Today's outliers in revenue growth and value creation are winning with a new set of rules. They are dominating by managing the information that surrounds people, organizations, processes, and products--what authors Malcolm Frank, Paul Roehrig, and Ben Pring call Code Halos. This is far beyond "Big Data" and analytics. Code Halos spark new commercial models that can dramatically flip market dominance from industry stalwarts to challengers. In this new book, the authors show leaders how digital innovators and traditional companies can build Code Halo solutions to drive success. The book:Examines the explosion of digital information that now surrounds us and describes the profound impact this is having on individuals, corporations, and societies; Shows how the Crossroads Model can help anticipate and navigate this market shift; Provides examples of traditional firms already harnessing the power of Code Halos including GE's Brilliant Machines, Disney's theme park Magic Band, and Allstate's mobile devices and analytics that transform auto insurance. With reasoned insight, new data, real-world cases, and practical guidance, Code Halos shows seasoned executives, entrepreneurs, students, line-of-business owners, and technology leaders how to master the new rules of the Code Halo economy.

    There are many ways to save money while you pursue the “hunt” for your roots: some are just common sense while others are, frankly, ingenious. Also keep in mind that it doesn’t pay to be so focused on “frugal” that in the long run you either lose money or that genealogy is no longer “fun.” The title of this book is misleading, and intentionally so. The fact is, you’ll find over 30 amazing ways to save money when purchasing genealogy-related products and services. You may already be using some of these tricks, but I guarantee that once you starting using some of the more unusual money-saving tips, you’ll say to yourself, “Now, why didn’t I think of that!” Finally, the end of The 15 Habits of Highly Frugal Genealogists is filled with special offers exclusively for those who have purchased this book. These deals were specifically negotiated with certain vendors and most use links or promo codes that are valid through the end of 2015. SPECIAL EXCLUSIVE SAVINGS! As a reader of The 15 Habits of Highly Frugal Genealogists, you’ll have exclusive access to the following deals negotiated with specific vendors. • MyHeritage: Save 35% off a Premium Plus account and 1 year Data Subscription • Legacy Tree Genealogists: $45 off any genealogy research project • Hack Genealogy Boot Camp: 30% off any digital download • Legacy Family Tree: 15% off an annual membership at Legacy Family Tree webinars; 15% off Legacy Family Tree Deluxe Software • Shop Family Tree: 15% off any one item at ShopFamilyTree.com • Amazon: Various savings on genealogy products • Family Tree Tours: Save $50 on any tour booking • Flip-Pal® mobile scanner: Save $35 on a special Flip-Pal mobile scanner bundle • Larsen Digital: 10% off ALL conversion services including audio, video and more! • AncestryDNA: Free Shipping on all AncestryDNA kits • Evidentia: 20% off Evidentia software • Genealogical Publishing Company: 30% off all items at Genealogical.com

    

    It already drives most of the world’s top technology companies. And now it’s starting to spread to every domain where leaders wrestle with complex projects. If you’ve ever been startled by how fast the world is changing, Scrum is one of the reasons why. Productivity gains of as much as 1200% have been recorded, and there’s no more lucid – or compelling – explainer of Scrum and its bright promise than Jeff Sutherland, the man who put together the first Scrum team more than twenty years ago. The thorny problem Jeff began tackling back then boils down to this: people are spectacularly bad at doing things with agility and efficiency. Best laid plans go up in smoke. Teams often work at cross purposes to each other. And when the pressure rises, unhappiness soars. Drawing on his experience as a West Point-educated fighter pilot, biometrics expert, early innovator of ATM technology, and V.P. of engineering or CTO at eleven different technology companies, Jeff began challenging those dysfunctional realities, looking for solutions that would have global impact. In this book you’ll journey to Scrum’s front lines where Jeff’s system of deep accountability, team interaction, and constant iterative improvement is, among other feats, bringing the FBI into the 21st century, perfecting the design of an affordable 140 mile per hour/100 mile per gallon car, helping NPR report fast-moving action in the Middle East, changing the way pharmacists interact with patients, reducing poverty in the Third World, and even helping people plan their weddings and accomplish weekend chores. Woven with insights from martial arts, judicial decision making, advanced aerial combat, robotics, and many other disciplines, Scrum is consistently riveting. But the most important reason to read this book is that it may just help you achieve what others consider unachievable – whether it be inventing a trailblazing technology, devising a new system of education, pioneering a way to feed the hungry, or, closer to home, a building a foundation for your family to thrive and prosper.

    MacMillan and Dr. James Thompson, director of the Wharton Social Entrepreneurship Program, provide a tough-love approach that significantly increases the likelihood of a successful social enterprise launch in the face of the high-uncertainty conditions typically encountered by social entrepreneurs.MacMillan and Thompson used their own systematic framework to publish The Social Entrepreneur's Playbook. To test the market, they offered the first phase in their start-up method (step 1) as a free ebook. Readers were invited to join The Social Entrepreneur's Advisory Group, and nearly 300 aspiring and active social entrepreneurs shared feedback that helped shape the complete edition of the book, which covers all three steps in the start-up to scale-up process.Based on this crowd-sourced feedback from readers of the free ebook and drawing on the authors' more than 26 years' combined experience developing and studying social enterprises in the field across Africa and in the United States, this new edition provides guidance for each phase:Phase One: Pressure Test Your Start-Up Idea. Based on the free ebook, this expanded section now includes advice on setting revenue and social impact goals, how to navigate the sociopolitical landscape, and how to develop a strong concept statement. In addition, MacMillan and Thompson provide advice on how to identify and test a proposed revenue-generating solution and define and segment your target population.Phase Two: Plan Your Social Enterprise. All new to this edition, this critical phase shows you how to frame and scope the venture, determine what it will take to actually deliver a sustainable enterprise, identify the key assumptions that have been made, and design checkpoints to test those assumptions before making major investments.Phase Three: Launch and Scale Your Social Enterprise. Available for the first time in this edition, you will learn how to effectively launch your enterprise, manage upside potential and downside risk, and strategically scale up.Filled with accessible frameworks and tools, as well as inspiring stories of social entrepreneurs, The Social Entrepreneur's Playbook is a must-read for any aspiring or active social entrepreneur, as well as philanthropists, foundations, and nonprofits interested in doing more good with fewer resources. Includes access to downloadable planning documents, including user-friendly spreadsheets

    In The 33 Strategies of War, Greene has crafted an important addition to this ruthless and unique series.Spanning world civilizations, synthesizing dozens of political, philosophical, and religious texts and thousands of years of violent conflict, The 33 Strategies of War is a comprehensive guide to the subtle social game of everyday life informed by the most ingenious and effective military principles in war. Structured in Greene’s trademark style, The 33 Strategies of War is the I-Ching of conflict, the contemporary companion to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.Abundantly illustrated with examples from history, including the folly and genius of everyone from Napoleon to Margaret Thatcher, Shaka the Zulu to Lord Nelson, Hannibal to Ulysses S. Grant, as well as movie moguls, Samurai swordsmen, and diplomats, each of the thirty-three chapters outlines a strategy that will help you win life’s wars. Learn the offensive strategies that require you to maintain the initiative and negotiate from a position of strength, or the defensive strategies designed to help you respond to dangerous situations and avoid unwinnable wars. The great warriors of battlefields and drawing rooms alike demonstrate prudence, agility, balance, and calm, and a keen understanding that the rational, resourceful, and intuitive always defeat the panicked, the uncreative, and the stupid. An indispensable book, The 33 Strategies of War provides all the psychological ammunition you need to overcome patterns of failure and forever gain the upper hand.

    These specialists have begun forming shops of their own - the new modern version of the agency. Increased marketing fragmentation and brand's need for specialists means that the time has never been better for a freelancers or niche service providers to build their own small firms. All they're missing is the guidance they need to find their footing.While specialist agencies and freelancers are highly skilled, most have a lot to learn about the mechanics of starting and running an agency. Many of these specialists come from a different background than those who traditionally started agencies: they come from the internet, not the ad world. In Agency, Rick Webb provides a comprehensive guidebook - giving readers the knowledge, strategies, and understanding they'll need to make the exciting transition into a modern creative services firm. Drawing from his experience running his own digital ad agency and working with countless innovative tech start-ups, Webb focuses not just on how to get started, but how to survive in a competitive marketplace. This is a hands-on master class in everything that the agency manager needs to know. From understanding small business banking, to deciding how to price a job and manage procurement, to winning new business, Agency provides everything from basic business and leadership skills to insider tips and industry information. Webb outlines the shape of the ecosystem in which new agencies will be finding their place. Packed with personal anecdotes from his time starting and running the highly successful Barbarian Group, Webb provides practical techniques for building an agile company.Modern agency upstarts need a different sort of education, and Agency provides a remarkable crash course.

    It is no longer possible-or even desirable-to learn one set of job skills and to work your way up the ladder. At the same time, entrepreneurs with great ideas for new products or technologies that could change the world often struggle to capture the attention of venture capital firms and incubators; finding the funding necessary to launch a start-up can feel impossible. The business leaders of our future must anticipate change to create their own opportunities for personal satisfaction and professional success. In Disrupt You!, Jay Samit, a digital media expert who has launched, grown, and sold start-ups and Fortune 500 companies alike, describes the unique method he has used to invent new markets and expand established businesses.Samit has been at the helm of businesses in the ecommerce, digital video, social media, mobile communications, and software industries, helping to navigate them through turbulent economic times and guide them through necessary transformation so that they stay ahead of the curve. In Disrupt You!, he reveals how specific strategies that help companies flourish can be applied at an individual level to help anyone can achieve success and lasting prosperity-without needing to raise funds from outside investors.Incorporating stories from his own experience and anecdotes from other innovators and disruptive businesses-including Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, YouTube, Circ du Soleil, Odor Eaters, Iams, Silly Putty, and many more-Samit shows how personal transformation can reap entrepreneurial and professional rewards.Disrupt You! offers clear and empowering advice for anyone looking to break through; for anyone with a big idea but with no idea how to apply it; and for anyone worried about being made irrelevant in an era of technological transformation. This engaging, perspective-shifting book demystifies the mechanics of disruption for individuals and businesses alike.

    And it was an astronomer who finally explained what happened to the dinosaurs.Frans Johansson's The Medici Effect shows how breakthrough ideas most often occur when we bring concepts from one field into a new, unfamiliar territory, and offers examples how we can turn the ideas we discover into path-breaking innovations.

    He stepped down from that role in August 2011, bringing an end to one of the greatest, most transformative business careers in history. Over the years, Jobs gave countless interviews to the media, explaining what he called “the vision thing”—his unmatched ability to envision, and successfully bring to the marketplace, consumer products that people find simply irresistible.Jobs made an indelible mark in multiple industries, and played an enormous role in creating others. Consider how Jobs and Apple shaped the following fields: personal computers (laptop and desktop), apps (for multiple electronic devices), computer animation (Pixar), music (iTunes), telecommunications (iPhone), personal digital devices (iPod), books (iBook), and, most recently, tablets (iPad). Jobs was the greatest business visionary of our era.I, Steve is the perfect gift or reference item for everyone interested in this great American original.

    So we’ve created a guide that will show you (or a friend or relative who’s just getting started): * How much you need to start investing. * The key steps for building long-term wealth. * Proven ways to find great companies to buy. Understanding these life-changing concepts will get any investor on the path to financial freedom. Built upon our 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly, The Motley Fool Guide to Investing for Beginners includes our top investors’ biggest mistakes, insights into different styles of investing, and much more. Plus, you get 3 great stock picks that we think could make a strong foundation to any portfolio.

    Storyscapes introduces "storyscaping" as a way to create immersive experiences that solve the challenge of connecting brands and consumers. This book describes a powerful new approach to advertising and marketing for the digital age that involves using stories to design emotional and transactional experiences for customers, both online and offline. Each connection inspires engagement with another, so the brand becomes part of the customer's story. Authors Gaston Legorburu and Darren McColl explain how marketers can identify and define the core target audience segment, define your brand's purpose, understand the emotional desires of your consumers, and more.•Shows how to map how the consumer engages with the category and product/service•Explains how to develop an organizing idea and creative plan for an immersive storyscape experience•Defines the role of marketing channels around the organizing idea•Establishes how technology can be applied to the experienceLearn how to measure, optimize, and evolve the customer experience through the use of strong narratives that compel consumers to buy into your brand.

    Written by Jack Foster, a creative director for various advertising agencies with more than 40 years experience, How to Get Ideas (over 90,000 copies sold and translated into 15 languages) is a fun, accessible, and practical guide that takes the mystery and confusion out of developing new ideas.

    This landmark book is based on 200 interviews with today’s leading entrepreneurs including the founders of LinkedIn, Chipotle, eBay, Under Armour, Tesla Motors, SpaceX, Spanx, Airbnb, PayPal, Jetblue, Gilt Groupe, Theranos, and Dropbox. Over the course of five years, Amy Wilkinson conducted rigorous interviews and analyzed research across many different fields. From the creators of the companies ranging from Yelp to Chobani to Zipcar, she found that entrepreneurial success works in much the same way. Creators are not born with an innate ability to conceive and build $100 million enterprises. They work at it. They all share fundamental skills that can be learned, practiced, and passed on.The Creator’s Code reveals six skills that make creators of all kinds of endeavors breakthrough. These skills aren’t rare gifts or slim chance talents. Entrepreneurship, Wilkinson demonstrates, is accessible to everyone. The book’s insights provide core guidance for success in the new world of work.

    Based on hundreds of solid ideas that really work, Levinson’s philosophy has given birth to a new way of learning about market share and how to gain it. In this completely updated and expanded fourth edition, Levinson offers a new arsenal of weaponry for small-business success including* strategies for marketing on the Internet (explaining when and precisely how to use it)* tips for using new technology, such as podcasting and automated marketing* programs for targeting prospects and cultivating repeat and referral business* management lessons in the age of telecommuting and freelance employeesGuerrilla Marketing is the entrepreneur’s marketing bible -- and the book every small-business owner should have on his or her shelf.