Over one hundred stories drawn from the front lines of business and government, as well as myths, fables, and parables from around the world, illustrate how story can be used to persuade, motivate, and inspire in ways that cold facts, bullet points, and directives can’t. These stories, combined with practical storytelling techniques show anyone how to become a more effective communicator. From “who I am” to “I-know-what-you’re thinking,” Simmons identifies the six stories you need to know how to tell and demonstrates how they can be applied. This revised edition offers a guide to using storytelling in specific business circumstances, including corporate reorganizations, layoffs, and diversity issues.

    Approaching persuasive design from the dark side, this book melds psychology, marketing, and design concepts to show why we're susceptible to certain persuasive techniques. Packed with examples from every nook and cranny of the web, it provides easily digestible and applicable patterns for putting these design techniques to work. Organized by the seven deadly sins, it includes:Pride -- use social proof to position your product in line with your visitors' values Sloth -- build a path of least resistance that leads users where you want them to go Gluttony -- escalate customers' commitment and use loss aversion to keep them there Anger -- understand the power of metaphysical arguments and anonymity Envy -- create a culture of status around your product and feed aspirational desires Lust -- turn desire into commitment by using emotion to defeat rational behavior Greed -- keep customers engaged by reinforcing the behaviors you desire Now you too can leverage human fallibility to create powerful persuasive interfaces that people will love to use -- but will you use your new knowledge for good or evil? Learn more on the companion website, evilbydesign.info.

    This practical book demonstrates how entire organizations—from product managers and engineers to marketers and executives—can put Agile to work. Author Matt LeMay explains Agile in clear, jargon-free terms and provides concrete and actionable steps to help any team put its values and principles into practice. Examples from a wide variety of organizations, including small nonprofits and global financial enterprises, bring to life the on-the-ground realities of Agile across industries and functions. Understand exactly what Agile is and why it matters Use Agile to address your organization’s specific needs and goals Take customer centricity from theory into practice Stop wasting time in "report and critique" meetings and start making better decisions Create a harmonious cycle of learning, collaborating, and delivering Learn from Agile experts at companies like IBM, Spotify, and Coca-Cola

    Inside you will find: - an explanation of book promotion strategies that can take only 5 minutes a day to perform - a list of "to do" items that are recommended to be completed before you start the 5-minute marketing plan - a 90-day marketing plan for your book that only takes 5 minutes a day to complete, and - a customizable Word template so that you can create your own 90-day, 5-minute marketing plan! Scroll up to download your copy today and sell more books in just 5 minutes a day!

    Explains all the ?nuts and bolts? of r?sum? creation and illustrates professional techniques with actual examples that show why the techniques work.

    Three dots to represent Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. Three arrows to show direct flights. Problem solved, and the picture made it easy to sell Southwest Airlines to investors and customers. Used properly, a simple drawing on a humble napkin is more powerful than Excel or PowerPoint. It can help crystallize ideas, think outside the box, and communicate in a way that people simply “get”. In this book Dan Roam argues that everyone is born with a talent for visual thinking, even those who swear they can’t draw. Drawing on twenty years of visual problem solving combined with the recent discoveries of vision science, this book shows anyone how to clarify a problem or sell an idea by visually breaking it down using a simple set of visual thinking tools – tools that take advantage of everyone’s innate ability to look, see, imagine, and show. THE BACK OF THE NAPKIN proves that thinking with pictures can help anyone discover and develop new ideas, solve problems in unexpected ways, and dramatically improve their ability to share their insights. This book will help readers literally see the world in a new way.

    Now she reveals the winning framework she uses to transform markets and industries.Get to Aha! shows how to establish the kind of foundation world-class brands are built on. Too many business leaders fail to ask the most basic questions about their company--Who are we? And why do we matter?--before they leap right into branding. Big mistake. A company must first know itself (establish its position) before it can express its identity (execute its branding).There are three types of companies in the world, each with its own DNA: Mothers are customer-oriented, Mechanics are product-oriented, and Missionaries are concept-oriented―and it's absolutely critical for business leaders to know which type their company is to create an authentic and ultimately "sticky" position in the market. A company's DNA is the key to achieving this and with it, a competitive advantage. Why? Because if a Mechanic creates a marketing campaign based on its belief that it is a Missionary, the underlying positioning will not ring true and the company won't gain a foothold in the market. But if a company positions itself in alignment with its DNA, it will resonate authentically and establish its role and relevance even in the face of a major competitor.Get to Aha! presents a clear step-by-step framework that will help you determine your company's precise position in the marketing landscape, using Andy's DNA-based methodology. It takes you through the process of performing "genetic testing" on your company, examining the market through the six Cs of positioning, and developing your positioning statement--a rational, factual statement about your company's role and relevance. Then and only then can you create a branding and marketing strategy that will build market momentum and crush the competition.Trust Andy. Steve Jobs did.

    This in-depth Bible delivers the holy grail of online marketing: how to influence search engine results to drive online shoppers to specific Web sites; the process is called search engine optimization (SEO) and it is a hot topic One-stop resource offers readers what they need to plan and implement a successful SEO program, including useful tips on finding the shortest routes to success, strategy suggestions, and sidebars with more information and additional resources Features interviews with executives from top search companies, plus appendices on creating successful listings with Google, MSN, Yahoo!, and others Topics include creating an SEO plan; managing keywords; maximizing pay-per-click strategies; understanding the role of links and linking; robots, spiders, and crawlers; maintaining SEO; analyzing success rates; and much more

    From confusing manuals to uninterpretable jargon to bureaucratic red-tape, modern life can be highly complicated and frustrating. For many of us it is almost impossible to make sense of. In Simplicity, lateral-thinking guru Edward de Bono shows us how to bring simplicity into our increasingly complicated lives. Through his ten rules of simplicity, he encourages us to be creative and break down the complex into manageable and recognisable parts. By making the complicated simple, you will free up time, reduce stress and make better decisions. 'An inspiring man with brilliant ideas. De Bono never ceases to amaze with his clarity of thought' Sir Richard Branson Edward de Bono invented the concept of lateral thinking. A world-renowned writer and philosopher, he is the leading authority in the field of creative thinking and the direct teaching of thinking as a skill. Dr de Bono has written more than 60 books, in 40 languages, with people now teaching his methods worldwide. He has chaired a special summit of Nobel Prize laureates, and been hailed as one of the 250 people who have contributed most to mankind. Dr de Bono's titles include classic bestsellers such as Six Thinking Hats, Lateral Thinking, I Am Right You Are Wrong, Teach Yourself How To Think, Teach Your Child How To Think, and Simplicity. www.edwdebono.com

    Select a topic for entirely strategic reasons. Choose the coolest supervisor. Write only to deadlines. Expect people to hold your hand. Become “that” student. When it comes to a masters or PhD program, most graduate students don’t deliberately set out to  fail. Yet, of the nearly 500,000 people who start a graduate program each year, up to half will never complete their degree. Books abound on acing the admissions process, but there is little on what to do once the acceptance letter arrives. Veteran graduate directors Kevin D. Haggerty and Aaron Doyle have set out to demystify the world of advanced education. Taking a wry, frank approach, they explain the common mistakes that can trip up a new graduate student and lay out practical advice about how to avoid the pitfalls. Along the way they relate stories from their decades of mentorship and even share some slip-ups from their own grad experiences. The litany of foul-ups is organized by theme and covers the grad school experience from beginning to end: selecting the university and program, interacting with advisors and fellow students, balancing personal and scholarly lives, navigating a thesis, and creating a life after academia. Although the tone is engagingly tongue-in-cheek, the lessons are crucial to anyone attending or contemplating grad school. 57 Ways to Screw Up in Grad School allows you to learn from others’ mistakes rather than making them yourself.

    It’s tough to plan for growth (in client volume and revenue) when current income is too unstable to even consider anything beyond the here and now. This book dives deep on making freelancing more stable, beating "treading water" cycles, repelling 'bad apple' clients, multiplying online exposure and follows the journey of Liam, with honest, clear advice and guidance from laptop and rented desk to $1m web agency. Achieve the freedom you're looking forA perennial business builder who 'finally got something to work', Liam Veitch has many strings to his bow along with many failures to learn from. Web designer and now founder at UK based web agency Tone (tone.co.uk) as well as freelancer community Freelancelift (freelancelift.com) this book comprises everything he wished he knew first time around. In his own words, he did freelancing 'right this time' and this book comes from a realisation that in the three years which passed - this second time round as a freelancer - the business has generated over $1.1M. This debut, feature length book lays out the key mindset fixes which made this possible. Who's it for?This book exists to help freelancers earn more this month than they did last month, by leveraging big-business thinking and creating a state of constant evolutionary improvement. "My intention is to describe my experiences and provide inspiration and practical advice for putting them to work in your business. These experiences have led to an enormous amount of financial freedom and professional predictability for me...something I could only dream about before." What's inside?226 pages of honest, actionable advice to help you build something incredible from your tiny freelance business. - Make freelancing more stable- Beat "treading water" cycles- Repel 'bad apple' clients- Multiply online exposure- Build income predictability- Have dream clients find you- Leverage recurring revenue- Work less while earning moreLet's do thisThe purpose of this book is not to show you how to build an agency, nor is it to improve the actual service you're providing (I'm making the assumption this is already the best it can be). This book is here to help give a fresh perspective in a space dominated by mediocrity. Your time is now. As a one-person business, it’s easy to think that you’re somehow exempt from that word… ‘business’. I’m here to tell you this is what keeps most freelancers thinking like, well, freelancers. Screw that! This book serves to lay out everything I wish I'd have known first time around. It's been exhausting, a blast, and I can't wait to show you what I came up with.

    But how can you be the person who comes up with those ideas? In this revised and expanded edition of his groundbreaking Thinkertoys, creativity expert Michael Michalko reveals life-changing tools that will help you think like a genius. From the linear to the intuitive, this comprehensive handbook details ingenious creative-thinking techniques for approaching problems in unconventional ways. Through fun and thought-provoking exercises, you’ll learn how to create original ideas that will improve your personal life and your business life. Michalko’s techniques show you how to look at the same information as everyone else and see something different.  With hundreds of hints, tricks, tips, tales, and puzzles, Thinkertoys will open your mind to a world of innovative solutions to everyday and not-so-everyday problems.

    At under 200 pages it's quick reading too. Makes a great airplane book.

    A memorable slogan has been the cornerstone of every great ad campaign. In the past, writing one great headline could launch a career. But today's advertising campaigns are interactive, multi-platform and ongoing, and the copywriter's canvas is vast. At any given time, a copywriter may be conceiving a video game, writing a TV show, maintaining a Twitter feed, creating a mobile app or an interactive installation or, yes, writing a headline or a TV script. While the best copywriters have always been brand storytellers, now that story can play out anywhere. The digital revolution put control in the hands of the people - the audience - now no longer just consumers, but active participants in a brand's story. The art and science of advertising has gone from creating one-way messages to engaging audiences in ongoing conversations. A new ad landscape means new opportunities for writers who now have the incredible opportunity to push brand narrative to places it's never been before and to actually create something so useful or entertaining that it generates its own audience. It also means that many of the rules of the past - while exceedingly worthy of study - are insufficient to guide the modern copywriter. Co-published with AdvertisingAge, The Idea Writers outlines the changing landscape of the advertising industry while providing useful how-to advice. Filled with interviews from top creatives including: Greg Hahn, Nick Law, Jeff Benjamin, Tim Delaney, Rei Inamoto, Lee Clow, Steve Simpson, Rick Condos, David Droga, Gerry Graf, Ty Montague, Calle and Pelle Sjonell, PJ Pereira, David Abbott and many more!

    Everything you need to know to get the most bang from your Prime bucks.