Because no one can be an expert on everything, designers have always had to scramble to find the information and know-how required to make a design work - until now. Universal Principles of Design is the first cross-disciplinary reference of design. Richly illustrated and easy to navigate, this book pairs clear explanations of the design concepts featured with visual examples of those concepts applied in practice. From the 80/20 rule to chunking, from baby-face bias to Ockham's razor, and from self-similarity to storytelling, 100 design concepts are defined and illustrated for readers to expand their knowledge.This landmark reference will become the standard for designers, engineers, architects, and students who seek to broaden and improve their design expertise.

    It describes how to take the kinds of issues that all of us face today--lack of time, money, resources, attention, know-how--and see in them the opportunity for transformation of oneself and one's organization's fortunes. The ideas in the book are based on the authors' extensive work as business consultants, and are brought to life in 35 personal interviews from such varied sources as Nike, IKEA, Unilever, the U.S. Navy, Formula One racecar engineers, public school teachers in California, and barley farmers in South Africa. Underpinned by scientific research into the psychology of breakthrough, the book is a practical handbook full of tools and tips for how to make more from less. Beautifully designed and accessible, A Beautiful Constraint will appeal beyond its core business audience to anyone who needs to find the opportunity in constraint.The book takes the reader on a journey through the mindset, method and motivation required to move from the initial victim stage into the transformation stage. It challenges us to:Examine how we've become path dependent--stuck with routines that blind us from seeing opportunity along new paths Ask Propelling Questions to help us break free of those paths and put the most pressing and valuable constraints at the heart of our process Adopt a Can If mentality to answer these questions--focused on how, not if Access the abundance to be found all around us to help transform constraints Activate the high-octane mix of emotions necessary to fuel the tenacity required for success We live in a world of seemingly ever-increasing constraints, driven as much by an overabundance of choices and connections as by a scarcity of time and resources. How we respond to these constraints is one of the most important issues of our time and will be a large determinant of our progress as people, businesses and planet, in the future. A Beautiful Constraint calls for a more widespread capability for constraint-driven problem solving and provides the framework to achieve that.

    It is written in a conversational tone, doesn't take itself too seriously, and avoids extraneous fluff."- Eric Ries, Author & Creator of the Lean Startup methodology"Get the CustDev book to dive deep into customer interviews and understand how your product can be developed to meet your customers' needs."- Dan Martell, Founder of Flowtown, angel investorCustomer Development is a four-step framework for helping startups discover and validate their customers, product, and go-to-market strategy, developed by Steve Blank and an integral part of Eric Ries' Lean Startup methodology. Focused on the Customer Discovery step, The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development is an easy to follow guide for finding early adopters, building a Minimum Viable Product, finding Product-Market fit, and establishing a sales and marketing roadmap.Deemed a "must-read" by Steve Blank and Eric Ries, inside you will find detailed customer development and lean startup concept definitions, a step-by-step approach to best practices, a business model analysis guide, case studies, rich graphics, as well as worksheets and exercises. No matter the stage of your business, you will return often to this guide to learn how to build a product people want;"get out of the building;" foster strong customer relationships; test business model risk; reach out to early adopters; conduct startup marketing; create a customer funnel based on buyers' process; and prepare your startup to scale up.The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development: A Cheat Sheet to The Four Steps to the Epiphany, affectionately known as the "CustDev book," serves as course text for classes at Stanford University, University of Chicago, Boston University, DePaul University, University of Minnesota and University of Norway."Our UCL (University College London) students love The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development. Thanks to Brant & Patrick for writing this helpful book. "- Dave Chapman, Deputy Head of the Department of Management Science and Innovation at UCL (University College London)"Love it! Required reading for all NYU entrepreneurs."- Frank Rimalovski, Managing Director of NYU Innovation Venture FundThis book is both an introduction for those unfamiliar with lean concepts and highly actionable for lean practitioners. It is a user friendly guide, written to be accessible to marketing professionals, Engineers startup founders and entrepreneurs, VCs, angels, and anyone else involved in building scalable startups.Existing companies will benefit to from applying Customer Development principles described in detail herein: for example, startups struggling to achieve market traction, or well established companies seeking to spark new innovation.This is a business book for startups like no other. No fluff, but rather sound principles and concrete steps to take to build your business. Get up to speed on Customer Development now.

    Louis glassblowing artist and recovering computer scientist named Jim McKelvey lost a sale because he couldn't accept American Express cards. Frustrated by the high costs and difficulty of accepting credit card payments, McKelvey joined his friend Jack Dorsey (the cofounder of Twitter) to launch Square, a startup that would enable small merchants to accept credit card payments on their mobile phones. With no expertise or experience in the world of payments, they approached the problem of credit cards with a new perspective, questioning the industry's assumptions, experimenting and innovating their way through early challenges, and achieving widespread adoption from merchants small and large.But just as Square was taking off, Amazon launched a similar product, marketed it aggressively, and undercut Square on price. For most ordinary startups, this would have spelled the end. Instead, less than a year later, Amazon was in retreat and soon discontinued its service. How did Square beat the most dangerous company on the planet? Was it just luck? These questions motivated McKelvey to study what Square had done differently from all the other companies Amazon had killed. He eventually found the key: a strategy he calls the Innovation Stack.McKelvey's fascinating and humorous stories of Square's early days are blended with historical examples of other world-changing companies built on the Innovation Stack to reveal a pattern of ground-breaking, competition-proof entrepreneurship that is rare but repeatable.The Innovation Stack is a thrilling business narrative that's much bigger than the story of Square. It is an irreverent first-person look inside the world of entrepreneurship, and a call to action for all of us to find the entrepreneur within ourselves and identify and fix unsolved problems--one crazy idea at a time.

    Usually this involves doing what other people have overlooked, as well as avoiding what is unproductive.He identifies five talents as essential to effectiveness, and these can be learned; in fact, they must be learned just as scales must be mastered by every piano student regardless of his natural gifts. Intelligence, imagination and knowledge may all be wasted in an executive job without the acquired habits of mind that convert these into results. One of the talents is the management of time. Another is choosing what to contribute to the particular organization. A third is knowing where and how to apply your strength to best effect. Fourth is setting up the right priorities. And all of them must be knitted together by effective decision-making. How these can be developed forms the main body of the book. The author ranges widely through the annals of business and government to demonstrate the distinctive skill of the executive. He turns familiar experience upside down to see it in new perspective. The book is full of surprises, with its fresh insights into old and seemingly trite situations.

    Yet few companies are facing this reality. When they don?t, a lingering malaise sets in.? More than ever these days, the sales process tends to be a war about price?a frustrating, unpleasant war that takes all the fun out of selling. But there's a better way to think about sales, says bestselling author Ram Charan, who is famous for clarifying and simplifying difficult business problems. What the customer wants you to know is how his or her business works, so you can help make it work better. It sounds simple, but there's a catch: you won't be able to do that with your traditional sales approach. Instead of starting with your product or service, start with your customer's problems. Focus on becoming your customer's trusted partner, someone he can turn to for creative, cost-effective solutions that are based on your deep knowledge of his values, goals, problems, and customers. This book defines a new approach to selling?which Charan calls value creation selling?that while radical is nonetheless practical. VCS has been battle-tested in companies in a variety of industries, such as Unifi, Mead-Westvaco, and Thomson Financial. It will enable you to: ? Gain a deeper knowledge of your customer's problems ? Understand how your customer's company really makes decisions ? Help your customer improve margins and drive revenue growth ? Connect sales with other key functions such as finance and manufacturing ? Come up with new customized offerings ? Make price much less of an issue VCS gets you out of the hell of commoditization and low prices. It differentiates you from the competition, paving the way to better pricing, better margins, and higher revenue growth, built on win-win relationships that deepen over time. Someday, every company will listen more closely to the customer, and every manager will realize that sales is everyone's business, not just the sales department?s. In the meantime, this eye-opening book will show you how to get started.

    It all begins with understanding how the world sees you—at your best. How the World Sees You gives you the step-by-step method to describe yourself in just two or three words. This short phrase is your Anthem, the tagline for your personality. Your Anthem guides you like a mission statement, helping you to build your team, write a LinkedIn profile, or captivate an audience.This book includes a private code to unlock one free Fascination Advantage® online assessment. Your customized online report, based on Sally Hogshead's extensive research on what fascinates listeners, will reveal how you fascinate others, includingYour top two Fascination Advantages in communication The personality Archetypes you need on your team to optimize your success The five words to describe your personality's highest valueTo become more successful, you do not have to change who you are—you have to become more of who you are. How the World Sees You reveals who you are at your best so you can create better relationships, grow your business, and become intensely valuable to those who matter most.

    Author Mike Rohde shows you how to incorporate sketchnoting techniques into your note-taking process--regardless of your artistic abilities--to help you better process the information that you are hearing and seeing through drawing, and to actually have fun taking notes. The Sketchnote Handbook explains and illustrates practical sketchnote techniques for taking visual notes at your own pace as well as in real time during meetings and events. Rhode also addresses most people's fear of drawing by showing, step-by-step, how to quickly draw people, faces, type, and simple objects for effective and fast sketchnoting. The book looks like a peek into the author's private sketchnote journal, but it functions like a beginner's guide to sketchnoting with easy-to-follow instructions for drawing out your notes that will leave you itching to attend a meeting just so you can draw about it.

    So why do so many companies act like adrenalin junkies, chasing after new customers at the expense of creating deeper, more profitable relationships with the ones they already have? Evergreen exposes the mad pursuit for what it is: a brief spike in metrics and an ongoing revenue drain, as one-time customers fail to return. A better solution is to shift resources from attracting new customers to engaging the base--the path to stable growth, season after season. The book's entertaining stories and action steps reveal how anyone can: * Cultivate the 3Cs of evergreen companies: character, community, and content * Build loyalty programs that turn satisfied customers into enthusiastic advocates * Nurture profitable customers while pruning those who sap time and money * Inject authenticity into social media communications * Invert the expectations gap that can drive customers away From Internet startups and mom-and-pop businesses to multinational giants, strong companies are rooted in customer retention. Evergreen helps anyone merge high-tech tools with the personal touch to forge lasting bonds and steady profits.

    During flow, people typically experience deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life. Csikszentmihalyi demonstrates the ways this positive state can be controlled, not just left to chance. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience teaches how, by ordering the information that enters our consciousness, we can discover true happiness, unlock our potential, and greatly improve the quality of our lives.

    Green and Robert M. Galford to bring us the essential tool for all consultants, negotiators, and advisors.In today's fast-paced networked economy, professionals must work harder than ever to maintain and improve their business skills and knowledge. But technical mastery of one's discipline is not enough, assert world-renowned professional advisors David H. Maister, Charles H. Green, and Robert M. Galford. The key to professional success, they argue, is the ability to earn the trust and confidence of clients. To demonstrate the paramount importance of trust, the authors use anecdotes, experiences, and examples -- successes and mistakes, their own and others' -- to great effect. The result is an immensely readable book that will be welcomed by the inexperienced advisor and the most seasoned expert alike.

    It takes profound knowledge, not usually taught in business schools, to create and maintain an environment where people feel they are working with friends who share a common dream of making patients and communitites their loyal fans - a place where: Employees say, "I love to work here." Managers say, "I love the people I work with." Caregivers say, "I love our patients." Patients and families say, "We love this hospital." Loyalty is an organization's best source of long-term strategic advantage. But unlike traditional service organizations, Disney does not provide a service. Neither does your hospital. They both provide an "experience". Disney is the premier example of this newly evolved economic category, and hospitals would do well to emulate the most vital things that earn Disney the love of their guests and employees. Like his popular seminars, in these pages Fred Lee addresses the vexing reality that most of our approaches to patient satisfaction will not lead to patient loyalty. He takes aim at service excellence initiatives, quality and performance improvement efforts, and patient satisfaction surveys, dispelling some of our most cherished beliefs about loyalty and leadership. This captivating book, filled with stories and examples, will leave its readers inspired with fresh insights and energized with hope. It needs to be in every hospital manager's library and required reading in every health care leadership curriculum. If you have wondered why so much of what is done in the name of service excellence in health care has not lived up to its promise, this book is for you.

    But the prospect of sharing potentially negative news can be overwhelming. How do you construct your message so that it’s not only well received but also expressed in a way that encourages change?Whether you’re commending exemplary work or addressing problem behavior, the HBR Guide to Delivering Effective Feedback provides you with practical advice and tips to transform any performance discussion—from weekly check-ins to annual reviews—into an opportunity for growth and development. You’ll learn to:• Establish trust with your direct reports• Assess their performance fairly• Emphasize improvement, even in criticism• React calmly to a defensive feedback recipient• Recognize and motivate star performers• Create individualized development plansArm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, from a source you trust. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.

    Digital Marketing links marketing theory with practical business experience through case studies and interviews from cutting edge companies such as eBay and Facebook, to help students understand digital marketing in the real world.

    Traditionally, creating a marketing plan has been a difficult and time-consuming process, which is why it often doesn't get done. In The 1-Page Marketing Plan, serial entrepreneur and rebellious marketer Allan Dib reveals a marketing implementation breakthrough that makes creating a marketing plan simple and fast. It's literally a single page, divided up into nine squares. With it you'll be able to map out your own sophisticated marketing plan and go from zero to marketing hero. Whether you're just starting out or are an experienced entrepreneur, The 1-Page Marketing Plan is the easiest and fastest way to create a marketing plan that will propel your business growth. In this groundbreaking new book you'll discover: • How to get new customers, clients, or patients and how make more profit from existing ones. • Why “big business” style marketing could kill your business and strategies that actually work for small and medium-sized businesses. • How to close sales without being pushy, needy, or obnoxious while turning the tables and having prospects begging you to take their money. • A simple step-by-step process for creating your own personalized marketing plan that is literally one page. Simply follow along and fill in each of the nine squares that make up your own 1-Page Marketing Plan. • How to annihilate competitors and make yourself the only logical choice. • How to get amazing results on a small budget using the secrets of direct response marketing. • How to charge high prices for your products and services and have customers actually thank you for it.