offer customers a variety of pricing options. This strategy is win-win: profits to companies and choices for consumers. But how do executives and managers set the right priceUnderpinned by sound empirical research and real-life anecdotes, The 1% Windfall addresses this fundamental question. This book offers guidelines that any company whether a multinational conglomerate, a small business, or even a nonprofit can follow to create a comprehensive pricing strategy for any product or service. In addition, these versatile techniques and tools provide solutions to avert a slump in a recession, offset the impact of inflation, or battle a new competitor. The result is a mind-opening, clear blueprint for com-panies to price for profit and growth.

In Everything Is Possible, Dan Abraham, the legendary founder of Slim-Fast, recounts the story of his personal and business life, starting from his childhood and army years and his purchase of Thompson Medical for $5,000 when he was in his early twenties, and culminating in the sale of Slim-Fast for $2.3 billion in 2000. At the heart of Everything Is Possible are 16 life lessons that Abraham has picked up in sixty years of a hard-working business career. Among them: ?There is no such thing as a mistake (see pages 198–202) ?Why I always insured that my suppliers made a profit (see pages 208–9) ?The philosophy of continuous improvement (see pages 202–5) ?If you have a theory and the facts dispute it, drop your theory (pages 205–8) ?The realization that we all have both good and bad luck in our lives, but many of us don't prepare for either (pages 216–9) ?I never saw a man pick a fight with a stronger man (pages 191–5) But this memoir, a brilliant guide for anyone starting and growing a business, is about far more than business. Abraham tells the heartwarming story of growing up in a modest home in Long Beach, New York, and the lessons he learned from his mother, father, and one high school teacher that have guided him ever since. And there is more, much more: a discussion of his beliefs about the pleasure of giving; what he has learned from Judaism about ethics and the Golden Rule; and what he learned from his experiences with the FDA about the importance of compromise and about the necessity to fight hard when you believe you're right. At a time, when newspapers are filled with reports of business fraud and deceptions, and when so many people believe that to have spectacular success in business you have to be ruthless and dishonest, this is an account of a business life that has been lived honorably, passionately, and successfully, and with fun. Everything Is Possible is a book to be savored and shared with young and old alike.

The beautiful Alvita who had lost both her parents, was living quietly in her family home in Southern Russia. Her father had been Russian and her mother had been English. ??????????? Alvita was pleased to receive a visit from her brother, Ivor, but shocked when he told her that they must leave Russia immediately, as a Revolution was inevitable and would start very soon. ??????????? He had brought with him his friend, Nicholas, who said that he would help them pack up as many of their treasures as they could and make their way to England. ??????????? Alvita felt a little unsure of Nicholas, but thought that perhaps she might be mistaken. ??????????? Ivor insists that he should be a Russian Prince and Alvita a Princess as the English are always impressed by grand titles, although Alvita is none too sure about the deception. ??????????? After packing her mother’s jewellery, some valuable pictures and silver, they know that they must avoid the dangerous Revolutionaries and travel as fast as possible to the nearest Port to find a ship to take them to England. ??????????? This Nicholas arranges for them and, when they arrive in England, Ivor by chance meets an old friend, Charles, the Marquis of Harrington, who he was friends with when they were at Oxford University. ??????????? Charles takes them to his impressive house in London and, when he learns that they want to sell their treasures, he arranges for them to be displayed in the ballroom and the stables. ??????????? It is when Alvita sees a valuable painting being removed from its frame that she knows that Nicholas is attempting to cheat the Marquis. ??????????? How she warns Charles of what is happening in his house ??????????? And how she and her brother find the love that they both sought but believed would never be theirs is all told in this unusual romance by BARBARA CARTLAND. ?