Quincy Jones, Diane Keaton, Gloria Steinem, Julia Roberts, John Cleese and David Bowie are just a few of his celebrity alumni. Writers, producers, development executives and agents all flock to his lecture series, praising it as a mesmerizing and intense learning experience. In Story, McKee expands on the concepts he teaches in his $450 seminars (considered a must by industry insiders), providing readers with the most comprehensive, integrated explanation of the craft of writing for the screen. No one better understands how all the elements of a screenplay fit together, and no one is better qualified to explain the "magic" of story construction and the relationship between structure and character than Robert McKee.

    - Quick, easy approach and a wealth of case studies give readers a crash course in the difference between good and bad branding. - Tons of tips and real-world advice plus a new branding dictionary help readers turn brand strategy into brand design and execution.

    Creativity, Inc. is a book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights, a manual for anyone who strives for originality, and the first-ever, all-access trip into the nerve center of Pixar Animation—into the meetings, postmortems, and “Braintrust” sessions where some of the most successful films in history are made. It is, at heart, a book about how to build a creative culture—but it is also, as Pixar co-founder and president Ed Catmull writes, “an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible.” For nearly twenty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner thirty Academy Awards. The joyousness of the storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, in this book, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable.   As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah, where many computer science pioneers got their start, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the thirteen movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as:   • Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team, and they will either fix it or come up with something better. • If you don’t strive to uncover what is unseen and understand its nature, you will be ill prepared to lead. • It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them. • The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them. • A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody. • Do not assume that general agreement will lead to change—it takes substantial energy to move a group, even when all are on board.

    Urgent, leveraged and useful, it will change your business like nothing else." SETH GODIN —Author The Icarus DeceptionIt's not how good you are. It's how well you tell your story.Big corporations might have huge marketing and advertising budgets but you’ve got a story. Your brand story isn't just what you tell people. It's what they believe about you based on the signals your brand sends. The Fortune Cookie Principle is a brand building framework and communication strategy consisting of 20 keys that enable you to begin telling your brand’s story from the inside out. It’s the foundation upon which you can differentiate your brand and make emotional connections with the kind of clients and customers you want to serve.The most successful brands in the world don’t behave like commodities and neither should you. A great brand story will make you stand out, increase brand awareness, create customer loyalty and power profits. Isn't it time to gave your customers a story to tell? The Fortune Cookie Principle will show you how.ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE FORTUNE COOKIE PRINCIPLE"It's so easy to overcomplicate what great brands and new businesses need to do to resonate with their consumers. The simple questions asked in this book help you to de-mystify that process. It encourages you to think beyond what you do to why you do it and why that matters to your customers. Had this been available when I was driving Sales and Marketing Capabilities in my past corporate life at Cadbury Schweppes, this would have been recommended reading. Now I'm an entrepreneur I simply apply these principles each and every day." Wendy Wilson Bett—Co-Founder Peter's Yard"Yes, you need a great product, but without a compelling story, success is improbable. The 'Fortune Cookie Principle' is an easy-to-read guide that will help any marketer or business owner begin to ask the right questions about the stories they tell. Bernadette includes dozens of examples and questions to get your storytelling ship in the right order. Let's face it...telling compelling stories to attract and retain customers is not easy. Most brand marketers are not great storytellers. This book will give you a new perspective on your marketing, and help you move from talking about yourself to talking about things your customers actually care about. Then, and only then, will your marketing actually work in today's consumer-led economy."Joe Pulizzi—Founder Content Marketing Institute"The wisdom in this book is better than any fortune. Read and apply!"Chris Guillebeau—Author $100 Startup“This book is an inspiration. Bernadette ignites real-world experience with a true passion for helping businesses move to the next level.”Mark Schaefer—Author Return on Influence"Full of inspiring stories about what makes businesses unique (and successful) in today's supersaturated markets."David Airey —Author Work For Money, Design For Love.“If you're someone who cares about why you do what you do and how you do it, this book is for you.” Tina Roth Eisenberg—Founder of Tattly

    It’s essential to be pitch perfect—to get the right message across to the right person at the right time. In Pitch Perfect, Bill McGowan shows you how to craft the right message and deliver it using the right language—both verbal and nonverbal.Pitch Perfect teaches you how to overcome common communication pitfalls using McGowan’s simple Principles of Persuasion, which are highly effective and easy to learn, implement, and master. With Pitch Perfect you can harness the power of persuasion and have people not only listening closely to your every word but also remembering you long after you’ve left the room.

    Is luck a cosmic force that we can randomly stumble upon, or is there something real that people we consider lucky have discovered? The Science of Being Lucky is an in-depth look at what all lucky people have in common and how they set themselves up for success time after time.Put success into your own hands, not fate's.The Science of Being Lucky takes you on a science-based journey into what luck is, what we think it is, and how to get more of it in your life. The journey begins by breaking down and defining the lucky breaks, coincidences, and serendipitous events in our lives - then delves into the specific traits, life factors, and perspectives that create lucky outcomes.The Science of Being Lucky will open your eyes to what is behind each moment you would call lucky and give you a concrete action plan to create more of the same. Luck doesn't have to be just fantasy.Become immune to bad luck.Peter Hollins has studied psychology and peak human performance for over a dozen years and is a bestselling author. He has worked with dozens of individuals to unlock their potential and path towards success. His writing draws on his academic, coaching, and research experience. He's no stranger to bad luck, having broken the same toe three times, but he's found ways to reverse his luck and live the good life.Ditch the lucky underwear and rabbit's foot.-The human illusion of control and lucky thinking.-Popular methods for luck - do they work? (One does, one does not)-The downside of probabilities.-Avoiding bad luck internally and externally.Set yourself up for inevitable success.-Coincidence, serendipity, and other "small world" phenomenon.-Three traits that practically manufacture luck.-Max Gunther's famous "strategic luck planning" approach to life.Stack the deck in your favor and live better.The Science of Being Lucky will teach you how to turn lead into gold, a cloudy day into paradise, and your life into the stuff of movies.You will learn to create the conditions for luck and success instead of hoping for them. The more you internalize these mindsets, the luckier you'll get until your friends ask you what your secret is. The secret? It's not actually about luck."Break a leg" TODAY by scrolling up and clicking the BUY NOW button!

    This thoroughly documented and easy-to-read book is the first of its kind. Vitale gives you the keys to their minds. All you have to do is turn the keys. They said 'yes' to you long before you said a word and they were begging to buy from you shortly after you uttered your first sentence. Buying Trances is an exciting ride to the edge of the mind. His finest work to date." -Kevin Hogan, author, The Psychology of Persuasion and Covert Hypnosis "This book maps marketing's final frontier-the customer's mind-and exposes the buying trance. Frankly, this may be the smartest marketing book ever written." -Dave Lakhani, coauthor, Persuasion: The Art of Getting What You Want "As with all of Vitale's books, there are magical secrets chucked out like a mad Vegas poker dealer on every page. Not only will you learn to put people into buying trances with this book, the act of reading it will put you in a trance and force you to master it." -Mark Joyner, #1 bestselling author, The Irresistible Offer: How to Sell Your Product or Service in 3 Seconds or Less "Vitale's expertise in hypnotic marketing combined with his extensive research challenges the reader on many different levels. He forces you to delve deeper into the benefits of creating a buying atmosphere and a trance-like desire on the part of your prospect. I found this an absolutelyfascinating book." -Joseph Sugarman, President, BluBlocker Corporation "Buying Trances is not your run-of-the-mill marketing book. It's an exceptionally well-written, well thought out, high-level work that gives the reader unique insights into how to capture a prospect's attention. Cutting-edge stuff that is a must for every serious marketer to absorb and implement." -Robert Ringer, author, To Be or Not to Be Intimidated?: That Is the Question "Vitale's understanding of how and why people think and act like they do is remarkable. Byunscrambling complex ideas and explaining them in simple language, he reveals how to fashion messages that will turn people into compulsive buyers of our products and services. Now we can take control and create the buying trance. It's a totally refreshing and very effective approach to hugely profitable sales and marketing!" -Winston Marsh, veteran Australian marketer

    Today, many of the most successful companies use storytelling as a leadership tool. At Nike, all senior executives are designated "corporate storytellers." 3M banned bullet points years ago and replaced them with a process of writing "strategic narratives." Procter & Gamble hired Hollywood directors to teach its executives storytelling techniques. Some forward-thinking business schools have even added storytelling courses to their management curriculum. The reason for this is simple: Stories have the ability to engage an audience the way logic and bullet points alone never could. Whether you are trying to communicate a vision, sell an idea, or inspire commitment, storytelling is a powerful business tool that can mean the difference between mediocre results and phenomenal success. "Lead with a Story" contains both ready-to-use stories and how-to guidance for readers looking to craft their own. Designed for a wide variety of business challenges, the book shows how narrative can help: - Define culture and values - Engender creativity and innovation - Foster collaboration and build relationships - Provide coaching and feedback - Lead change - And more Whether in a speech or a memo, communicated to one person or a thousand, storytelling is an essential skill for success. Complete with examples from companies like Kellogg's, Merrill-Lynch, Procter & Gamble, National Car Rental, Wal-Mart, Pizza Hut, and more, this practical resource gives readers the guidance they need to deliver stories to stunning effect.

    Companies that think winning their business is a simple matter of creating a Twitter account and applying outdated notions of "cool" to their advertising are due for a rude awakening. "Marketing to Millennials "is both an enlightening look at this generation of consumers and a practical plan for earning their trust and loyalty. Based on original market research, the book reveals the eight attitudes shared by most Millennials, as well as the new rules for engaging them successfully. Millennials: - Value social networking and aren't shy about sharing opinions - Refuse to remain passive consumers--they expect to participate in product development and marketing - Demand authenticity and transparency - Are highly influential--swaying parents "and" peers - Are not all alike--understanding key segments is invaluable Featuring expert interviews and profiles of brands doing Millennial marketing right, this eye-opening book is the key to persuading the customers who will determine the bottom line for decades to come.

    Christensen says outstanding companies can do everything right and still lose their market leadership -- or worse, disappear completely. And he not only proves what he says, he tells others how to avoid a similar fate.Focusing on "disruptive technology" -- the Honda Super Cub, Intel's 8088 processor, or the hydraulic excavator, for example -- Christensen shows why most companies miss "the next great wave." Whether in electronics or retailing, a successful company with established products will get pushed aside unless managers know when to abandon traditional business practices. Using the lessons of successes and failures from leading companies, "The Innovator's Dilemma" presents a set of rules for capitalizing on the phenomenon of disruptive innovation.

    But too often, even the most innovative organization quickly becomes a "giant hairball"--a tangled, impenetrable mass of rules, traditions, and systems, all based on what worked in the past--that exercises an inexorable pull into mediocrity. Gordon McKenzie worked at Hallmark Cards for thirty years, many of which he spent inspiring his colleagues to slip the bonds of Corporate Normalcy and rise to orbit--to a mode of dreaming, daring and doing above and beyond the rubber-stamp confines of the administrative mind-set. In his deeply funny book, exuberantly illustrated in full color, he shares the story of his own professional evolution, together with lessons on awakening and fostering creative genius.Originally self-published and already a business "cult classic", this personally empowering and entertaining look at the intersection between human creativity and the bottom line is now widely available to bookstores. It will be a must-read for any manager looking for new ways to invigorate employees, and any professional who wants to achieve his or her best, most self-expressive, most creative and fulfilling work.

    Within the industry, studies on game mechanics and behavioral psychology have become proliferate. However, few people understand how to merge the two fields into experience designs that reliably increases business metrics and generates a return on investment. Gamification Pioneer Yu-kai Chou takes reader on a journey to learn his twelve years of obsessive research in creating the Octalysis Framework, and how to apply the framework to create engaging and successful experiences in their product, workplace, marketing, and personal lives. Effective gamification is a combination of game design, game dynamics, behavioral economics, motivational psychology, UX/UI (User Experience and User Interface), neurobiology, technology platforms, as well as ROI-driving business implementations. This book explores the interplay between these disciplines to capture the core principles that contribute to good gamification design. The goal for this book is to become a strategy guide to help readers master the games that truly make a difference in their lives. Readers who absorb the contents of this book will have literally obtained what many companies pay tens of thousands of dollars to acquire. The ultimate aim is to enable the widespread adoption of good gamification and human-focused design in all types of industries.

    Ideas for new businesses, solutions to the world's problems, and artistic breakthroughs are common, but great execution is rare. According to Scott Belsky, the capacity to make ideas happen can be developed by anyone willing to develop their organizational habits and leadership capability. That's why he founded Behance, a company that helps creative people and teams across industries develop these skills. Belsky has spent six years studying the habits of creative people and teams that are especially productive-the ones who make their ideas happen time and time again. After interviewing hundreds of successful creatives, he has compiled their most powerful-and often counterintuitive-practices, such as: •Generate ideas in moderation and kill ideas liberally •Prioritize through nagging •Encourage fighting within your team While many of us obsess about discovering great new ideas, Belsky shows why it's better to develop the capacity to make ideas happen-a capacity that endures over time.

     In an incredibly entertaining and inspiring narrative that draws on countless stories from their work at IDEO, the Stanford d.school, and with many of the world's top companies, David and Tom Kelley identify the principles and strategies that will allow us to tap into our creative potential in our work lives, and in our personal lives, and allow us to innovate in terms of how we approach and solve problems.  It is a book that will help each of us be more productive and successful in our lives and in our careers.

    We all have a duty to affect others—from the classroom to the boardroom to social media. But how skilled are we at this role, and can we become better? It turns out that many of our instincts—from relying on facts and figures to shape opinions, to insisting others are wrong or attempting to exert control—are ineffective, because they are incompatible with how people’s minds operate. Sharot shows us how to avoid these pitfalls, and how an attempt to change beliefs and actions is successful when it is well-matched with the core elements that govern the human brain. Sharot reveals the critical role of emotion in influence, the weakness of data and the power of curiosity. Relying on the latest research in neuroscience, behavioral economics and psychology, the book provides fascinating insight into the complex power of influence, good and bad.