Today we all face more impossible challenges than ever before. But flash foresight lets you transform the impossible into the possible, revealing hidden opportunities and allowing you to solve your biggest problems before they happen. Daniel Burrus is one of the world's leading forecasters, corporate strategists, and visionaries. Over the past quarter century, he has established a reputation worldwide for his exceptional record of accurately predicting the future of technological change and its direct impact on the business world."Wouldn't it be amazing if you could predict the future and be right?" writes Burrus. "You can: all you have to do is leave out the parts you could be wrong about! And the amazing thing is, when you know where to look, there's more than enough you can be right about to make all the difference."From small businesses to multinationals, individual careers to entire industries, Flash Foresight looks at how Burrus's seven radical flash foresight "triggers" have transformed dozens of careers, fortunes, and lives. Both engaging and enlightening, Flash Foresight provides an easy-to-implement blueprint for applying the same strategies to your own business, enabling you to see the invisible and do the impossible.In the past, flash foresight was useful. Today, as the pace of technological change accelerates almost beyond the point of comprehension, it's an imperative.

The media coach and Emmy Award-winning correspondent Bill McGowan shares his secrets of pitch-perfect communications, showing readers how to communicate with confidence.During the pivotal moments of our lives, results are often determined not only by our actions but by our words as well. Saying the right thing the right way can make the difference between sealing the deal or losing the account, advancing your career or suffering a demotion. During these moments, it's important to be pitch perfect to use precisely the right tone to convey the right message to the right person at the right time. Such pitch-perfect moments are crucial in our personal and professional journeys. In Pitch Perfect, the renowned media coach Bill McGowan shows you how to craft just the right message. Along the way, McGowan lays out his Seven Principles of Persuasion, including: The Scorsese Principle: Hold your audience's attention with visual images. Direct the film that plays in your listener's mind. The No-Tailgating Principle: Avoid verbal fender-benders and career-wrecking moments by maintaining a safe talking distance. When in doubt, stop talking and listen. The Pasta-Sauce Principle: Cure boredom by boiling down your message, making it as rich and brief as possible. In Pitch Perfect, you'll learn how to overcome all these communication pitfalls. The Seven Principles of Persuasion are as easy to learn, implement, and master as they are effective. The right language both verbal and nonverbal can make you more confident, persuasive, and certain. It can stir people to listen closely to your every word and to remember you long after you've left the room.

In 1907, Irish immigrant William Mulholland designed and began to build one of the greatest civil engineering feats in history: the aqueduct that carried water 233 miles from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Los Angeles allowing this small, resource-challenged desert city to grow into a modern global metropolis. Drawing on new research, Les Standiford vividly captures the larger-than-life engineer and the breathtaking scope of his six-year, $23 million project that would transform a region, a state, and a nation at the dawn of its greatest century.Mulholland, a penniless Dublin immigrant who made his way west as a stowaway on a passenger ship, personifies the American rags-to-riches tale, working from a position as a ditchdigger to become chief engineer of the Los Angeles Water Company. Confronted with a decade-long drought that threatened his adopted city's future, the self taught Mulholland found the answer in the rushing snow melt from the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains, nearly 250 miles away. He proposed to build an aqueduct that would outdo any such ever conceived, one that would carry an entire river from its source to Los Angeles, through mountains, over chasms, and across an alternately freezing and blistering terra incognita, because he believed it was the city's only hope.The project brought a simmering-to-this-day firestorm of protest from residents of California's Owens Valley where the waters would be taken, as well as an all-out onslaught from political opponents and vested interests in Los Angeles, who were fearful of losing their stranglehold on the city's yield. But after nine years of struggle, including the efforts of thousands of workmen many of whom lost their lives and the use of engineering techniques and strategies never previously employed, Mulholland turned the gates and loosed the waters that brought an unprecedented wave of development and prosperity to his city and the region.Though the landmark film Chinatown touched on the subject, Mulholland was characterized there as Hollis Mulwray, a colorless pipsqueak easily dispatched by archvillain and developer Noah Cross (John Houston). In real life, however, Mulholland was every bit the equal of any of his foes, a colorful, brook-no-nonsense man of the people who accomplished a feat like no other and became a hero in the process. Water to the Angels is not only a book that provides insight into the seeds of significant ecological concerns of this day, it is also a stirring story of accomplishment against all odds, all the more captivating for being true.As Robert Towne, author of the screenplay for Chinatown suggests, the subject is timeless. "I found the ubiquity of water in everyone's lives to be compelling. Everybody needs water."At a time when the importance of water is being recognized as never before considered by many experts to be the essential resource of the twenty-first century Water to the Angels brings into focus the vigor of a fabled era, the might of a larger-than-life individual, and the scale of a priceless construction project, and sheds critical light on a past that offers insights for our future.

Too many leadership failures. Too many career derailments. Too many toxic workplaces filled with disengaged, distrustful employees. Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the author of Power, offers an incisive dissection of the multibillion-dollar leadership industry and presents ways to fix its many problems.In Leadership BS, Jeffrey Pfeffer pulls back the curtain, showing how leadership really works and why so many leadership development efforts fail. In this forthright and persuasive critique, Pfeffer argues that much of the oft-repeated wisdom about leadership is based more on hope than reality, on wishes rather than data, on beliefs instead of science. In an age when transparency is considered a virtue, Pfeffer makes the case that strategic misrepresentation isn't as harmful as you think, that breached agreements are a part of business, that immodesty is frequently a path to success, and that relying on the magnanimity of your boss is a bad bet.Using research findings from social psychology, sociology, and sociobiology, and filled with practical, actionable advice, Leadership BS encourages readers to finally stop accepting sugar-laced but toxic potions as cures and to understand the realities of organizations and human behavior.To make real change, Pfeffer argues, we need to get beyond the half-truths and self-serving stories that are so prominent in the mythology of leadership. In calling BS on so much conventional wisdom, Leadership BS offers both a provocative, scientific examination of how leadership actually works and how it doesn't and a pre*ion for leaders future and present.

A revised edition of the first book of poems by Stephen Mitchell, the renowned translator of Rilke's poetry, The Book of Job, and the Tao Te Ching. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Evidence of the Afterlife shares the firsthand accounts of people who have died and lived to tell about it. Through their work at the Near Death Experience Research Foundation, radiation oncologist Jeffrey Long and his wife, Jody, have gathered thousands of accounts of near-death experiences (NDEs) from all over the world. In addition to sharing the personal narrative of their experiences, visitors to the website are asked to fill out a one hundred item questionnaire designed to isolate specific elements of the experience and to flag counterfeit accounts.The website has become the largest NDE research database in the world, containing over 1,600 NDE accounts. The people whose stories are captured in the database span all age groups, races, and religious affiliations and come from all over the world, yet the similarities in their stories are as awe-inspiring as they are revealing. Using this treasure trove of data, Dr. Long explains how medical evidence fails to explain these reports and why there is only one plausible explanation that people have survived death and traveled to another dimension.

Intended as a comprehensive resource for designers, creative professionals, marketers, and retailers, The Big Book of Packaging contains 384 pages of the most innovative packaging designs from around the world. With over 500 featured designs and profiles of twelve of the world's leading designers, the book is a must-have resource for anyone interested in the future of packaging and design. In light of the recent lift in environmental consciousness, this volume of the Big Book Series will devote one third of its content to the increasingly important subject of green packaging-showing designers and retailers how to package their products creatively, responsibly, and at low cost, factors that will be reflected in the books own packaging/binding as well.The Big Book of Packaging will appeal to designers, students, marketers, retailers, and aesthetes alike, providing a thorough look at what goes into building an effective package and how to think "outside the box."

A collection of eighty all new poems, Acolytes is distinctly Nikki Giovanni, but different. Not softened, but more inspired by love, celebration, memories and even nostalgia. She aims her intimate and sparing words at family and friends, the deaths of heroes and friends, favorite meals and candy, nature, libraries, and theatre. But in between, the deep and edgy conscience that has defined her for decades shines through when she writes about Rosa Parks, hurricane Katrina, and Emmett Till's disappearance, leaving no doubt that Nikki has not traded one approach for another, but simply made room for both.

Haven't women gotten everything they wantEconomic powerSocial influenceBusiness cloutYes, but it turns out that these fantastic gains have come at a heavy price, as consumer goods experts Michael J. Silverstein and Kate Sayre discovered in an unprecedented study of 12,000 women in forty countries.That relentless upward climb has left women feeling stressed out, time starved, and overburdened. As a result, they look to products and services that will help them claw back time, juggle multiple roles, and capture a few moments of enjoyment.Women want more much more, in every category of goods and services. And no matter what their age or economic situation or where they live in the world, women will spend trillions of dollars over the next decade on the brands that truly deliver: Home-cleaning products that enable women to do in an hour what used to take a day Financial-services products that recognize that women control half the United States' wealth Food products that help keep the whole family happy and healthy Health care services designed for working-women's hectic schedules In the coming years, women's influence will be so enormous that it will not only help bring us out of the economic downturn but also create one of the most dramatic market opportunities of our lifetime bigger than the rise of China and India; more sustainable than any bailout package.Through quantitative data, profiles of individual women, and stories of winning companies, Women Want More provides business leaders with the understanding and practices they need to capture their share of the rising "female economy."

"When I got knocked down by guys bigger than me . . . [my mother] sent me back out and demanded that I bloody their nose so I could walk down the street the next day." Joe Biden In this, the first definitive biography of Vice President Joe Biden, renowned journalist Jules Witcover examines the fascinating life of a man who, with his tenacity, outspokenness, and charming smile, has shaped Washington politics for the past forty years and who now serves as the forty-seventh vice president of the United States.Raised in the working-class towns of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Wilmington, Delaware, and with lackluster grades in school and no particular goals other than to play sports or, fleetingly, to become a priest, Biden shocked the nation in 1972 when he became one of the youngest elected senators in U.S. history. From that point forward, he carved a legacy for himself as one of the most respected legislators in the country. Biden's record in Congress was impressive. He chaired three Senate committees, confronted Slobodan Miloevic head-on as a war criminal, and conducted the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court justices. After voting for the 2002 Senate resolution to use force in Iraq, he later called for its repeal and became an outspoken critic of the conduct of the war.Yet for all of Biden's achievements in the Senate, his life has been filled with tragedy and countless challenges. Within two months of being elected in 1972, Biden lost his wife, Neilia, and his young daughter in a tragic accident a loss that brought him to the nadir of despair and shook his resolve to stay in politics. And even after Biden vowed to continue his career, his tenure was marked by two brain aneurysms and career-threatening verbal gaffes. Then, after being considered among the front-runners in the 1988 Democratic presidential primaries, Biden was accused of plagiarism for a speech he made at the Iowa State Fair. He dropped out of the race to the sounds of Washington pundits chattering that the presidency would never be his. Through it all, Biden survived and ran and eventually dropped out again in the 2008 primaries. But even with this defeat, Barack Obama recognized Biden's vast experience in domestic and foreign affairs, and selected him to be his running mate.Joe Biden: A Life of Trial and Redemption is based on exhaustive research by one of Washington's most prolific journalists. In drawing on numerous exclusive interviews with Biden's confidants and family members, as well as President Obama and Vice President Biden, Witcover has gone beyond conventional biography to track the forces that have shaped a man who, with his plainspoken style and inspiring life story, has resonated with millions of Americans and whose work is now influencing the Obama-Biden administration and shaping America.

End Pain.Foster Personal and Professional Growth.Live Better. While endings are a natural part of business and life, we often experience them with a sense of hesitation, sadness, resignation, or regret. But consultant, psychologist, and bestselling author Dr. Henry Cloud sees endings differently. He argues that our personal and professional lives can only improve to the degree that we can see endings as a necessary and strategic step to something better. If we cannot see endings in a positive light and execute them well, he asserts, the "better" will never come either in business growth or our personal lives.In this insightful and deeply empathetic book, Dr. Cloud demonstrates that, when executed well, "necessary endings" allow us to proactively correct the bad and the broken in our lives in order to make room for the professional and personal growth we seek. However, when endings are avoided or handled poorly as is too often the case good opportunities may be lost, and misery repeated. Drawing on years of experience as an executive coach and a psychologist, Dr. Cloud offers a mixture of advice and case studies to help readers know when to have realistic hope and when to execute a necessary ending in a business, or with an individual; identify which employees, projects, activities, and relationships are worth nurturing and which are not; overcome people's resistance to change and create change that works; create urgency and an action plan for what's important; stop wasting resources needed for the things that really matter. Knowing when and how to let go when something, or someone, isn't working a personal relationship, a job, or a business venture is essential for happiness and success. Necessary Endings gives readers the tools they need to say good-bye and move on.

What can chess masters teach us about how humans become expertsWhy can't race car drivers explain decisions they've made behind the wheel?What does predicting the winner of a soccer match say about our ability to make the right choiceWhen we talk about experts, we typically have bought into the idea that they have all the answers. Now, in this groundbreaking book, Gordon Rugg exposes the surprising ways in which all people tend to make the same sorts of mistakes, regardless of what field they are in, how smart they are, or even their level of expertise. Focusing on why and how we make decisions, Rugg offers insight into what motivates us, how we fail to find the answers we are looking for, how we can learn to ask the essential questions, and more. Rugg has devoted his life to learning how experts solve problems. He gained international attention after arguing persuasively that the famous Voynich Manu* is a hoax. Now, he demonstrates his techniques in the Verifier Method, which can be applied to any seemingly unsolvable problem.Drawing on his personal odyssey in the field of human expertise, Rugg makes astute and entertaining conclusions about how and why we inevitably fail, and explains how to make better mistakes, work backward, and reengineer the ways we pursue success.

A comprehensive look at 300 of the most financially and/or critically successful motion pictures of all time many made despite seemingly insurmountable economic, cultural, and political challenges set against the prevailing production, distribution, exhibition, marketing, and technology trends of each decade in movie business history.

The indie world is producing extraordinary toy characters but little is known about the designers creating them or the processes used to make them. We Are Indie Toys! profiles the most interesting toymakers and reveals how they turn their unique ideas into one-of-a-kind collectibles.

The in-flight explosion of TWA Flight 800 on July 17, 1996, was one of the deadliest disasters in American history, spurring the most expensive airline investigation ever undertaken by the U.S. government. To this day the crash remains clouded in doubt and shadowed by suspicion of a government conspiracy.If there was any conspiracy to hide the truth about what really happened to Flight 800, it began long before the crash. Past crashes tell the story: What happened on Flight 800 has happened before and will again, unless drastic changes are made. Now veteran journalist Christine Negroni reveals what the commercial aviation industry has known for more than thirty-five years that during flight confined vapors in the fuel tanks can create a bomb like environment. It takes only a small energy source to ignite it.TWA Flight 800 was the fourteenth fuel tank explosion on a commercial airliner in thirty-five years. Yet each and every time, the airline industry persuaded regulators to deal with the symptoms of the problem and ignore the cause. When investigators could not immediately determine what happened, they were finally forced to look at the bigger picture. And, for the first time, this book exposes the hubris of aircraft manufacturers who knew all along, but dismissed as acceptable, the risk of fuel tank explosions.Deadly Departure shines a spotlight on the chaos behind the most massive crash investigation ever conducted, how the White House had to intervene between feuding investigators, and the surprising stories behind the missile theory conspiracies. It also tells the stories of the passengers and their families, the people of TWA and Boeing, the rescue and crisis workers, and the investigators and scientists involved illustrating the devastating effects on human lives. An impeccably researched, eye-opening examination of one of the great disasters of our time, Deadly Departure is a stunning exposé of how industry pressure continues to undermine regulatory policy, placing air travelers' lives at risk.

Dorothy and Otis Shepard are the groundbreaking heroes of North American visual culture. They were the first American graphic designers to work in multiple mediums and scales, but despite the brilliance of their work, their names are little known today. With 330 stunning, colorful images, Dorothy and Otis chronicles their story for the first time. It explores the Shepards' penchant for abstraction and modernism, and shows how the advent of billboard advertising inspired their creativity their large campaigns matched the grandeur of their lifestyle. Throughout, this book demonstrates how their work influenced all aspects of consumer culture, from the styling of Wrigley's Gum and the Chicago Cubs to the design of Catalina Island, which Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, and other celebrities frequented.As Dorothy and Otis brings these artists to life, it elevates them to their rightful place in popular culture and makes clear how their work shaped the American dream.With more than 330 full-color photographs throughout

The dancing girls of Lahore inhabit the Diamond Market in the shadow of a great mosque. The twenty-first century goes on outside the walls of this ancient quarter but scarcely registers within. Though their trade can be described with accuracy as prostitution, the dancing girls have an illustrious history: Beloved by emperors and nawabs, their sophisticated art encompassed the best of Mughal culture. The modern-day Bollywood aesthetic, with its love of gaudy spectacle, music, and dance, is their distant legacy. But the life of the pampered courtesan is not the one now being lived by Maha and her three girls. What they do is forbidden by Islam, though tolerated; but they are gandi, "unclean," and Maha's daughters, like her, are born into the business and will not leave it.Sociologist Louise Brown spent four years in the most intimate study of the family life of a Lahori dancing girl. With beautiful understatement, she turns a novelist's eye on a true story that beggars the imagination. Maha, a classically trained dancer of exquisite grace, had her virginity sold to a powerful Arab sheikh at the age of twelve; when her own daughter Nena comes of age and Maha cannot bring in the money she once did, she faces a terrible decision as the agents of the sheikh come calling once more.

It's not a question. It is a philosophy to live by. It's Donny Deutsch's motto. And it is the secret possessed by every person with the right stuff the one-in-a-hundred who gets to the top of their team, their company, their business, their industry.If there is an assignment or a promotion up for grabs, a client or account looking for new answers, do you know how to go for itDonny Deutsch built a billion-dollar media business asking himself the basic question, "Why Not Me?" Once the reader asks and answers that question, a world of opportunity opens up. It is a tool to motivate people, build a business, and create a business culture.Often Wrong, Never in Doubt is an inspirational book from one of America's most colorful and exciting entrepreneurs. It's Donny's story. In a fun conversation with the reader, Donny lays out the core principles that propelled him to create tremendous wealth, build a huge and influential business, and become a national personality. Using inside stories of the media, the advertising industry, and a youth spent growing up on the streets of New York, Donny gives the commonsense bottom line that he has learned along the way, broken down into real, relevant, and inspiring lessons that will be useful to everyone from the front-line salesperson to the middle manager to the successful corporate executive. (It's also a useful guide for dating.)

If women ruled the world, politics would be more collegial, businesses would be more productive, and communities would be healthier. More women should lead not because they are the same as men, but precisely because they are different. Reflecting on her own tenure as White House press secretary and her work as a political analyst, media commentator, and former consultant to NBC's The West Wing, Dee Dee Myers blends memoir and social history with a call to action, as she assesses the crucial but long-ignored strengths that female leaders bring to the table. With intelligence, courage, candor, and wit, she looks at the obstacles women must overcome and the traps they must avoid on the path to success, and she challenges us to imagine a not-too-distant future with more women standing tall in the top ranks of politics, business, science, and academia.

In The Chasm Companion, The Chasm Group's Paul Wiefels presents readers with a new analysis of the ideas introduced in bestselling author Geoffrey Moore's classic books, Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado, and focuses on how to translate these ideas into actionable strategy and implementation programs. This step-by-step fieldbook is organized around three major concepts: how high-tech markets develop, creating market development strategy, and executing go-to-market programs based on the strategy.

One of Bobby Kennedy's first acts after JFK's assassination was to write a letter to his eldest son, reminding him of the obligations of his name. Bobby sent the letter to eleven-year-old Joe, but the message was meant for all his sons and nephews.Sons of Camelot is the compelling story of that message and how it shaped each Kennedy son and grandson in the aftermath of President John F. Kennedy's death. Based on five years of rigorous research and unprecedented cooperation from both the Kennedys and the Shrivers, Sons of Camelot examines the lives characterized by overwhelming drama -- from the most spectacular mishaps, excesses, and tragediesto the remarkable accomplishments that have led to better lives for Americans and others around the world.The third volume in Laurence Leamer's bestselling history of America's first family, Sons of Camelot chronicles the spellbinding journey of a message sent from a father to his son ... from a president to his people.