Unleashing the potential of clever people demands a new style of leadership

Manage Mentor
Clever
Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones
(http://www.harvardbusiness.org/)

Leading in the clever economy

How would you lead your ‘smartest, most creative people'? Here is guidance from Clever, a new book by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones. The simple definition of ‘clever' that the authors begin with is ‘possessing skill or talent,' according to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, rather than the popular connotation of ‘being overly smart and difficult.'

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'Area' finding made easy

Books 2 Byte
Introducing AutoCAD 2010 and AutoCAD LT 2010
George Omura
(http://www.wileyindia.com/)

Hatching an area

AutoCAD drawings can contain a great deal of information about areas and distances, angles and coordinates, writes George Omura in Introducing AutoCAD 2010 and AutoCAD LT 2010.

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Approach work with a new perspective

Books 2 Byte
Karmic, Inc.
Pujan Roka
(http://www.jaicobooks.com/)

Four contracts of meaningful work

The Information Age is not only about the introduction of technologies, computers and robots; it is also about workers being empowered with knowledge and information, writes Pujan Roka in Karmic, Inc.

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Online games

Books 2 Byte
The Complaints
Ian Rankin
(http://www.orionbooks.co.uk/)

An avatar roaming the galaxy

“The door to Vince's den was wide open and Fox saw that his computer had been removed by the investigators.” But, where are we? In page 71 of The Complaints by Ian Rankin. “Jude's bedroom door was ajar. He knocked and pushed it all the way open…”

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Let your need for growth drive your thinking

Books 2 Byte
The Drucker Difference
Craig L. Pearce, Joseph A. Maciariello, and Hideki Yamawaki
(http://www.tatamcgrawhill.com/)

Four traps leaders can avoid

Believing that strategic decisions can come only from the top is the first of the traps that The Drucker Difference lists. Not all wisdom is in the CEO's cranium, the book instructs. “Intel's realisation that it was a microprocessor company, not a memory chip company, came from the actions of its middle managers. Honda's strategic shift to lightweight motorbikes for everyone resulted from actions of its US managers, not Mr Honda,” writes Vijay Sathe in the essay.

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Chinese system vs Western system

BookValue
China and the Credit Crisis
Giles Chance
( http://www.wiley.com/)

Credit crisis ended the Chinese love affair with the West

These are days when it may not be apt to say ‘China' to Google or vice versa. Quite understandably, ‘China crisis' elicits more than 22,000 finds on the search giant's news section. Contrary to common fears, however, Giles Chance cautions that it would be a mistake for Westerners to assume that China's system is doomed because it is different to their own.
It might seem to a Western observer, brought up on Rousseau, the rights of man, and the Fifth Amendment, that the Chinese would at some point have to rebel against a one-party dictatorship based on a discredited communist ideology, he writes in China and the Credit Crisis.



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'Finance best practice networks'

Books of Account
QFinance: The ultimate resource
Hans-Dieter Scheuermann
(http://www.qfinance.com/)

Financial dimensions
With the help of business analytics and real-time insight, the finance function has the potential to grow from the role of `a bean-counting report provider' to one of `a trusted, well-equipped, knowledgeable, and respected business partner,' says Hans-Dieter Scheuermann in the opening essay included in QFinance: The ultimate resource.

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Retail insights

Book Mark
Isn't it Obvious?
Eliyahu M. Goldratt
(http://www.pqp.in/)

Mystery of the missing SKUs

A store finds that smiles are back on customers' faces. Perhaps due to the `happy-clappy power of positive attitude seminar' that the employees had attended, a department head postulates. "Sounds good!" concedes Paul White, the boss. But Paul, whom you meet in Isn't it Obvious? by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, has something else on his mind. "How many shortages do you have? I mean, in the past month, how many SKUs have run out altogether?" he asks his deputy.

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Trend diffusion

Book Mark
The Next Big Thing
William Higham
(http://www.vivagroupindia.com/)

The way trends tend to spread

How do trends spread? Through the process of trend diffusion, says William Higham in The Next Big Thing. In scientific usage, diffusion is the process whereby liquids or gases intermingle and move from an area of high concentration to an area of lower concentration, he explains.

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Tips for event managers

Book Mark
Event Marketing
Leonard H. Hoyle
(http://www.wileyindia.com/)

Eight Cs of electronic event systems

Communicate, cut costs, and conduct research are the first three of the eight Cs of electronic event systems, that Leonard H. Hoyle mentions in Event Marketing. Communicating is about using the large array of resources available for event managers to communicate on the Web, he writes.

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Don't take the boss' behaviour to heart

Manage Mentor
The Dysfunctional Workplace
Peter Morris
(http://www.vivagroupindia.com/)

When you are not the boss' favourite

If your boss is consistently fair, considerate, decent, and humble, you are very lucky, says Peter Morris in The Dysfunctional Workplace. For the rest of us, though, bosses come in all shapes and sizes of unfairness.

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Widening management-marketing 'gulf'

Manage Mentor
War in the Boardroom
Al and Laura Ries
(http://www.harpercollins.com/)

CEOs have a warped sense of marketing

It is a divided house at the very top with ‘management' on one side of the table and ‘marketing' on the other. And they don't see eye-to-eye. Why so? Because the former is left-brained, and the latter, right-brained, say Al and Laura Ries in War in the Boardroom.

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The dynamics of agricultural production

Books of Account
Agricultural Growth in India
A. Vaidyanathan
( http://www.oup.com/)

Non-price factors in agriculture

When talking about agricultural production, undue preoccupation with the price effects of liberalisation distracts our attention from the more fundamental and dominant role of non-price factors such as inputs, technology, and institutions, cautions A. Vaidyanathan in Agricultural Growth in India.

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Generosity is a mindset that is accessible at any time

Books of Account
Buddha: 9 to 5
Nancy Spears
( http://www.vivagroupindia.com/)

Gearing up for next M&A rally

Prosperity and the bottom line are dependent upon employee performance, says Nancy Spears in Buddha: 9 to 5. Today's workforce, she finds, is selecting companies that offer a value-driven culture that is conscious and cares about more than just its growing profit margin.

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The ‘murabahah syndrome'

Books of Account
Globalization & Islamic Finance
Hossein Askari, Zamir Iqbal, and Abbas Mirakhor
( http://www.wiley.com/

Impetus to Islamic finance

One of the most serious gaps in Islamic finance is the reluctance of market players to promote risk-sharing financial products, say the authors of Globalization & Islamic Finance: Convergence, prospects, & challenges, Hossein Askari, Zamir Iqbal, and Abbas Mirakhor.

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'Think through the choices'

Books of Account
Street Fighters
Kate Kelly
( http://www.landmarkonthenet.com/)

When Bear bit the dust

“Bear treasurer Bob Upton spent half the night handling calls with officials and staffers from the Fed and the SEC, giving updates on all aspects of Bear's balance-sheet and what assets the firm thought it could pledge,” narrates Kate Kelly in Street Fighters: The last 72 hours of Bear Stearns, the toughest firm on Wall Street.

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The red flags

Books of Account
How to Smell a Rat
Ken Fisher
( http://www.wiley.com/)

Smart rats can cart your money out

The number one, biggest, reddest flag is when your adviser also has custody of your assets, cautions Ken Fisher in How to Smell a Rat: The five signs of financial fraud. No matter how goofy the strategy or tactics, if the adviser can't get to the money, you know they aren't using them to create a false front for fake performance while carting money out the back door, he explains.

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Four trends that spell the death of leadership

Books 2 Byte
Leadershift
Emmanuel Gobillot
(http://www.vivagroupindia.com/)

The DEAD trends

Scrum, an abbreviated form of scrummage, is a rugby term to mean a way of restarting the game, either after an accidental infringement or when the ball has gone out of play, explains a Wikipedia page. As applied to agile software development, `scrum' is an iterative incremental framework for managing complex work. The scrum approach identifies two types of roles in any process, pigs and chickens, writes Emmanuel Gobillot in Leadershift.

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Inter-group boundaries reinforced in the workplace

Books 2 Byte
Crossing the Divide
Todd L. Pittinsky
(http://www.harvardbusiness.org/)

Collaborative work environment

One of the examples in Crossing the Divide is that of Yamada, a Japanese project manager whose work requires him to work for short stints in countries throughout the Asia-Pacific. His role as a boundary spanner demands that he quickly build productive and task-oriented cross-national teams to launch new IT (information technology) initiatives, describe Chris Ernst and Jeffrey Yip, the essay's authors.

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Online reverse auctions

Books 2 Byte
Corporate Performance Improvement
G.B.R.K. Prasad
(http://www.books.iupindia.org/)

E-auction for business

Online reverse auctions have emerged as a powerful tool for purchase professionals in carrying out negotiations, finds G.B.R.K. Prasad in Corporate Performance Improvement: A practitioner's perspective.

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Online analytical processing

Books 2 Byte
Oracle Essbase & Oracle OLAP
Michael Schrader
(http://www.tatamcgrawhill.com/)

Lapping up OLAP

Online analytical processing (OLAP) is a component of BI (business intelligence) say Michael Schrader et al. in Oracle Essbase & Oracle OLAP (www.tatamcgrawhill.com). “BI means different things to different people. For some people, BI is only the data warehouse. Others see BI as the dashboards on their desktops.”

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Cloud governance

Books 2 Byte
Cloud Computing
Roger Jennings
(http://www.wileyindia.com/)

Call of the cloud

Privacy and security are the two primary governance issues that IT managers face when attempting to reduce project budgets and improve scalability with PaaS, IaaS, SaaS, or any combination of cloud computing services, notes Roger Jennings in Cloud Computing: With the Windows Azure Platform.

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Twitter, the most powerful social networking platform

Books 2 Byte
Professional Twitter Development with Examples in .NET 3.5
Daniel Crenna
(http://www.wileyindia.com/)

Beyond simple messaging

Daniel Crenna makes an otherwise long journey easy by beginning Professional Twitter Development with Examples in .NET 3.5 with REST. “Before you can learn to run with the Twitter API, you first must walk with the web..."

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Serialization and deserialization

Books 2 Byte
Microsoft Silverlight 3
Shannon Horn
(http://www.tatamcgrawhill.com/)

Portability over the Web

These are times when there are continual demands for new states. In contrast, the Web is a stateless environment, as you may be aware. In a typical web communication scenario, a request for a resource is made by a client passing a message to the web server, and the messages continue to be sent back and forth between the client and server to conduct the communications necessary to deliver an application, describes Shannon Horn in Microsoft Silverlight 3: A beginner's guide.

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The 'incentive' to get work done

Books 2 Byte
How to be a Good Parent
Don Fontenelle
(http://www.magnamags.com/)

Supervised use of computers

Years ago, a typical complaint from parents was ‘All my child wants to do is watch TV or listen to music. He does not do much with children his age and stays inside too much,' reminisces Don Fontenelle in How to be a Good Parent.

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'For poetry, a pen won't do; use a knife, instead'

Books 2 Byte
Seahorse in the Sky
G. Kameshwar
(http://www.writersworkshopindia.com/)

‘Internet Lost' by Milton

For poetry, a pen won't do; use a knife, instead, advises G. Kameshwar in the opening poem in Seahorse in the Sky. A software engineer since the era of punched cards, and working with TCS since 1985, the poet ‘is usually lost in voyages in mythology, travelling, ‘seeing' and exploring Indian culture, knowledge and art.'

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Hotel management

Books 2 Byte
Hotel Front Office
Jatashankar R. Tewari
(http://www.oup.com/)

Systems for hospitality

Property management system or PMS is the first of the ‘computer applications in front office' that Jatashankar R. Tewari discusses in Hotel Front Office: Operations and management. PMS is used for doing all check-ins, guest accounting, checkouts and so on, he explains.

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Seven actions of successful diversifiers

BookValue
Diversification Strategy
Graham Kenny
( http://www.vivagroupindia.com/)

Diversification

Graham Kenny rues that diversification has become the leper of management: something you certainly don't touch. “Stock markets have become great punishers of diversifiers, hitting them with a ‘conglomerate discount' in share trading. The message has gone out: diversification is bad, focus is good. The former has even been lampooned as ‘di-worsification,'” he writes in Diversification Strategy.

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Four models of corporate entrepreneurship

BookValue
Grow from Within
Robert C. Wolcott and Michael J. Lippitz
(http://www.tatamcgrawhill.com/)

Entrepreneurship

Opportunist, enabler, advocate and producer are the four models of corporate entrepreneurship that Robert C. Wolcott and Michael J. Lippitz discuss in Grow from Within.

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Running your business is not the VC's job

BookValue
Smooth Ride to Venture Capital
Pankaj Sahai
( http://www.visionbooksindia.com/)

Six myths about VCs

The first of the six common myths about venture capitalists is that VC will take over the business, says Pankaj Sahai in Smooth Ride to Venture Capital: How to get VC funding for your business.

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The ‘pseudo-affluent'

BookValue
Stop Acting Rich… and start living like a real millionaire
Thomas J. Stanley
( http://www.wiley.com/)

Unhealthy assumptions

You can't drive your way to happiness, yet some people believe otherwise, rues Thomas J. Stanley in Stop Acting Rich… and start living like a real millionaire. “They may see some fellow driving a fully accessorised BMW, Corvette, or Cadillac and assume something about him. They whisper to themselves, ‘There goes a happy guy. If I had that car instead of my Toyota, I would be off the far end of the happy scale.'”

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'There is no single formula for understanding and managing political risk'

BookValue
The Fat Tail
Ian Bremmer and Preston Keat
( http://www.landmarkonthenet.com/)

Managing political risk in unfamiliar markets

Globalisation, economic integration, trade and capital mobility, and the free exchange of ideas across borders have not rendered politics obsolete, say Ian Bremmer and Preston Keat in The Fat Tail: The Power of Political Knowledge for Strategic Investing.

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Dealing with customers

Book Mark
Why My Horse Doesn't Smile
Vivek Mehrotra and Neelesh Kapoor
(http://www.vivagroupindia.com/)

Difficult customers

Six types of `difficult customers' that Vivek Mehrotra and Neelesh Kapoor discuss in Why My Horse Doesn't Smile: Learn to serve your customer are: uninformed, well-informed, anxious, friendly, egoistic or highheaded, and informal.

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Reach the customer executives

Book Mark
Winning Strategies
Anirban Dutta and Hetzel W. Folden
(http://www.wileyindia.com/)

Customers from the ground-up

Where are the big deals? Try two sources - TPA (third-party advisors), and the ground up, say Anirban Dutta and Hetzel W. Folden in Winning Strategies: Secrets to clinching multimillion-dollar deals.

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'A bolt from the stew'

Book Mark
Daydreams at Work
Amy Fries
(http://www.macmillanpublishrsindia.com/)

Own your right to dream

Everyone with an intact brain daydreams, and the human mind spends a whopping 30 to 70 per cent of its waking time in various states of mind wandering, writes Amy Fries in Daydreams at Work: Wake up your creative powers.

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