Systems and Policies for the Global Learning Economy (International Series on Technology Policy and Innovation)

Book Description

The 21st century is widely considered a time when value will be based on knowledge and human capital. This book explores the "new economy" in essays by scholars and researchers from around the world who look at local, regional, national, and transnational patterns that might be successfully employed elsewhere. The volume begins with a section devoted to regional economic development, learning networks, and systems of innovations. Trends and opportunities for science, technology, and innovation policies are examined. The book concludes with an analysis of corporate strategies for the knowledge-based economy. This is a major, much-needed resource for scholars and policymakers involved with economic development and public policy.

Book Description

This is the ideal resource for teacher support and retention: it's a stress reducer!

This wellness plan for today's busy teachers has been custom crafted by an educator and a nurse who know the daily, weekly, and yearly stresses of the academic calendar. This generously illustrated handy little volume offers a five-step program to a healthier lifestyle covering:

Identifying schools as a culture of stress
Restructuring personal and teaching priorities
Mastering the science of stress management for better health
Arresting the time bandits at home and at school
Using nutrition to support a healthy lifestyle

Also included are 21 planning techniques to prevent classroom stress; saying "No" with a smile; dealing with perfectionism and procrastination; physical activities such as Yoga, Pilates, Karate/Kick Boxing, Tai Chi Chuan, and more!

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Worth noting! Old material

Basic concepts more relevant now than ever before

Niche Selling: How to Find Your Customer in a Crowded Market
William T. Brooks
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
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General | Sales & Selling | Marketing & Sales | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
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Sales Techniques (Briefcase Books Series)

ASIN: 1556234996

Book Description

Shows how to inrease sales by finding and marketing to your most likely consumer segments. This practical, straightforward approach directs the reader through the entire niche selling process, showing how to: develop workable sales strategies based on alliances; enhance your standing in the minds of prospects and customers using the power of personal positioning; conquer the problem of ``institutionalized insulation'' that mentally and physically removes the most salespeople from their customers.

Customer Reviews:

Unknown quantity.......2006-10-29

I'd love to give this book a great review. However, I never received it! I kept getting messages saying it would ship soon, but it was on back order. Then Amazon cancelled my order.

If you REALLY want this book, go to your local B&N or other quality book store and order it, if it's not on the shelf. Or go to your local library and borrow it.

Worth noting! Old material.......2006-06-07

A lot has changed since this book was published in 1992. There are more up to date books availalbe. Buyer beware!

Basic concepts more relevant now than ever before .......2005-10-20

As Brooks would be the first to point out, opinions about both sales and marketing have changed a great deal since his book was first published in 1991. (I hope that he soon produces a revised and updated version of it in which he discusses those changes.) That said, the fact remains that Brooks's core concepts of selling remain relevant. As he explains in the Introduction, "Ever increasingly, the power of mass communications, macro- and microeconomic realities, consumer issues, value shifts, and even politics and global affairs will dictate day-to-day selling activities. As such, most traditional sales philosophies are outdated in today's crowded marketplace. The future belongs to the sales organizations that are [in italics] flexible [end italics] and [in italics] nontraditional [end italics] in their thinking." Quite true. And keep in mind that this was expressed fifteen years ago.

Brooks carefully organizes his material within three Parts: Knowing Your Organization and Its Markets (i.e. Focus on Focus, Leverage, and Alignment), Knowing Your Customers (i.e. "IMPACT" Selling, Investigate, Meet, Probe, Apply, Convince, and Tie-It-Up), and Knowing Yourself (i.e. Vales and Sales Success, and, Person versus Personality). Granted, for those who read this book in 2005, there are no head-snapping revelations. How could there be? However, Brooks provides a wealth of insights, strategies, and tactics which can help his reader find her or his customer in a crowded market.

I especially appreciate the fact that, at the end of each of the twelve chapters, Brooks provides a "Key Tips" section which serves two important functions: It summarizes key points, and, it facilitates a subsequent later review of whatever specific counsel which may then be needed. For example, in Chapter 7, Brooks explains how effective probing will help both current and prospective customers to "discover what they need and want most" as well as how the salesperson can determine what people will buy, when they will buy, and under what conditions they will buy, "then listening them into buying." This is precisely what Neil Rackham has in mind when discussing "SPIN selling": ask questions which reveal the Situation, identify the given Problems, determine the Implications of buying (or not buying), and specify the nature and extent of Need fulfillment. At the end of Chapter 7, Brooks then offers six "Key Tips" which summarize how to probe effectively. Appropriately, one of them reiterates what he calls "The Fatal Flaw in Selling: Most salespeople talk their way out of more sales than they talk their way into."

For whom will this book be most valuable? Probably for anyone involved in sales but especially for those responsible for the training and supervision of a sales force, and, for those salespersons who are relatively inexperienced.

One caveat: No single source offers everything one needs to know about sales. For that reason, I presume to suggest that other books also be consulted. For example, Rackham's SPIN Selling, Jacques Werth and Nicholas E. Ruben's High Probability Selling, Keith M. Eades's The New Solution Selling, and Tom Hopkins' How to Master the Art of Selling.

Niche Selling How To Find Your Customer In A Crowded Market

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Niche Selling How To Find Your Customer In A Crowded Market
Brooks William T.
Manufacturer: BUSINESS ONE IRWIN
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UD0S4K

Book Description

"Entrepreneurship, The Art of Succeeding in Business" provides you with an exciting opportunity to conceptualize, plan, and start your own business. Through guided Business Plan development activities, "Entrepreneurship, The Art of Succeeding in Business" helps you develop important skills needed to successfully start a business, including:

- Recognizing business opportunities,
- Integrating personal and business planning goals,
- Making decisions based on the "best available" information, and
- Developing self-reliance.

"Entrepreneurship, The Art of Succeeding in Business" contains four sections that will progressively help you understand the challenges and opportunities associated with starting a business.

The first section consists of six chapters that introduce you to the world of entrepreneurship. It will help you understand why you will be the most important reason that your business succeeds or fails. It will also challenge you to consider if you have the motivation and personality needed to successfully start and operate a business.

The second section is the Business Plan Development Guide. This 12-chapter guide sets forth a structured process that provides you with an opportunity to establish realistic business goals, develop sales forecasts, and estimate the potential income of your business. The process begins by having you focus on why you decided to start a business and why your business has (or does not have) a chance to succeed. The Business Plan Development Guide will help you assess your personal strengths and weaknesses and help you set goals that will meet both your personal and business priorities.

The Business Plan Development Guide walks you through a process of:

- Identifying potential customers and evaluating what they look for from a business like yours;
- Identifying and evaluating other businesses that serve similar client needs and thus, will be your competitors;
- Showing you how to use the customer and competitor data to identify a market niche for your business and to project your business' sales potential;
- Developing a Marketing Plan and Financial Plan, including how to project profitability and manage your cash during the start-up phase; and
- Developing a Plan of Action, a step-by-step process for implementing your Business Plan.

The third section of the book is a series of practical discussions of issues related to operating a business including business structure, licenses, taxes, accounting, and developing effective communication skills. This section provides practical advice based on the author's business experiences.

The fourth section of "Entrepreneurship, The Art of Succeeding in Business" contains a completed Sample Business Plan for use as a reference during the development of your own Plan.

Customer Reviews:

What can I say?.......2007-03-19

I ordered the book; it arrived quickly, and was in first rate shape. Enough said.

I LIKE IT!.......2002-12-13

Well done. Hard hitting, common-sense approach for a first-time entrepreneur to use to build a plan to help make the most basic of decisions prior to, and during, the start-up process. Very practical and understandable materials.

Book Description

Most of what has been written on the economy of the middle ages is deeply influenced by abstract concepts and theories. The most powerful and popular of these guiding beliefs are derived from intellectual foundations laid down in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by Adam Smith, Johan von Thunen, Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo, and Karl Marx. In the hands of twentieth-century historians and social scientists these venerable ideas have been moulded into three grand explanatory ideas which continue to dominate interpretations of economic development. These trumpet in turn the claims of 'commercialization', 'population and resources', or 'class power and property relations' as the prime movers of historical change. In this highly original book John Hatcher and Mark Bailey examine the structure and test the validity of these conflicting models from a variety of perspectives. In the course of their investigations they provide not only detailed reconstructions of the economic history of England in the middle ages and sustained critical commentaries on the work of leading historians, but also discussions of the philosophy and methods of history and the social sciences. The result is a short and readily intelligible introduction to medieval economic history, an up-to-date critique of established models, and a succinct treatise on historiographical method.

Modelling the Middle Ages: the History and Theory of England's Economic Development.(Book Review): An article from: Canadian Journal of History

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Modelling the Middle Ages: the History and Theory of England's Economic Development.(Book Review): An article from: Canadian Journal of History
James Masschaele
Manufacturer: University of Saskatchewan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Canadian Journal of History, published by University of Saskatchewan on April 1, 2003. The length of the article is 931 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Modelling the Middle Ages: the History and Theory of England's Economic Development.(Book Review)
Author: James Masschaele
Publication: Canadian Journal of History (Refereed)
Date: April 1, 2003
Publisher: University of Saskatchewan
Volume: 38 Issue: 1 Page: 91(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Modelling the Middle Ages : The History and Theory of England's Economic Development

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Modelling the Middle Ages : The History and Theory of England's Economic Development
John Hatcher
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OLCTIQ

Book Description

Previous studies of the Indonesian Chinese have failed to address their role as a commercial bourgeoisie. This study fills that gap by focusing directly on Chinese business roles and the emergence of partnerships between Chinese businessmen and Indonesian revolutionaries.

Book Description

Today, more than ever before, governments, industry, and special interest groups are employing information campaigns to effect social change. In ground-breaking fashion, Information Campaigns explores theory of campaigns as well as theory for campaigns, addressing the social context of public information campaigns and social marketing efforts. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Salmon and a distinguished team of contributors develop the theoretical framework of social change to discuss the melding of marketing and strategic communication traditions. Part I reviews the social context in which campaigns are designed, implemented, and analyzed, illustrating a broad range of social concerns campaigns address. The second section analyzes tactical concerns pertaining to underlying components of campaigns, namely audience research, planning, organization and implementation, and evaluation. Students and professionals in the fields of communication, political science, marketing, and public health will benefit from the refreshing approach and provocative analyses in this volume. "This is a terrific book. It presents a unique integration of value and ideological perspectives with the empirical research on information campaigns. The book offers a thorough and readable analysis of the diverse literature in this area." --Richard M. Perloff, Cleveland State University "The [first] section as a whole is particularly successful in providing a context for the study of campaigns within the ongoing processes of social change. . . . The second section of the book offers some interesting treatments of several . . . components of the campaign process. . . . This collection goes a long way toward establishing a new framework within which to study campaigns. . . . It lays out some clear directions and challenges for future research." --Journal of Communication "Salmon's Information Campaigns is a welcome addition to the literature. . . . [This book] enlarges our knowledge of the processes involved in media-centered social change and how social systems . . . act to influence the attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors of different publics. . . . Salmon's book is a refreshing departure from the approach generally taken in the information campaign literature. Having carefully assembled authors from a wide range of disciplines and representing divergent theoretical perspectives and research orientations, Salmon provides a balanced presentation of the values of intended receivers and sponsors of planned social change. He gives as much importance to the values of campaign sponsors as he does to the values of receivers of 'social good.' . . . Practitioners, researchers, and students will find the book useful . . . particularly useful for graduate-level courses in political communication, development communication, health communication, strategic communication, and social marketing." --Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media "Unlike many edited volumes, quality is consistent across chapters." --Journalism Quarterly

Customer Reviews:

Dry but Useful.......2001-02-07

Basically, this is a collection of papers about information campaigns: public information, media and political. If you are about to launch an campaign to inform, then this might provide you with some useful ideas.

Book Description

Oil Change: Perspectives on Corporate Transformation is the second book in the new Oxford series The Learning History Library. Each book gets inside a company at a crucial time of change, offering a unique opportunity to see innovation from the inside out. Oil Change: Perspectives on Corporate Transformation is the story of major corporate change undertaken by OilCo, a pseudonym for a major international oil company, just after a time of layoffs and cutbacks. Key people within the company tell the story, using a technique developed at MIT's Center for Organizational Learning. One hundred and fifty employees were interviewed at all levels of the company, from hourly workers to the executive council. They worked in all primary OilCo businesses: exploration and production, refining and retail, chemical and oil consulting. During this time, all the firms values came into question, including its business practices, corporate governance structure, team management, and leadership style. Oil Change: Perspectives on Corporate Transformation gives students an inside look at what OilCo learned collectively.

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Oil Change: Perspectives on Corporate Transformation
George Roth Art Kleiner
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OKWS92

Book Description

Systems Thinking, Systems Practice "Whether by design, accident or merely synchronicity, Checkland appears to have developed a habit of writing seminal publications near the start of each decade which establish the basis and framework for systems methodology research for that decade." Hamish Rennie, Journal of the Operational Research Society, 1992 Thirty years ago Peter Checkland set out to test whether the Systems Engineering (SE) approach, highly successful in technical problems, could be used by managers coping with the unfolding complexities of organizational life. The straightforward transfer of SE to the broader situations of management was not possible, but by insisting on a combination of systems thinking strongly linked to real-world practice Checkland and his collaborators developed an alternative approach - Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) - which enables managers of all kinds and at any level to deal with the subtleties and confusions of the situations they face. This work established the now accepted distinction between 'hard' systems thinking, in which parts of the world are taken to be 'systems' which can be 'engineered', and 'soft' systems thinking in which the focus is on making sure the process of inquiry into real-world complexity is itself a system for learning. Systems Thinking, Systems Practice (1981) and Soft Systems Methodology in Action (1990) together with an earlier paper Towards a Systems-based Methodology for Real-World Problem Solving (1972) have long been recognized as classics in the field. Now Peter Checkland has looked back over the three decades of SSM development, brought the account of it up to date, and reflected on the whole evolutionary process which has produced a mature SSM. SSM: A 30-Year Retrospective, here included with Systems Thinking, Systems Practice closes a chapter on what is undoubtedly the most significant single research programme on the use of systems ideas in problem solving. Now retired from full-time university work, Peter Checkland continues his research as a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow.

Customer Reviews:

A classic that is very relevant today.......2007-06-13

I originallay read (and wrote a paper about) Checkland's ideas in 1990 whilst I was studying for my MBA. Then his ideas seemed revolutionary, insightful and impractical. Re-visiting his book nearly 20 years on little has changed in my view of its content, but the world has moved on and what seemed impractical now appears possible.

I would urge anyone involved in creating modern systems based on distributed and dynamic principles to study Checkland.

Checkland's masterpiece.......2004-10-23

When I first read this book I thought it to be revolutionary, ahead of it's time (as others have) and insightful. Despite the fact that Checkland has in large moved away from the ideas and the model of this book - to me it represents the original vision of SSM (soft systems methodology) more so than his later books. Checkland presents a history of systems thinking in the book then goes onto to discuss the need for a new approach - that of SSM. With extreme elegance of style Checkland delivers a long and stinging critique to Hard Systems thinking and presents a coherent and thoughtful argument for his own version SSM. Further he creates a platform for real world problem solving that is useful and interesting. A lot of his ideas have appeared in American texts (like the fifth discipline for example) and rarely are they credited or made use of in that regard. This book is a good place to start exploring the real world of problems with but I would highly recommended that before you go to his two other books you start here. This in my opinion has not been bettered in any systems context to date and I am not sure it ever will or could be. Having said that you really do need to read it and find out for yourself. Be warned it's not for those who want to be challenged in their thinking - especially those of you who don't like the qualitative stuff.

Really worthwhile.......2004-07-02

This book is a gem. The basic concepts of systems, hierarchies and emergent properties are developed from the methodologies of physical and social sciences in chapter 3, and makes for fascinating reading. I'm currently writing a master's thesis on it! =)

If you're studying management of information systems or something similar, you are probably sick and tired of overly theoretical approaches to the subject which seem to be just excuses for academics to publish rubbish (eg. structuration, actor network theory, etc). This book may save you from a nervous breakdown.

Where it all began..........2002-07-12

Well, since I've been on a bit of a 'systems' binge lately, I might as well review this old gem...

Checkland's book was the first to introduce the differentiation between 'soft' and 'hard' systems analysis. Soft analysis is much more akin to a general, somewhat philosophical approach to the methodology whereas hard analysis is the development of usable engineering models.

First off, this book is actually two books - the first is a fairly long paper that neatly sums up the systems approach over the 30 years it has been explored. The consensus? Things looked really promising at the beginning but unfortunately the approach simply got hung up on the very thing it was trying to escape: science's current preoccupation with reductionism. That is, the hard systems approach attracted the most attention and it quickly succumbed to the very trap it sought to escape starting with its use of rigidly-defined symbols right up to the detailed diddling with mathematical models that, similar to earlier approaches, did not model reality at all due to assumptions and oversimplification.

Checkland is much more interested in the soft approach and he consistently laments the fact that systems methodology is not being taught even though it holds so much promise to solving many of our pressing problems. The overview presses this point home and should be required reading for anyone in management or engineering.

The second section, the original book with a few revisions, is still very relevant. Checkland's focus, soft systems, never was given a chance given our preoccupation with reductionism. Given the recent failures of reductionism, particularly the genome-mapping fiasco, cast systems theory in new light.

Checkland starts out with an excellent overview of the history of science from a (mostly) philosophical perspective. This very readable overview leads directly into his discussion of the history and early development of systems theory. He then focuses on systems methodology (soft systems theory) with some general applications.

The approach is very readable and should be easily understood by anyone - in fact, Checkland stresses the importance of having a wide base of knowledge to help solve real-world problems and points out that much work has been done by people who 'migrated' from other fields. Smuts, one of the pioneers, was actually a politician and only wrote a systems book after losing an election...

It is unfortunate that there are no references to Robert Rosen here since his work, more of a 'hard' approach to systems theory, fully supports Checkland's ideas. In fact, there is a lot of material that should be included as 'backup' for why the systems approach is important as a new direction away from reductionism. Perlovsky's work in cybernetics, Jopling's recent work on self-knowledge, Prigogine's work in thermodynamics and even Kauffman's attempts in biology now point to hypotheses that are only compatible with a systems methodology.

This book, as mentioned above, should be required reading these days. Certainly for anyone contemplating management or engineering it is a very important reference. In fact, the book could basically be used in high-school with a bit of help from Weinberg's systems books. For those looking for more application-specific information I recommend von Bertalanffy's original, Rosen's work, and perhaps a side helping of Weinberg and Gharajedaghi for more ideas.

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