Networking Is a Contact Sport: How Staying Connected and Serving Others Will Help You Grow Your Business, Expand Your Influence -- or Even Land Your Next Job


Joe Sweeney - 2010
    Networking.In this New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA TODAY bestseller, master networker Joe Sweeney shares his networking secrets from a long and successful career as a business owner, sports agent and executive and investment banking consultant. His first secret: master networkers are focused on giving, not getting.With today’s difficult economy and uncertain workplace, networking has never been more important. Sweeney’s simple but effective 5/10/15 networking plan will give you a leg up in the current job market, help you stay employed, or, if you’ve been laid off, find your next job. The cliché that who you know is more important than what you know has never been truer. Sweeney illustrates his insights with dozens of helpful examples from his own life (along with a few fascinating insider sports stories).With special sections on networking for women and minorities, insights into the usefulness (and handicaps) of social networking sites, how to get (and why you need) a wingman and profiles of other master networkers, Networking Is a Contact Sport is a practical and essential guide for anyone who wants to get ahead in today’s economy.

Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant


W. Chan Kim - 1994
    They have fought for competitive advantage, battled over market share, and struggled for differentiation. Yet, as this influential and immensely popular book shows, these hallmarks of competitive strategy are not the way to create profitable growth in the future.In the international bestseller Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne argue that cutthroat competition results in nothing but a bloody red ocean of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool. Based on a study of 150 strategic moves (spanning more than 100 years across 30 industries), the authors argue that lasting success comes not from battling competitors, but from creating "blue oceans"—untapped new market spaces ripe for growth. Such strategic moves, which the authors call “value innovation,” create powerful leaps in value that often render rivals obsolete for more than a decade.Blue Ocean Strategy presents a systematic approach to making the competition irrelevant and outlines principles and tools any company can use to create and capture their own blue oceans. A landmark work that upends traditional thinking about strategy, this bestselling business book charts a bold new path to winning the future.

Damn Good Advice (For People with Talent!): How To Unleash Your Creative Potential by America's Master Communicator, George Lois


George Lois - 2012
    Offering indispensle lessons, practical advice, facts, anecdotes and inspiration, this book is a timeless creative bible for all those looking to succeed in life, business and creativity. These are key lessons derived from the incomparle life of 'Master Communicator' George Lois, the original Mad Man of Madison Avenue. Written and compiled by the man The Wall Street Journal called "prodigy, enfant terrible, founder of agencies, creator of legends," each step is borne from a passion to succeed and a disdain for the status quo.Organised into inspirational, bite-sized pointers, each page offers fresh insight into the sources of success, from identifying your heroes to identifying yourself. The ideas, images and illustrations presented in this book are fresh, witty and in-your-face. Whether it's communicating your point in nanosecond, creating an explosive portfolio or making your presence felt, no one is better placed than George Lois to teach you the process of creativity.Poignant, punchy and to-the-point, Damn Good Advice (For People With Talent!) is a must have for anyone on a quest for success.

Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd


Youngme Moon - 2010
    Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods is one example. Richard Feynman’s “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” is another. Now comes Youngme Moon’s Different, a book for “people who don’t read business books.” Actually, it’s more like a personal conversation with a friend who has thought deeply about how the world works … and who gets you to see that world in a completely new light.  If there is one strain of conventional wisdom pervading every company in every industry, it’s the absolute importance of “competing like crazy.” Youngme Moon’s message is simply “Get off this treadmill that’s taking you nowhere. Going tit for tat and adding features, augmentations, and gimmicks to beat the competition has the perverse result of making you like everyone else.” Different provides a highly original perspective on what it means to offer something that is meaningfully different—different in a manner that is both fundamental and comprehensive.  Youngme Moon identifies the outliers, the mavericks, the iconoclasts—the players who have thoughtfully rejected orthodoxy in favor of an approach that is more adventurous. Some are even “hostile,” almost daring you to buy what they are selling. The MINI Cooper was launched with fearless abandon: “Worried that this car is too small? Look here. It’s even smaller than you think.”  These are players that strike a genuine chord with even the most jaded consumers. In fact, almost every success story of the past two decades has been an exception to the rule. Simply go to your computer and compare AOL and Yahoo! with Google. The former pile on feature upon feature to their home pages, while Google is like an austere boutique, dominating a category filled with “extras.” Different shows how to succeed in a world where conformity reigns…but exceptions rule.

Etsy Empire: Proven Tactics for Your Etsy Business Success, Including Etsy SEO, Etsy Shop Building, Social Media for Etsy and Etsy Pricing Tips


Eric Michael - 2014
    Etsy Empire is the first book to provide instruction on all aspects of building a successful Etsy business selling crafts and vintage collectibles.Complete primers on internet selling often cost in excess of $50. After all, why would a successful Etsy shop owner give other competitors instructions on exactly how to build the most profitable shop in their own niches? They wouldn't, right?Well, I was a successful Etsy seller for years, but I moved on to providing help for aspiring online business owners, so I have no reservations about telling you exactly how to sell more items on Etsy and build an Etsy shop that will provide you consistent paychecks and grow over time. Etsy Empire offers a unique combination of the most important Etsy tips for building your business:1. Build your brand. This is the most important task for Etsy sellers.2. Determine demand for your potential business for free.3. Learn how to double or triple traffic to your shop and sales items with Etsy SEO and Google SEO4. Use Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter to sell more items and engage your shop's fans - Social Media for Etsy5. Learn how to sell crafts and vintage collectibles on Etsy6. Etsy tips for packaging and shipping7. Learn valuable tips for improving Etsy photography and how to make your item descriptions convert into sales8. Etsy 101 - learn how to start your business from scratch and build into a successful online business9. Learn how to network with other successful Etsy shop owners10. How to design a great Etsy shop - create a professional shop banner, shop name and avatar

Traction


Gino Wickman - 2007
    Get a grip and gain control with the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS). Inside Traction, you’ll discover simple yet powerful ways to run your company with more focus, growth and enjoyment. Based on years of real-world implementation, the EOS is a practical method for achieving the business success you have always envisioned.

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die


Chip Heath - 2006
    Meanwhile, people with important ideas--entrepreneurs, teachers, politicians, and journalists--struggle to make them "stick."In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickier, such as applying the human scale principle, using the Velcro Theory of Memory, and creating curiosity gaps. Along the way, we discover that sticky messages of all kinds--from the infamous "kidney theft ring" hoax to a coach's lessons on sportsmanship to a vision for a new product at Sony--draw their power from the same six traits.Made to Stick will transform the way you communicate. It's a fast-paced tour of success stories (and failures): the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who drank a glass of bacteria to prove a point about stomach ulcers; the charities who make use of the Mother Teresa Effect; the elementary-school teacher whose simulation actually prevented racial prejudice.Provocative, eye-opening, and often surprisingly funny, Made to Stick shows us the vital principles of winning ideas--and tells us how we can apply these rules to making our own messages stick.

9 Heads: A Guide to Drawing Fashion


Nancy Riegelman - 2000
    This new edition of "9 Heads" is the re-statement of the author's approach to the subject of black and white drawings, incorporating the most developed thinking and views, both in terms of what the end product should look like, and how best to achieve it. "9 Heads" also presents a different style of finished drawing, one where figures are usually more fleshed-out and where garment fabrics are more rendered than in the drawings of the previous edition. This edition has been extended in scope as that together with "Colors for Modern Fashion" the two books constitute all the elements of modern fashion drawing from Beginners through to Advanced. In-depth treatment in men's fashion. More serious treatment of children's fashion. Completely revised and expanded chapter on drawing clothing on the figure. New chapter on fabrics shows how to make drawings so the fabrics can be identified from the drawing. New appendix with hundreds of flats of modern garments. Quality of the drawing is far higher than the other books on the market. Ideal for those who have no previous formal training in drawing and who have a need to learn the basics of fashion drawing quickly.

The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at a Moment's Notice


Todd Henry - 2011
     It isn't enough to just do your job anymore. In order to thrive in today's marketplace, all of us-even the accountants-have to be ready to generate brilliant ideas on demand. Business creativity expert Todd Henry explains how to establish effective practices that unleash your creative potential. Born out of his consultancy and his popular podcast, Henry has created a practical method for discovering your personal creative rhythm. He focuses on five key elements: *Focus: Begin with your end goal in mind. *Relationships: Build stimulating relationships and ideas will follow. *Energy: Manage it as your most valuable resource. *Stimuli: Structure the right "inputs" to maximize creative output. *Hours: Focus on effectiveness, not efficiency. This is a guide for staying inspired and experiencing greater creative productivity than you ever imagined possible.

I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time


Laura Vanderkam - 2015
    Now the acclaimed author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast shows how real working women with families are actually making the most of their time.“Having it all” has become the subject of countless books, articles, debates, and social media commentary, with emotions running high in all directions. Many now believe this to be gospel truth: Any woman who wants to advance in a challenging career has to make huge sacrifices. She’s unlikely to have a happy marriage, quality time with her kids (assuming she can have kids at all), a social life, hobbies, or even a decent night’s sleep--but what if balancing work and family is actually not as hard as it’s made out to be? What if all those tragic anecdotes ignore the women who quietly but consistently do just fine with the juggle?Instead of relying on scattered stories, time management expert Laura Vanderkam set out to add hard data to the debate. She collected hour-by-hour time logs from 1,001 days in the lives of women who make at least $100,000 a year, and she found some surprising patterns in how these women spend the 168 hours that every one of us has each week. Overall, these women worked less and slept more than they assumed they did before they started tracking their time. They went jogging or to the gym, played with their children, scheduled date nights with their significant others, and had lunches with friends. They made time for the things that gave them pleasure and meaning, fitting the pieces together like tiles in a mosaic—without adhering to overly rigid schedules that would eliminate flexibility and spontaneity. With examples from hundreds of real women, I Know How She Does It proves that women don’t have to give up the things they really want.

How Cool Brands Stay Hot: Branding to Generation Y


Joeri Van Den Bergh - 2011
    Three times the size of Generation X, they have a much bigger impact on society and business. In How Cool Brands Stay Hot, Joeri Van den Bergh and Mattias Behrer address what drives Generation Y as consumers and how marketers can develop the right brand strategies to reach this generation of 16-33 year olds.The authors' insights on what drives the consumer preferences of this new "Dot-com" generation are based on interviews with 5,000 Generation Y consumers. This new research provides understanding of the consumer psychology and behavior of the generation also known as the "Millennials." It helps marketers connect with the new generation of consumers by understanding their likes and dislikes, and guides them on advertising, marketing, and branding relevant to them.How Cool Brands Stay Hot contains guidance and checklists for marketing plans and campaigns, as well as case studies of Nokia, Nivea, PlayStation, Coca Cola, Volkswagen, Smirnoff, Red Bull, H&M, and Levi's. It offers creative and effective ideas on how to position, develop and promote brands to one of the largest and most influential generations of consumers today.Visit the website at http://www.howcoolbrandsstayhot.com/

Pinterest Power: Market Your Business, Sell Your Product, and Build Your Brand on the World's Hottest Social Network


Jason Miles - 2012
    This quick start guide gets business professionals up and running on Pinterest then shows how to leverage the power of Pinterest to reach more customers and make more sales.

Creative Quest


Ahmir Questlove Thompson - 2018
    He addresses many topics—what it means to be creative, how to find a mentor and serve as an apprentice, the wisdom of maintaining a creative network, coping with critics and the foibles of success, and the specific pitfalls of contemporary culture—all in the service of guiding admirers who have followed his career and newcomers not yet acquainted with his story. Whether discussing his own life or channeling the lessons he’s learned from forefathers such as George Clinton, collaborators like D’Angelo, or like-minded artists including Ava DuVernay, David Byrne, Björk, and others, Questlove speaks with the candor and enthusiasm that fans have come to expect. Creative Quest is many things—above all, a wise and wide-ranging conversation around the eternal mystery of creativity.

Where Good Ideas Come from: The Natural History of Innovation


Steven Johnson - 2010
    But where do they come from? What kind of environment breeds them? What sparks the flash of brilliance? How do we generate the breakthrough technologies that push forward our lives, our society, our culture? Steven Johnson's answers are revelatory as he identifies the seven key patterns behind genuine innovation, and traces them across time and disciplines. From Darwin and Freud to the halls of Google and Apple, Johnson investigates the innovation hubs throughout modern time and pulls out the approaches and commonalities that seem to appear at moments of originality.

Getting Everything You Can Out of All You've Got: 21 Ways You Can Out-Think, Out-Perform, and Out-Earn the Competition


Jay Abraham - 2000
    Using clear examples from his own experience, Jay explains just how easy it can be to find and/or create new opportunities for wealth-building in any existing business, enterprise, or venture.And just how easy can it be? One entrepreneur took the concept of the ballpoint pen and refined it into a mulimillion-dollar idea: roll-on deodorant. Fred Smith of Federal Express took the methods that banks use for clearing checks to develop an overnight delivery company that has revolutionized the way we do business. Now, what have you seen-- or are going to see-- that you could take and turn to your advantage?In Getting Everything You Can Out of All You've Got: 21 Ways You Can Out-Think, Out-Perform, and Out-Earn the Competition, the program focuses on helping you spot the hidden assets, overlooked opportunities, and untapped resources around you, and gives you, and gives you fresh eyes with which to see and capitalize on them. You'll also learn how to adapt and apply these tools to your unique circumstances to maximize your income, influence, power, and success.