A fascinating new take on the concept of collective intelligence and its colorful manifestations in some of our most complex problems, "The Smart Swarm" introduces a compelling new understanding of the real experts on solving our own complex problems relating to such topics as business, politics, and technology. Based on extensive globe-trotting research, this lively tour from "National Geographic" reporter Peter Miller introduces thriving throngs of ant colonies, which have inspired computer programs for streamlining factory processes, telephone networks, and truck routes; termites, used in recent studies for climate-control solutions; schools of fish, on which the U.S. military modeled a team of robots; and many other examples of the wisdom to be gleaned about the behavior of crowds-among critters and corporations alike. In the tradition of James Surowiecki's "The Wisdom of Crowds" and the innovative works of Malcolm Gladwell, "The Smart Swarm" is an entertaining yet enlightening look at small-scale phenomena with big implications for us all.

    With an objective approach and clear, straightforward language, Dan Zarrella, aka "The Social Media & Marketing Scientist," shows you how to plan and implement campaigns intelligently, and then measure results and track return on investment. Whether you're a seasoned pro or new to the social web, this book will take you beyond the jargon to social media marketing mastery.Make sense of this complicated environment with the help of screenshots, graphs, and visual explanationsUnderstand the history and culture of each social media type, including features, functionality, and protocolsGet clear-cut explanations of the methods you need to trigger viral marketing successesChoose the technologies and marketing tactics most relevant to your campaign goalsLearn how to set specific goals for your campaigns and evaluate them according to key performance indicators Praise for The Social Media Marketing Book: "Let Zarrella take you to social-media marketing school. You'll learn more from reading this book than a month of research on the Internet." --Guy Kawasaki, co-founder of Alltop.com "If I could be any other person for a day, it would be Dan Zarella. Either him or Brad Pitt. But Dan's smarter. This book is why I say that." --Chris Brogan, President of New Marketing Labs "This book demonstrates a beginning to the endless possibilities of the Social Web." -- Brian Solis, publisher of leading marketing blog PR 2.0

    The stunning rise, fall, and rescue of Wall Street in the bubble-and-bailout era was the coming-out party for the network of looters who sit at the nexus of American political and economic power. The grifter class—made up of the largest players in the financial industry and the politicians who do their bidding—has been growing in power for a generation, transferring wealth upward through increasingly complex financial mechanisms and political maneuvers. The crisis was only one terrifying manifestation of how they’ve hijacked America’s political and economic life.Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi here unravels the whole fiendish story, digging beyond the headlines to get into the deeper roots and wider implications of the rise of the grifters. He traces the movement’s origins to the cult of Ayn Rand and her most influential—and possibly weirdest—acolyte, Alan Greenspan, and offers fresh reporting on the backroom deals that decided the winners and losers in the government bailouts. He uncovers the hidden commodities bubble that transferred billions of dollars to Wall Street while creating food shortages around the world, and he shows how finance dominates politics, from the story of investment bankers auctioning off America’s infrastructure to an inside account of the high-stakes battle for health-care reform—a battle the true reformers lost. Finally, he tells the story of Goldman Sachs, the “vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.” Taibbi has combined deep sources, trailblazing reportage, and provocative analysis to create the most lucid, emotionally galvanizing, and scathingly funny account yet written of the ongoing political and financial crisis in America. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the labyrinthine inner workings of politics and finance in this country, and the profound consequences for us all.

    Hartmut explains innovation through the lens of design, and it's about time we gained his valuable perspective." --Guy Kawasaki, former chief evangelist, Apple and co-founder of Alltop.com"At Flextronics, we fell in love with Hartmut and frog, and their passion for bringing crazy great designs and design processes into the forefront of great product companies. We used their expertise to help our customers, many of the greatest product companies in the world, including Apple, HP, Cisco, Microsoft and others. It is a credit to Hartmut that in the midst of a shocking global recession, frog still sets quarterly revenue records. Theirs is a unique and fascinating story." --Michael Marks, partner, Riverwood Capital LLC and former CEO, Flextronics"Hartmut's new approach to design is felt in every room in every house in every country and in every business around the world. He proved that thoughtful design is not only good for people but is good for business--and that both are interlinked. I have been fortunate to have observed first hand his impact at Sony, Apple, and HP?and have learned so much from him. He is an unsung hero of our times! A Fine Line is a must-read for designers and business people alike." --Satjiv Chahil, senior vice president, Hewlett-Packard"A fascinating, breathtaking, and exemplary insight into a success story that never had so much topicality, and so much informative potential as just now. Esslinger offers an honest and encouraging portrait of the incredible power of the business and design alliance. A Fine Line is a handbook of design expertise and the art of business at its best, showing a variety of radical solutions and fresh new ideas." --Professor Dr Peter Zec, president, ICSID and founder, red dot awards

    And that’s exactly the point. For the past 4 years, marketing expert and Georgetown University Professor Rohit Bhargava has curated his best-selling list of “non-obvious” trends by asking the questions that most trend predictors miss. It’s why his insights on future trends and the art of curating trends have been utilized by dozens of the biggest brands and organizations in the world like Intel, Under Armour and the World Bank. In this all-new fifth edition, discover what more than half a million others already have: how to use the power of non-obvious thinking to grow your business and make a bigger impact in the world. Non-Obvious is filled with entertaining insights like how a pioneering comedy club charging audiences per laugh may forecast the future of consumption or how a wave of tech firms hiring yogis and offering classes in mindfulness may change the overall culture of business.Other trends featured in the report include:• The Reluctant Marketer - Why brands are focusing less on traditional marketing and promotion and more on content marketing and customer experience. • Glanceable Content - How companies are leveraging our shrinking attention span to create experiences designed for rapid consumption.• Small Data - How all the excitement about “big data” in business may be misguided and true value comes from learning to leverage the tiny focal points that matter. In total, Non-Obvious features 15 all-new trends for 2015 across 5 categories including Culture & Consumer Behavior, Marketing & Social Media, Media & Education, Technology & Design plus Economics & Entrepreneurship. Each is designed to help you take a deeper look at the changing landscape of business and prepare your business for the future.For the first time ever, Non-Obvious also delves into the curation process the author has used for years to build his Trend Reports and takes readers behind the scenes of “trend curation” (much to the delight of past readers who have been asking about this for years), and show them the methodology they can use to predict the future for themselves. Finally, Non-Obvious takes a brutally honest look back at more than 60 previous trends from 2011 to 2014, providing an honest assessment of what came true, what was a dud, and why it matters. In the end Non-Obvious is a book that will show you how to think different, curate your ideas and get better at predicting what will be important tomorrow based on learning to better observe patterns in the world today. Isaac Asimov once wrote that he was not a speed reader, but he was a “speed understander.” If you want to improve your business or your career by seeing those things that others miss, and becoming a speed understander for yourself, this book can help you get there.

    Rejecting manipulative tactics and emphasizing "process," Strategic Selling presented the idea of selling as a joint venture and introduced the decade's most influential concept, Win-Win. The response to Win-Win was immediate and helped turn the small company that created Strategic Selling, Miller Heiman, into a global leader in sales development with the most prestigious client list in the industry. The New Strategic Selling This modern edition of the business classic confronts the rapidly evolving world of business-to-business sales with new real-world examples, new strategies for confronting competition, and a special section featuring the most commonly asked questions from the Miller Heiman workshops. Learn: * How to identify the four real decision makers in every corporate labyrinth * How to prevent sabotage by an internal deal-killer * How to make a senior executive eager to see you * How to avoid closing business that you'll later regret * How to manage a territory to provide steady, not "boom and bust," revenue * How to avoid the single most common error when dealing with the competition.

    It's the kind of book you don't read once, you go back to it on a regular basis. » - Carmen Gerea, CEO & Co-founder, UsabilityChefsLean B2B helps entrepreneurs and innovators quickly find traction in the enterprise.Used by thousands around the world and packed with more than 20 case studies, Lean B2B consolidates the best thinking around Business- to-Business (B2B) customer development to help entrepreneurs and innovators focus on the right things each step of the way, leaving as little as possible to luck.The book helps:• Assess the market potential of opportunities to find the right opportunity for your team• Find early adopters, quickly establish credibility and convince business stakeholders to work with you• Find and prioritize business problems in corporations and identify the stakeholders with the power to influence a purchase decision• Create a minimum viable product and a compelling offer, validate a solution and evaluate whether your team has found product-market fit• Identify and avoid common challenges faced by entrepreneurs and learn ninja techniques to speed up product-market validation« The book will pay itself off in the first couple of pages! » - Ben Sardella, Co-Founder, Datanyze« Treat this book like a map to show you where you are and a compass to show you the direction. I wish I could have read it 2 or 3 years ago. » – Jonathan Gebauer, Founder, exploreB2B« Lean B2B is filled with rock-solid advice for technology entrepreneurs who want a rapid-growth trajectory. Read it to increase your certainty and your success rate. » - Jill Konrath, Author of AGILE SELLING and Selling to Big Companies« Probably the most slept on book in the Lean startup market right now.... There is no sugarcoating here. Garbugli tells you exactly what needs to happen and how to make it happen... literally holds your hand and spells it out. I was really impressed with the overall depth and advice presented. » - AJ, B2B Entrepreneur« The book I read of which I have learned the most. » - Etienne Thouin, Founder and CTO, SQLNext Software« This book is essential reading for would-be entrepreneurs who face the daunting task of entering B2B markets. » – Paul Gillin, Co-Author, Social Marketing to the Business Customer

    Yet, for the digital natives soon to enter the workforce, the technologies and principles behind crowdsourcing are perfectly intuitive. This generation collaborates, shares, remixes, and creates with a fluency and ease the rest of us can hardly understand. Crowdsourcing, just now starting to emerge, will in a short time simply be the way things are done.

    The world has changed. Have you? If you dont have the package that will take you to the next level of your career, you need to reinvent your personal brand.

    In it, self-made multimillionaire and bestselling author Masterson shares the knowledge he has gained from creating and expanding numerous businesses and outlines a focused strategy for guiding a small business through the four stages of entrepreneurial growth. Along the way, Masterson teaches you the different skills needed in order to excel in this dynamic environment.

    Doctors are highly-educated and extensively trained at making difficult diagnoses and performing life saving procedures. However, they receive little to no training in business, personal finance, investing, insurance, taxes, estate planning, and asset protection.      This book fills in the gaps and will teach you to use your high income to escape from your student loans, provide for your family, build wealth, and stop getting ripped off by unscrupulous financial professionals. Straight talk and clear explanations allow the book to be easily digested by a novice to the subject matter yet the book also contains advanced concepts specific to physicians you won’t find in other financial books. This book will teach you how to: Graduate from medical school with as little debt as possible Escape from student loans within two to five years of residency graduation Purchase the right types and amounts of insurance Decide when to buy a house and how much to spend on it Learn to invest in a sensible, low-cost and effective manner with or without the assistance of an advisor Avoid investments which are designed to be sold, not bought Select advisors who give great service and advice at a fair price Become a millionaire within five to ten years of residency graduation Use a “Backdoor Roth IRA” and “Stealth IRA” to boost your retirement funds and decrease your taxes Protect your hard-won assets from professional and personal lawsuits Avoid estate taxes, avoid probate, and ensure your children and your money go where you want when you die Minimize your tax burden, keeping more of your hard-earned money Decide between an employee job and an independent contractor job Choose between sole proprietorship, Limited Liability Company, S Corporation, and C Corporation Take a look at the first pages of the book by clicking on the Look Inside feature Praise For The White Coat Investor “Much of my financial planning practice is helping doctors to correct mistakes that reading this book would have avoided in the first place.” – Allan S. Roth, MBA, CPA, CFP®, Author of How a Second Grader Beats Wall Street “Jim Dahle has done a lot of thinking about the peculiar financial problems facing physicians, and you, lucky reader, are about to reap the bounty of both his experience and his research.” – William J. Bernstein, MD, Author of The Investor’s Manifesto and seven other investing books “This book should be in every career counselor’s office and delivered with every medical degree.

     The co-founder of three multi-million dollar start-ups, Oliver Luckett is frequently asked to speak on social media's impact. But how, he used to wonder, could he best describe the interactions of millions of users, a complicated system of human connections? One day, while hiking through Joshua Tree National Park, Luckett had a flashback to his days as a microbiology lab rat--and an epiphany: Social media is an organism, a living, breathing, evolving creature. Luckett and Casey deliver a revolutionary theory of social networks, showing--to an astonishing degree--how they mimic biological life. By examining cells, viruses, and other microbiological functions, we can master social media in both business and in life.

    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.

    With a skilled analysis of how experts in the fields of marketing, advertising, retail atmospherics, and hand-selling attempt to take away our ability to make rational decisions, Rushkoff delivers a bracing account of media ecology today, consumerism in America, and why we buy what we buy, helping us recognize when we're being treated like consumers instead of human beings.

    It combines an extraordinary personal history of "direct marketing" with a remarkably candid look at the field's most acclaimed practitioner. Written in an easy-going and deliberately persuasive style obviously honed during Wunderman's six decades in the trenches, the book shows his skill developing and gaining acceptance as he creates revolutionary advertising programs for future corporate stalwarts like the Columbia Record Club and American Express.