Thinkertoys or The Bridge at the Edge of the World

Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

Author: Michael Michalko

This is an updated and expanded edition of the best-selling Thinkertoys, which is considered by many to be the classic book of creative thinking techniques. The original ground-breaking first edition was widely acclaimed by readers and reviewers. The Wall Street Journal reported 'this book will change the way you think." Women In Business lauded it as "one of the most important business titles of the decade," Success magazine described it as a "fun-to-read book which helps you to create and act on ideas," USA said "believe it or not, this wonderful book will have you challenging the seemingly impossible every day," Executive Book Summaries praised it by saying, "What we need is a compendium of ways to solve problems. And that's exactly what you get in Thinkertoys" Entrepreneur acclaimed it as "required reading for anyone in business," the Futurist said "Thinkertoys" shows you how to do what you think can't be done," and the AMA called it "the most significant book on creativity published in the last twenty years."

This new edition contains updated examples, three new Thinkertoys and an entirely new group brainstorming section with five new chapters. Michael is also the author of Thinkpak (A Brainstorming Card Set), which is a novel creative-thinking tool that is designed to facilitate brainstorming sessions and Cracking Creativity (The Secrets of Creative Geniuses) which describes the common thinking strategies creative geniuses have used in the sciences, art, and industry throughout history and shows how we can apply them to become more creative in our business and personal lives.

From the Author
Most people of average intelligence, given data or some problem, can figure out the expected conventional response. When confronted with problems, we fixate on something in our past that has worked before. We ask, "What have I been taught in life, education or work on how to solve the problem?" Then we analytically select the most promising approach based on past experiences, excluding all other approaches, and work within a clearly defined direction towards the solution of the problem. Because of the soundness of the steps based on past experiences, we become arrogantly certain of the correctness of our conclusion. Typically, we think reproductively, that is on the basis of similar problems encountered in the past. This is why we so often fail when confronted with a new problem that is similar to past experiences only in superficial ways, or on the surface, and is different from previously encountered problems in its deep structure. Interpreting such a problem through the prism of past experience will, by definition, lead the thinker astray. Reproductive thinking leads us to the usual ideas and not to original ones. If you always think the way you've always thought, you'll always get what you've always got--the same old, same old ideas. My "Thinkertoys" are creative-thinking techniques that will change the way you think. Each "Thinkertoy" contains specific instructions and an explanation of why and how it works including anecdotes, stories, and examples of how others have implemented the technique to produce their breakthrough ideas.

New interesting book: Good Fat or The Best Is Yet To Be

The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability

Author: James Gustave Speth

How serious are the threats to our environment? Here is one measure of the problem: if we continue to do exactly what we are doing, with no growth in the human population or the world economy, the world in the latter part of this century will be unfit to live in. Of course human activities are not holding at current levels—they are accelerating, dramatically—and so, too, is the pace of climate disruption, biotic impoverishment, and toxification. In this book Gus Speth, author of Red Sky at Morning and a widely respected environmentalist, begins with the observation that the environmental community has grown in strength and sophistication, but the environment has continued to decline, to the point that we are now at the edge of catastrophe.

 

Speth contends that this situation is a severe indictment of the economic and political system we call modern capitalism. Our vital task is now to change the operating instructions for today’s destructive world economy before it is too late. The book is about how to do that.

The Washington Post - Ross Gelbspan

This book is an extremely probing and thoughtful diagnosis of the root causes of planetary distress. But short of a cataclysmic event—like the Great Depression or some equally profound social breakdown—Speth does not suggest how we might achieve the change in values and structural reform necessary for long-term sustainability.

Red White and Brew or Crossing the Chasm

Red, White, and Brew: A Beer Odyssey Across the U.S.

Author: Brian Yaeger

Red, White, and Brew is the ultimate beer run across the United States, during which Brian Yaeger visits fourteen breweries of various sizes and talks to founders, owners, brewmasters, consumers, and anyone else he meets on his odyssey and who enjoys the making, tasting, and appreciating of brews.

Red, White, and Brew pursues the roots of brewers who brought their craft with them from their homeland and investigates how the tradition is faring today and where it may head in the future. Covering everything from fifth-generation family-run brewing companies to first-wave microbreweries, this book is a travelogue, guide, and genealogical study of beer families and homebrewers from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon. It is filled with eclectic characters and shrewd businesspeople who populate an industry as old as the New World, and who produce liquid philanthropy, one keg at a time.

Publishers Weekly

Beer-enthusiast Yaeger writes about his travels throughout the country visiting microbreweries, and like most suds aficionados, he has an affinity for so-called craft beers. Throughout his odyssey-starting at the ancient Yuengling Brewery in Pottsville, Pa., and going West before concluding at the upstart Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in Delaware-he spends less time on the many beers he quaffs than he does on portraying the dedicated brewers running these quixotic enterprises. There's good reason for that, as the people he comes across in his journey (crashing on couches, always buying a six-pack sampler of the local brewery's wares on the way out of town) are an uncommonly determined lot. In Yaeger's chatty interviews with the brewers, they talk about the business, the post-1980s renaissance in American beer and the common need to enter into distribution agreements with the likes of Anheuser Busch (if not letting themselves be bought outright). Yaeger's book is a solid and amiable rendering of a tough business. (Oct.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

New interesting book: Fabulous Lovers Fabulous Foods or Conserve Water Drink Wine

Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers

Author: Geoffrey A Moor

Here is the bestselling guide that created a new game plan for marketing in high-tech industries. Crossing the Chasm has become the bible for bringing cutting-edge products to progressively larger markets. This edition provides new insights into the realities of high-tech marketing, with special emphasis on the Internet. It's essential reading for anyone with a stake in the world's most exciting marketplace.

GIS World Inc. Staff

One of the most thought-provoking books on technology marketing...Moore throws outmoded marketing ideas out the window to clear space for the special realities of the high-tech market.

Computer Letter

Geoff Moore's book is full of good medicine for bad marketing.

What People Are Saying

Jeff Miller
"Must read for marketing executives, CEOs, and especially venture capitalists."

James A. Unruh
"Crossing the Chasm truly addresses the subtleties of high-tech marketing. We have embraced many of the concepts in the book and it has become a 'bestseller' with Unisys."

William V. Campbell
"Must reading for anybody in high tech."

Jim Kouzes
"If you find yourself wondering why it is that the majority of potential buyers for your newest breakthrough technology are not as enthusiastic as your early adopters, read this book or risk joining the others at the bottom of the high-tech abyss."

Dick Shaffer
"Geoff Moore's book is full of good medicine for bad marketing."

Robert K. Weller S.V.P.
"Crossing the Chasm should be the Bible for high-tech companies looking for direction with marketing and distribution challenges. Geoff's model corresponds directly to the launch of Lotus Notes and continues to shape our marketing programs."

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Part I: Discovering the Chasm

Chapter 1: High-Tech Marketing Illusion

Chapter 2: High-Tech Marketing Enlightenment

Part II: Crossing the Chasm

Chapter 3: The D-Day Analogy

Chapter 4: Target the Point of Attack

Chapter 5: Assemble the Invasion Force

Chapter 6: Define the Battle

Chapter 7: Launch the Invasion

Conclusion

Index

Creating a Lean Culture or Rich Dad Poor Dad

Creating a Lean Culture: Tools to Sustain Lean Conversions

Author: David W Mann

Lean production has been proven unbeatable in organizing production operations, yet the majority of attempts to implement lean end in disappointing results. The critical factor so often overlooked is that lean implementation requires day-to-day, hour-by-hour management practices and skills that leaders in conventional batch-and-queue environments are neither familiar nor comfortable with.

Creating a Lean Culture helps lean leaders succeed in their personal batch-to-lean transformation. It provides a practical guide to implementing the missing links needed to sustain a lean implementation. Mann provides critical guidance on developing and using the key elements of a lean management system, including: leader standard work, visual controls, daily accountability processes, maintaining a process focus, managing key HR issues, and much more. In addition, a questionnaire is included to help assess current management practices and monitor progress.

Highlights:

• Distinguishes the much-discussed, abstract concept of "lean culture" from the concrete, implementable practices of lean management.
• Describes and illustrates 4 key principles of lean management: leader standard work; visual controls; daily accountability process, and discipline.
• Shows how visual controls bring process focus to life, tie in lean's requirement for highly disciplined execution, and make leaders' new jobs far easier to explain, model and evaluate.
• Moves beyond models and theories of lean management to show how to implement the daily practices that are the key to implementing and sustaining a lean transformation. Lots of case examples, figures and photographs.

Awards:

Winner of the 2006 Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing Research

Look this: Take Four or New Frontiers in Western Cooking

Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money -- That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!

Author: Robert T Kiyosaki

Argues that a good education and secure job are not guarantees of financial success, and presents advice for accumulating wealth.

USA Today

A startling point for anyone lookng to gain control of their financial future.

Library Journal

Reissuing a self-published best seller.

Stop the 401 or The 8th Habit

Stop the 401(k) Rip-off!: Eliminate Costly Hidden Fees to Improve Your Life

Author: David B Loeper

Your 401(k) plan is probably one of your most important future sources of financial security. This book makes it easy for you to take the five steps needed to add more than $100,000 to your retirement nest egg without taking more risk or saving more money. This can allow you to improve your lifestyle, increase your benefits, identify the hidden costs and also improve your standing within your company by proactively helping your employer to take needed action.

Read also East Asia and the World Economy or Exploring Web Marketing and Project Management Interactive Workbook

The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness

Author: Stephen R Covey

That the world has changed and is continuing to change at a rapid pace is not news. People are much more aware of everything around them. The consumer revolution has accelerated dramatically. But something vital is missing in all of this change.

Leadership has not kept up with the changes going on in the world. From board rooms to classrooms, leadership is being challenged on a daily basis yet no new leadership model has been given. In this new, important work, bestselling author Stephen R. Covey offers ideas of how leadership roles have changed and how one can take on the roles of the new leader.

Dr. Covey introduces the 4 roles of the new leader--modelling, pathfinding, aligning and empowering--and how those qualities can change you and your organization. He discusses how trust can be lost throughout organizations and how it is imperative that any organization bring trust back to the company if it is to survive. Covey also shows how to go from what he calls a "want to" person to a "can do" person and how doing so can completely transform people and organizations.

Through his ideas, one will discover how to:

*Use the four vital roles to establish trust and make growth a given
*Build and sustain an atmosphere of respect and openness
*Keep and inspire your most talented workers
*Apply creative cooperation to reach new levels of performance
*Stay more "promotable"
*Develop leadership at every level of your organization
*Take advantage of strengths and compensate for weakness
*Reduce cynicism and improve morale
*Stay flexible and focused to recognize larger opportunities.
 

Stephen Covey's new book will transform the way we think about leadership just as The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People changed our thinking about success.

Publishers Weekly

The original seven habits of highly successful people are still relevant, but Covey, author of the mega-bestseller of that title, says that the new Information/Knowledge Worker Age, exemplified by the Internet, calls for an eighth habit to achieve personal and organizational excellence: "Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs." Covey sees leadership "as a choice to deal with people in a way that will communicate to them their worth and potential so clearly they will come to see it in themselves." His holistic approach starts with developing one's own voice, one's "unique personal significance." The bulk of the book details how, after finding your own voice, you can inspire others and create a workplace where people feel engaged. This includes establishing trust, searching for third alternatives (not a compromise between your way and my way, but a third, better way) and developing a shared vision. This book isn't easy going; less business jargon and more practical examples would have made this livelier and more helpful. But if organizations operated with Covey's ideas-and ideals-most people would undoubtedly find work much more satisfying. DVD not seen by PW. (Nov. 9) FYI: Free Press is simultaneously publishing a 15th anniversary trade paperback edition of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, which has sold 15 million copies worldwide. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Covey emphasizes that this book isn't merely an afterthought to The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (1989); instead, it adds a new dimension to the original program. The eighth habit comprises finding your "voice"-your unique personal significance-and inspiring others to find theirs. Crucial to this is shifting to a "whole-person paradigm" in which one's body, mind, heart, and spirit are all engaged. Covey predicts that society will transition from property-based industrialism to a "Knowledge Worker Age" that incubates and capitalizes on this whole-person paradigm. Meaty, readable, and insightful, the text contains FAQ sections regarding real-life application of the theories and contains diagrams that help ground readers. Though conceived for individuals, Covey's book will be of tremendous importance to organizations and businesses. The accompanying DVD (not seen) poses replacement concerns, but multiple copies are still essential for most libraries and all self-help collections. [The 15th-anniversary edition of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (ISBN 0-7432-6951-9. $15) will be published simultaneously.-Ed.]-Douglas C. Lord, Connecticut State Lib., Hartford Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Summary - Soundview Executive Book Summaries

For individuals and organizations, excellence is no longer merely an option — survival requires it. But to thrive, excel and lead in our Knowledge Worker Age, we must move beyond effectiveness to greatness, which includes fulfillment, passionate execution and significant contribution. Accessing a higher level of human genius and motivation requires a sea change in thinking: a new mind-set and skill set — in short, an additional habit to those featured in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
The 8th Habit shows you how to tap the limitless value-creation promise of the Knowledge Worker Age. It shows you how to solve the major contradictions inherent in organizational life. The 8th Habit will transform the way you think about yourself, your purpose in life, your organization and other people. It explains how to move from effectiveness to greatness.

The Pain
Most people in organizations today are neither fulfilled nor excited. They're frustrated and uninvolved in their organization's goals. That's why our high-pressure, 24/7 era requires more than effectiveness (the "7 Habits"). To achieve greatness, we need an "8th Habit": Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs.

The Problem
Our basic management practices come from the Industrial Age.

As people consent to be controlled like things, their passivity only fuels leaders' urge to direct and manage.

There's a simple connection between the controlling, "thing" paradigm that dominates today's workplace and the inability of managers and organizations to inspire people's best contributions: People choose how much of themselves to give to their work, depending on how they're treated. Their choices may range from rebelling or quitting (if they're treated as things), to creative excitement (if they're treated as whole people).

The Solution
Most great organizations start with one person who first changed him- or herself, then inspired others. Such people realize that they can't wait for their boss or organization to change. They become an island of excellence in a sea of mediocrity. They learn their true nature and gifts, then use them to envision what they want to accomplish. They find and use their voice.

Greatness involves transcending the negative cultural "software" of ego, scarcity, comparison and competitiveness, and choosing to become the creative force in your life.

All of us can choose greatness — we can cultivate a magnificent spirit in facing a serious disease, make a difference in the life of a child, be a catalyst inside an organization, or initiate or contribute to a cause.

Discover Your Voice
We can discover our voice because of three gifts we're born with. These gifts are:

Gift #1: The Freedom to Choose. Our past, our genes, the way others have treated us — these influence us but don't determine us. Between stimulus and response there is a space where we choose our response. In our choices lie growth and our happiness.

Gift #2: Natural Laws or Principles. To use wisely that space between stimulus and response, we must live by natural laws that dictate the consequences of behavior. Positive consequences come from fairness, kindness, respect, honesty, integrity, service and contribution.

Gift #3: The Four Intelligences. These are: mental intelligence, physical intelligence, emotional intelligence and spiritual intelligence.

Express Your Voice
Great achievers develop their mental energy into vision. Vision is applied imagination. Everything is created first as a mental creation, then as a physical reality. Vision also means affirming others, believing in them, and helping them realize their potential.

Great achievers develop their physical energy into discipline. They don't deny reality. They accept the sacrifice entailed in doing whatever it takes to realize their vision. Only the disciplined are truly free. Only a person who has disciplined him- or herself for decades to play the piano is free to create magnificent art.

Great achievers develop their emotional energy into passion — desire, conviction and drive. Passion appears as optimism, excitement, emotional connection, and determination, and is deeply rooted in the power of choice. Passionate people believe in creating their own future.

Great achievers develop their spiritual energy into conscience — their inward moral sense of what is right and wrong, and their drive toward meaning and contribution.

We must control our ego and let our conscience guide our moment-to-moment behavior. As we develop the four intelligences — physical, mental, emotional and spiritual — in their highest manifestations, we find our voice. Copyright © 2005 Soundview Executive Book Summaries

Table of Contents:

Contents

Chapter 1 The Pain Chapter 2 The Problem Chapter 3 The Solution

Part 1: Find Your Voice

Chapter 4 Discover Your Voice -- Unopened Birth-Gifts Chapter 5 Express Your Voice -- Vision, Discipline, Passion and Conscience

Part 2: Inspire Others to Find Their Voice

Chapter 6 Inspiring Others to Find Their Voice -- The Leadership Challenge Focus -- Modeling and Pathfinding Chapter 7 The Voice of Influence -- Be a Trim-Tab Chapter 8 The Voice of Trustworthiness -- Modeling Character and Competence Chapter 9 The Voice and Speed of Trust Chapter 10 Blending Voices -- Searching for the Third Alternative Chapter 11 One Voice -- Pathfinding Shared Vision, Values and Strategy Execution -- Aligning and Empowering Chapter 12 The Voice and Discipline of Execution -- Aligning Goals and Systems for Results Chapter 13 The Empowering Voice -- Releasing Passion and Talent The Age of Wisdom Chapter 14 The 8th Habit and the Sweet Spot Chapter 15 Using Our Voices Wisely to Serve Others Twenty Most Commonly Asked Questions Appendices Appendix 1 Developing the 4 Intelligences/Capacities: A Practical Guide to Action Appendix 2 Literature Review of Leadership Theories Appendix 3 Representative Statements on Leadership and Management Appendix 4 The High Cost of Low Trust Appendix 5 Implementing the 4 Disciplines of Execution Appendix 6 xQ Results Appendix 7 Max & Max Revisited Appendix 8 The FranklinCovey Approach Notes Index About FranklinCovey About the Author

Jim Cramers Stay Mad for Life or Getting to Yes

Jim Cramer's Stay Mad for Life: Get Rich, Stay Rich (Make Your Kids Even Richer)

Author: James J Cramer

Jim Cramer, bestselling author and host of CNBC's Mad Money, has written the ultimate guide to lifetime investing for readers of any age.

Whether you're a recent college grad trying to figure out how to start investing, a young parent struggling to decide where and how to put away money, or someone well into middle age and worried about whether you've saved enough for retirement, Jim Cramer's Stay Mad for Life has the answers. Cramer covers all the essentials: how to save, where to invest, which pitfalls to avoid. He offers valuable advice on everything from mortgages to college tuition. He explains what professional money managers do right that amateur investors do wrong. Because there is always a bull market somewhere, Cramer tells readers where to find the bull markets of the future, and for those willing to do the homework, he chooses twenty stocks that could be long-term moneymakers. For those who don't have the time or the temperament to invest in stocks, he identifies the mutual funds that are proven winners. He's investigated these funds by using his own twenty-five years' experience managing money for himself and dozens of America's wealthiest families. Throughout, in addition to his own enormously successful experience, Cramer draws on rigorous research to back up his advice.

Jim Cramer is America's #1 financial guru. Every day he advises investors on how to get ahead of the markets and stay ahead on his daily television show, Mad Money; in his online columns and commentary at TheStreet.com; in his popular "Bottom Line" column in New York magazine, and on television programs from early morning to late night. His books have all been nationalbestsellers and have helped educate hundreds of thousands of investors about the perils and promises of the financial markets. USA Today called him "the media's most electrifying market pundit," and his legions of fans agree. Jim Cramer's Stay Mad for Life is the definitive money book, a practical, concrete, insightful book of invaluable financial advice that is a joy to read.

Go to: The Total Money Makeover or How to Win Friends and Influence People

Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In

Author: Roger Fisher

Getting to Yes is a straightorward, universally applicable method for negotiating personal and professional disputes without getting taken -- and without getting angry.

It offers a concise, step-by-step, proven strategy for coming to mutually acceptable agreements in every sort of conflict -- whether it involves parents and children, neighbors, bosses and employees, customers or corporations, tenants or diplomats. Based on the work of Harvard Negotiation Project, a group that deal continually with all levels of negotiations and conflict resolutions from domestic to business to international, Getting to Yes tells you how to:

• Separate the people from the problem
• Focus on interests, not positions
• Work together to create opinions that will satisfy both parties
• negotiate successfully with people who are more powerful, refuse to play by the rules, or resort to "dirty tricks"

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments ..... xi
Introduction ..... xvii

Part I: The Problem ..... 1

Chapter 1: Don't Bargain Over Positions ..... 3

Part II: The Method ..... 15

Chapter 2: Separate the PEOPLE from the Problem ..... 17
Chapter 3: Focus on INTERESTS, Not Positions ..... 40
Chapter 4: Invent OPTIONS for Mutual Gain ..... 56
Chapter 5: Insist on Using Objective Criteria ..... 81

Part III: Yes, But ..... 95

Chapter 6: What If They Are More Powerful? ..... 97
Chapter 7: What If They Won't Play? ..... 107
Chapter 8: What If They Use Dirty Tricks? ..... 129

Part IV: In Conclusion ..... 145

Part V: Ten Questions People Ask About Getting to Yes ..... 149

Analytical table of Contents ..... 189
A Note on the Harvard Negotiation Project ..... 199
Question 1: "Does positional bargaining ever make sense?"
Question 2: "What if the other side believes in a different standard of fairness?"
Question 3: "Should I be fair if I don't have to be?"
Question 4: "What do I do if the people are the problem?"
Question 5: "Should I negotiate even with terrorists or someone like Hitler? When does it make sense not to negotiate?"
Question 6: "How should I adjust my negotiating approach to account for differences of personality, gender, culture, and so on?"
Question 7: "How do I decide things like 'Where should we meet?' 'Who should make the first offer?' and 'How high should I start?'"
Question 8: "Concretely, how do I move from inventing options to making commitments?"
Question 9: "How do I try out these ideas without taking too much risk?"
Question 10: "Can the way I negotiate really make a difference if the other side is more powerful?" And "How do I enhance my negotiating power?"