The garage start-up, dubbed Ticketmaster, would come to achieve such market dominance over the following decades some critics would denounce the company as an unlawful monopoly. Yet its path to the top was far from inevitable and Ticket Masters analyzes the legality and ethics behind the actions of Ticketmaster, including its recent merger with Live Nation. Ticket Masters, based on first-person interivews with the key players, is a character-driven story that explores the actions and impact of the iconoclasts guiding Clear Channel, Ticketmaster, Live Nation, SFX, MusicToday, and StubHub, while folding in related tales of trustafarians, scalping syndicates, old-school music promoters, and would-be Internet tycoons. Ticket Masters answers such questions as: Just what is included in a service fee and why does it vary with the price of a ticket? Why am I forced to pay for parking when I'm taking public transportation to the concert? and Who really pockets all of that money? This guide to the concert industry looks into cubicles, conference rooms, and booking agencies and includes interviews with promoters, musicians, and corporate executives with connections to both Ticketmaster and the bands. Special attention is paid to the touring activities and ticket-selling practices of the Grateful Dead, Pearl Jam, U2, Dave Matthews Band, and the Rolling Stones.

    A strategic plan helps crystalize the future of an organization--mapping a clear path from where the company stands today to where you wish it to be.It may sound complicated, but Brian Tracy knows how to make it simple. Throughout his career, he has shown countless leaders and organizations how to achieve stunning success. In this concise and practical book, he shares the most important lessons for strategic planning. Readers will discover how to:• Ask the five key questions vital to any strategic plan• Determine a corporate mission that lifts and inspires people• Gain valuable insight with market share/market growth and strategy/operations matrices• Define themselves in relation to their competition• Utilize the concept of "driving force"• Anticipate crises• Reposition their business with new products, services, and technologies• Measure success via clear financial objectives• And moreIncorporating examples ranging from Alexander the Great to IBM and General Electric, Tracy gives readers proven ideas for increasing their company's ROI and maximizing their strengths and opportunities. Powerful and portable, Business Strategy will help readers take control of their company's destiny.

    As they helped grow Google from a young start-up to a global icon, they relearned everything they knew about management. How Google Works is the sum of those experiences distilled into a fun, easy-to-read primer on corporate culture, strategy, talent, decision-making, communication, innovation, and dealing with disruption.The authors explain how the confluence of three seismic changes - the internet, mobile, and cloud computing - has shifted the balance of power from companies to consumers. The companies that will thrive in this ever-changing landscape will be the ones that create superior products and attract a new breed of multifaceted employees whom the authors dub 'smart creatives'. The management maxims ('Consensus requires dissension', 'Exile knaves but fight for divas', 'Think 10X, not 10%') are illustrated with previously unreported anecdotes from Google's corporate history.'Back in 2010, Eric and I created an internal class for Google managers,' says Rosenberg. 'The class slides all read 'Google confidential' until an employee suggested we uphold the spirit of openness and share them with the world. This book codifies the recipe for our secret sauce: how Google innovates and how it empowers employees to succeed.'

    Along the way they supported the careers of many of the world’s great surfers – from Midget Farrelly to Michael Peterson, Tom Curren to Damien Hardman, Pam Burridge to Stephanie Gilmore, and of course Tyler Wright and Mick Fanning.Bestselling surf writer Tim Baker tells this implausible story in an irresistible series of ripping yarns, offering rich life lessons, a maverick business primer and a wild ride of adventure, good times and outlandish ambitions spectacularly realised.The Rip Curl Story will make you want to surf more, travel further, follow through on that great business idea and pursue your own Search.

    If you want to achieve maximum success in getting mistakes of the past deleted and restoring your good name so that you can qualify for the best loans at the lowest rates, then you need to follow the same steps taken by attorneys and certified credit consultants. "How do they do that?" people ask. This book reveals the answers, the details, and the steps you can take to repair your own credit in a manner that is legal and effective. Unless you just won the lottery and plan to pay cash for everything for the rest of your life, you need excellent credit and a high FICO score to get respect and the best financing.

    This book will show you what successful early risers do once they are up and teach you step-by-step how you can become an early riser.

    Volume 1 (this book) is a reprint of the original 1910 edition (published by Luzac & Co., London) of Sun Tzu on the Art of War: The Oldest Military Treatise in the World by Lionel Giles. The Chinese text, Giles' English translation, as well as his extensive notes are all faithfully reproduced. A Wade-Giles to Pinyin conversion table has been added to make the original classic more useful for the modern student. Volume 2, available separately, includes each chapter in Chinese traditional characters, the pinyin transcription, as well as the English translation.

    Even though relationships are fuzzy and intangible, they can be measured and managed-with powerful results.Measure What Matters explains simple, step-by-step procedures for measuring customers, social media reputation, influence and authority, the media, and other key constituencies.Based on hundreds of case studies about how organizations have used measurement to improve their reputations, strengthen their bottom lines, and improve efficiencies all around Learn how to collect the data that will help you better understand your competition, do strategic planning, understand key strengths and weaknesses, and better respond to customer preferences Author runs a successful blog and serves as a measurement consultant to companies such as Facebook, Southwest Airlines, Raytheon, and Allstate Don't draw conclusions or make key decisions based on guesswork. Instead, Measure What Matters and the difference will show in the most important measure: your bottom line.

    It reflects the latest information (in 2001), including the impact of global competition and rapid technological advances, that have accelerated trends such as shared service centres, outsourcing and just-in-time training. A number of actual company examples demonstrates how concepts are being used in several leading-edge organizations.

    But when he took the helm in 2004, America was losing that war badly: despite vastly inferior resources and technology, Al Qaeda was outmaneuvering America’s most elite warriors. McChrystal came to realize that today’s faster, more interdependent world had overwhelmed the conventional, top-down hierarchy of the US military. Al Qaeda had seen the future: a decentralized network that could move quickly and strike ruthlessly. To defeat such an enemy, JSOC would have to discard a century of management wisdom, and pivot from a pursuit of mechanical efficiency to organic adaptability. Under McChrystal’s leadership, JSOC remade itself, in the midst of a grueling war, into something entirely new: a network that combined robust centralized communication with decentralized managerial authority. As a result, they beat back Al Qaeda. In this book, McChrystal shows not only how the military made that transition, but also how similar shifts are possible in all organizations, from large companies to startups to charities to governments. In a turbulent world, the best organizations think and act like a team of teams, embracing small groups that combine the freedom to experiment with a relentless drive to share what they’ve learned. Drawing on a wealth of evidence from his military career, the private sector, and sources as diverse as hospital emergency rooms and NASA’s space program, McChrystal frames the existential challenge facing today’s organizations, and presents a compelling, effective solution.

    

    It’s about how people, organizations and societies can and must hit refresh—transform—in their persistent quest for new energy, new ideas, relevance and renewal. At the core, it’s about us humans and our unique qualities, like empathy, which will become ever more valuable in a world where the torrent of technology will disrupt like never before. As much a humanist as a technologist, Nadella defines his mission and that of the company he leads as empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

    Yet with Mark Podolsky’s tried-and-true technique of raw land investment, you can become Dirt Rich without ever having to battle with a tenant, toilet, or termite. In this step-by-step guide, Mark breaks down his “ultimate subscription model” for creating passive income through the niche of raw land investment. Featuring details on common pitfalls, tips on cultivating an investor’s mind, and advice on working smart instead of hard, this handbook will show you how to obtain a life of fiscal independence, with the flexibility to work where you want, when you want, and with whom you want. Financial freedom is within your reach. It’s time to make your dreams a reality by starting to think dirty.

    Remarkably, fifty years ago that's the way it was. Businesses made plans, certainly, but without understanding the underlying dynamics of competition, costs, and customers. It was like trying to design a large-scale engineering project without knowing the laws of physics. But in the 1960s, four mavericks and their posses instigated a profound shift in thinking that turbocharged business as never before, with implications far beyond what even they imagined. In The Lords of Strategy, renowned business journalist and editor Walter Kiechel tells, for the first time, the story of the four men who invented corporate strategy as we know it and set in motion the modern, multibillion-dollar consulting industry:Bruce Henderson, founder of Boston Consulting GroupBill Bain, creator of Bain & CompanyFred Gluck, longtime Managing Director of McKinsey & CompanyMichael Porter, Harvard Business School professorProviding a window into how to think about strategy today, Kiechel tells their story with novelistic flair. At times inspiring, at times nearly terrifying, this book is a revealing account of how these iconoclasts and the organizations they led revolutionized the way we think about business, changed the very soul of the corporation, and transformed the way we work.