Enjoy a journey through the eyes of a geek working at one of the most important companies in the world as he walks you through events both large and small. Just don't get caught in the Redmond reality distortion field! What others are saying about "A Microsoft Life": "Any self-respecting geek needs to read this book. Stepto provides an enjoyable and entertaining insight of life inside Microsoft." - Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, Director of Programming for Xbox LIVE "Anyone who lived through the adolescent years of the computer revolution will alternate between laughing and crying (from laughing) at these great stories from inside the monolith. - Ken Denmead, NYT Bestselling Author, and editor of Geekdad.com

    He offers a six-step plan for six weeks of reading and habit-forming action for discerning strengths, along with optional tools to enhance the process such as online questions for measuring strengths and downloaded films (two of which are free). The steps of his plan are belief that the best way to compete is capitalizing on your strengths, identifying your strengths and weaknesses, volunteering your strengths at work, lessening the impact of your weaknesses on your team, effectively communicating the value of your strengths while limiting work utilizing weaknesses, and building habits and pushing activities that play to strength. Although everyone will not agree with all the elements of Buckingham's approach, he offers valuable insight into maximizing employees' strengths rather than the more common focus on weaknesses and failure. Mary WhaleyCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

    Today's customers are a hard bunch to crack. Time-strapped, screen-addicted, value-savvy, and socially engaged, their expectations are tougher than ever for a business to keep up with. They are empowered like never before and expect businesses to respect that sense of empowerment--lashing out at those that don't.  Take heart: Old-fashioned customer service, fully retooled for today's blistering pace and digitally connected reality, is what you need to build the kind loyal customer base that allows you to survive--and thrive. And  High-Tech, High-Touch Customer Service  spells out surefire strategies for success in a clear, entertaining, and practical way. Discover:  * Six major customer trends and what they mean for your business  * Eight unbreakable rules for social media customer service  * How to effectively address online complainers and saboteurs on Yelp, Twitter, TripAdvisor, and other forums for user generated content  * The rising power of self-service--and how to design it properly  * How to build a company culture that breeds stellar customer service ? High-Tech, High-Touch Customer Service reveals inside secrets of wildly successful customer service initiatives, from Internet startups to venerable brands, and shows how companies of every stripe can turn casual customers into fervent supporters who will spread the word far and wide--online and off.

    The secret is in the system. Wellpreneurs who find clients online have a system in place that failing wellpreneurs don’t. This system brings more of the right people to your website, and turns them into paying clients. It’s this proven, step-by-step system you’ll learn in this book. Wellpreneur is a guide to nailing your niche and finding more clients online, written just for wellness entrepreneurs. If you’re a health coach, yoga teacher, personal trainer, nutritionist or other wellness professional, you’ll: - Get total clarity on your target market, so you know exactly who you’re serving (and why). - Learn the proven five-step Organic Growth System to attract ideal prospects to your website and turn them into paying clients. - Peek inside the businesses of successful wellpreneurs, to learn how they grew profitable wellness businesses online. - Streamline your online marketing, so you can spend less time marketing, and more time doing work you love! About the Author Amanda Cook is a digital marketer, award winning health coach, and host of The Wellpreneur Podcast, one of the top business podcasts on iTunes, reaching over 10,000 wellness entrepreneurs each month. She has interviewed more than 100 successful wellness entrepreneurs about how they built healthy businesses online, and has spoken at events on five continents. Her work has appeared in The Huffington Post UK, The Sunday Telegraph, Natural Health Magazine, MindBodyGreen, TinyBuddha and Copyblogger. Amanda teaches wellness entrepreneurs around the world to grow their business through digital marketing in her Wellpreneur Marketing Bootcamp, and lives in London and Hong Kong.

    In fact, Serve to Be Great: Leadership Lessons from a Prison, a Monastery, and a Boardroom will train you to make this a reality. Although it’s not an easy process, it is a worthwhile one.By making a shift in your approach to leadership, you can become a highly effective leader who enjoys your work and makes the world a better place. The shift is simply a matter of gradually becoming more focused on how you can serve others and increase your capacity to do so.Matt Tenney introduces us to the principles in this book through the story of going from selfish to servant while on his journey from prisoner to monk to social entrepreneur. He also cites numerous business case studies and research that demonstrate how putting serving first results in: - Attracting top talent - Increased engagement and lower turnover - A more innovative team culture - Better customer service - A better ROI on marketing efforts The book also offers practical, actionable guidance for making the shift to becoming an extraordinary leader who is devoted to serving and inspiring greatness in others.All of the author proceeds from the sale of this book are donated to charity.

    Today, Total Quality is an integral component of management success in today's complex business environment. This text presents an overview of the key principles of total quality and links those concepts to traditional management practices and organizational models in management theory. This book has three objectives: 1) to familiarize readers with the basic principles and methods associated with total quality management; 2) to show readers how these principles and methods have been put into effect in a variety of organizations; and, 3) to illustrate the relationship between total quality principles and the theories and models studied in management courses.

    Drucker). We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles on leadership and selected the most important ones to help you maximize your own and your organization's performance.HBR's 10 Must Reads On Leadership will inspire you to:- Motivate others to excel- Build your team's self-confidence in others- Provoke positive change- Set direction- Encourage smart risk-taking- Manage with tough empathy- Credit others for your success- Increase self-awareness- Draw strength from adversityThis collection of best-selling articles includes: featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive" by Peter F. Drucker, "What Makes a Leader?" "What Leaders Really Do," "The Work of Leadership," "Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?" "Crucibles of Leadership," "Level 5 Leadership: The Triumph of Humility and Fierce Resolve," "Seven Transformations of Leadership," "Discovering Your Authentic Leadership," and "In Praise of the Incomplete Leader."

    In How the Internet Happened, he chronicles the whole fascinating story for the first time, beginning in a dusty Illinois basement in 1993, when a group of college kids set off a once-in-an-epoch revolution with what would become the first “dotcom.”Depicting the lives of now-famous innovators like Netscape’s Marc Andreessen and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, McCullough also reveals surprising quirks and unknown tales as he tracks both the technology and the culture around the internet’s rise. Cinematic in detail and unprecedented in scope, the result both enlightens and informs as it draws back the curtain on the new rhythm of disruption and innovation the internet fostered, and helps to redefine an era that changed every part of our lives.

    Instead of giving you the most broadly popular result, Google now tries to predict what you are most likely to click on. According to MoveOn.org board president Eli Pariser, Google's change in policy is symptomatic of the most significant shift to take place on the Web in recent years - the rise of personalization. In this groundbreaking investigation of the new hidden Web, Pariser uncovers how this growing trend threatens to control how we consume and share information as a society-and reveals what we can do about it.Though the phenomenon has gone largely undetected until now, personalized filters are sweeping the Web, creating individual universes of information for each of us. Facebook - the primary news source for an increasing number of Americans - prioritizes the links it believes will appeal to you so that if you are a liberal, you can expect to see only progressive links. Even an old-media bastion like "The Washington Post" devotes the top of its home page to a news feed with the links your Facebook friends are sharing. Behind the scenes a burgeoning industry of data companies is tracking your personal information to sell to advertisers, from your political leanings to the color you painted your living room to the hiking boots you just browsed on Zappos.In a personalized world, we will increasingly be typed and fed only news that is pleasant, familiar, and confirms our beliefs - and because these filters are invisible, we won't know what is being hidden from us. Our past interests will determine what we are exposed to in the future, leaving less room for the unexpected encounters that spark creativity, innovation, and the democratic exchange of ideas.While we all worry that the Internet is eroding privacy or shrinking our attention spans, Pariser uncovers a more pernicious and far-reaching trend on the Internet and shows how we can - and must - change course. With vivid detail and remarkable scope, The Filter Bubble reveals how personalization undermines the Internet's original purpose as an open platform for the spread of ideas and could leave us all in an isolated, echoing world.

    Fully updated with the 2009 practice guidelines, this book will take you through every step of a project - from planning and establishing roles to closing and reviewing - offering practical and easy-to-understand advice on using PRINCE2. It also shows how to use the method when approaching the key concerns of project management, including setting up effective controls, managing project risk, managing quality and controlling change. PRINCE2 allows you to divide your project into manageable chunks, so you can make realistic plans and know when resources will be needed. PRINCE2 For Dummies, 2009 Edition provides you with a comprehensive guide to its systems, procedures and language so you can run efficient and successful projects.PRINCE2 For Dummies, 2009 Edition includes: Part I: How PRINCE Can Help You - Chapter 1: So What's a Project Method and Why Do I Need to Use One? - Chapter 2: Outlining the Structure of PRINCE2 - Chapter 3: Getting Real Power from PRINCE2Part II: Working Through Your Project - Chapter 4: Checking the Idea Before You Start - Chapter 5: Planning the Whole Project: Initiation - Chapter 6: Preparing for a Stage in the Project - Chapter 7: Controlling a Stage - Chapter 8: Building the Deliverables - the Work of the Teams - Chapter 9: Finishing the Project - Chapter 10: Running Effective Project BoardsPart III: Help with PRINCE Project Management - Chapter 11: Producing and Updating the Business Case - Chapter 12: Deciding Roles and Responsibilities - Chapter 13: Managing Project Quality - Chapter 14: Planning the Project, Stages, and Work Packages - Chapter 15: Managing Project Risk - Chapter 16: Controlling Change and Controlling Versions - Chapter 17: Monitoring Progress and Setting Up Effective ControlsPart IV: The Part of Tens - Chapter 18: Ten Ways to Make PRINCE Work Well - Chapter 19: Ten Tips for a Good Business Case - Chapter 20: Ten Things for Successful Project Assurance Part V: Appendices - Appendix A: Looking into PRINCE Qualifications - Appendix B: Glossary of the Main PRINCE2 Terms

    The RESTful approach to web services design is rapidly become the approach of choice. Unfortunately, too few people have truly solid REST API design skills, and discussions of REST can become bogged down in dry theory.The REST API Design Handbook is a simple, practical guide to aid software engineers and software architects create lasting, scalable APIs based on REST architectural principles. The book provides a sound foundation in discussing the constraints that define a REST API. It quickly goes beyond that into the practical aspects of implementing such an API in the real world.Written by cloud computing expert George Reese, The REST API Design Handbook reflects hands on work in consuming many different third party APIs as well the development of REST-based web services APIs. It addresses all of the debates the commonly arise while creating these APIs. Subjects covered include:* REST architectural constraints* Using HTTP methods and response codes in an API* Authenticating RESTful API calls* Versioning* Asynchronous Operations* Pagination and Streaming* Polling and Push Notifications* Rate Limiting

    Many Canadians who own their home have never considered buying a second property. And nearly one-third of retirees are worried about running out of money. The Real Estate Retirement Plan shows how homeowners can use the tools already available to them — their mortgages — to access the initial capital to invest and prepare for their retirement. This is a proven, validated antidote to today’s historically low savings rates, poor current rates of return, and pressure on CPP and health care.With examples and a detailed discussion of the principles and mechanics, Calum Ross and Simon Giannini demystify real-estate investing and make an irrefutable case for borrowing to invest.

    It has made countless new businesses possible and presents a massive opportunity for large enterprises to innovate like startups and retire decades of technical debt. But making the most of the cloud requires much more from enterprises than just a technology change. Stephen Orban led Dow Jones’s journey toward digital agility as their CIO and now leads AWS’s Enterprise Strategy function, where he helps leaders from the largest companies in the world transform their businesses. As he demonstrates in this book, enterprises must re-train their people, evolve their processes, and transform their cultures as they move to the cloud. By bringing together his experiences and those of a number of business leaders, Orban shines a light on what works, what doesn’t, and how enterprises can transform themselves using the cloud.

    The book has a rich mix of illustrations and anecdotal stories that tells you how you can become an entrepreneur even if you are a student, home-maker or have a full time job and if you are risk-averse.Read this book if you are about to launch your first start-up, or if you’re thinking of doing so.The road-map explained here will:- Tell you how you can realize your dream of being an entrepreneur even if you have a full-time job- Provide you with a widely tested and proven methodology that will dramatically reduce your risk of failure- Help your offering to sell and be profitable before any significant investments are made- Rapidly increase the valuation of your start-up before you take outside funding- Help you create a start-up that YOU would enjoy building — one that’s aligned with your goals in life and leverages your personalstrengths

    They address crucial emerging issues, share evolved agile practices, and cover key issues agile testers have asked to learn more about. Packed with new examples from real teams, this insightful guide offers detailed information about adapting agile testing for your environment; learning from experience and continually improving your test processes; scaling agile testing across teams; and overcoming the pitfalls of automated testing. You ll find brand-new coverage of agile testing for the enterprise, distributed teams, mobile/embedded systems, regulated environments, data warehouse/BI systems, and DevOps practices. You ll come away understanding How to clarify testing activities within the team Ways to collaborate with business experts to identify valuable features and deliver the right capabilities How to design automated tests for superior reliability and easier maintenance How agile team members can improve and expand their testing skills How to plan just enough, balancing small increments with larger feature sets and the entire system How to use testing to identify and mitigate risks associated with your current agile processes and to prevent defects How to address challenges within your product or organizational context How to perform exploratory testing using personas and tours Exploratory testing approaches that engage the whole team, using test charters with session- and thread-based techniques How to bring new agile testers up to speed quickly without overwhelming them The eBook edition of "More Agile Testing" also is available as part of a two-eBook collection, "The Agile Testing Collection" (9780134190624)."