Enjoy the job

Manage Mentor
Happiness at Work
Jessica Pryce-Jones
(http://www.wiley.com/)

Make your working day better

At the individual employee level, what have been the effects of the economic crisis? Staying longer in the job, taking less time off sick, and working longer hours — all that if the job has not yet been lost. The flipside is that energy and productivity have decreased significantly across the board, so you might feel that you are doing more but you will be feeling worse and delivering less, writes Jessica Pryce-Jones in Happiness at Work: Maximizing your psychological capital for success.

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'Apple's model is a reverse of Gillette's'

Books 2 Byte
Seizing the White Space
Mark W. Johnson
(http://www.harvardbusiness.org/)

Explore the white space

A lot has been said about Amazon, one of the few winners from the dotcom bubble which continued to blaze a trail of impressive growth, but an unexamined facet of its high-profile success is its unabashed embrace of transformational growth in its ‘white space,' says Mark W. Johnson in Seizing the White Space.

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Develop a mind-set to win

BookValue
Buffett Beyond Value
Prem C. Jain
( http://www.wiley.com/)

Buffett's principles of investment

In the league of Benjamin Franklin, Ernest Hemingway, and Henry Ford is Warren Buffett, says Prem C. Jain. “Their ideas are simple to understand, but their successes are difficult to duplicate. However, geniuses abide by certain principles that we can learn from,” adds Jain in Buffett Beyond Value.

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Clothing questions

Book Mark
Clothing for Liberation
Peter Gonsalves
(http://www.sagepublications.com/)

Khadi, the Gandhian `fashion system'

Swadeshi was a Gandhian `fashion system,' says Peter Gonsalves in Clothing for Liberation: A communication analysis of Gandhi's Swadeshi revolution (www.sagepublications.com). Gandhiji's Swadeshi movement was founded on the real garment, says the author. "In seeking answers to real clothing questions, he believed, he would find the solution to new and appropriate representations of clothing for his people.

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Economics is not a science, like physics

Books of Account
The Sages
Charles R. Morris
( http://www.landmarkonthenet.com/)

Lessons from three market masters

The current global economic debacle has discredited almost all the captains of the finance industry, the regulators of most nations, and the gurus in academia, observes Charles R. Morris in The Sages. But the three ‘sages' — George Soros, Warren Buffett, and Paul Volcker — stand taller than ever, he adds. “There is a lesson there, and one hopes the world will learn it.”

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Beating the 'traps'

Books 2 Byte
Beating the Commodity Trap
Richard A. D'Aveni
(http://www.harvardbusiness.org/)

Of traps and threats

Deterioration, proliferation, and escalation are the three traps that threaten a firm's markets, says Richard A. D'Aveni in Beating the Commodity Trap. The Wal-Mart effect, the rise of China, offshoring and outsourcing to low-cost countries, recession, eroding consumer loyalty, discontinuous technological revolutions, and other relentless forces of hyper-competition are eroding and unseating the price and benefit positions of leading products in almost every market, he adds.

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Simple initial causes that led to dramatic effects

BookValue
The Myth of the Rational Market
Justin Fox
( http://www.visionbooksindia.com/)

Are you in search of a market-beating path?

Behavioural finance is more than just a collection of curiosities, or a self-cancelling mix of over-reaction and under-reaction, writes Justin Fox in The Myth of the Rational Market: A history of risk, reward, and delusion on Wall Street. He finds that the most consistent trait identified in behavioural research is overconfidence, which leads investors to think they know more about a stock's value than they actually do.

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Growing the 'skill'

Book Mark
The Talent Code
Daniel Coyle
(http://www.landmarkonthenet.com/)

When you find the sweet spot, learning takes off

Every human skill, be it about playing fiery baseball or composing soulful music, is created by `chains of nerve fibres carrying a tiny electrical impulse - basically, a signal travelling through a circuit,' instructs The Talent Code: Greatness isn't born, it's grown by Daniel Coyle.

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Lending practices

Books of Account
India Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises Report 2010
( http://www.isedonline.org/)

The ‘small' focus

The current approach when lending to SMEs (small and medium enterprises) is very different from what used to be practised earlier by the public sector banks, says India Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises Report 2010.

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Money management

Books of Account
Portfolios of the Poor
Daryl Collins, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutherford, and Orlanda Ruthven
( http://www.landmarkonthenet.com/)

Calling all microfinance providers

Not having enough money is bad enough, but what can be worse is not being able to manage whatever money you have. This is the hidden bind of poverty, say Daryl Collins, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutherford, and Orlanda Ruthven in Portfolios of the Poor: How the world's poor live on $2 a day.

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Rewards of China's growth

Books 2 Byte
Superfusion
Zachary Karabell
(http://www.landmarkonthenet.com/)

Jobs in technology vs manufacturing

Looking back at the erosion of manufacturing jobs in the US, Zachary Karabell identifies information technology as one of the culprits. When companies confronted a slower growth in the developed world, computers, customer management software systems, and faster communication links allowed them to do more with fewer people, he elaborates, in Superfusion: How China and America became one economy and why the world's prosperity depends on it.

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Video games

Books 2 Byte
Fun Inc.
Tom Chatfield
(http://www.landmarkonthenet.com/)

World's becoming more ‘playful'

What do video games do? They amplify particular human tendencies — our innate hunger for learning, our delight in solving problems and challenges, our sociability and rivalries, our pleasure in escaping the uncertainties of the world for more predictable rewards — says Tom Chatfield in Fun Inc.

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The road to riches is a marathon, not a sprint

BookValue
88 The Narrow Road
Felix Dennis
( http://www.landmarkonthenet.com/)

On a money road that many only talk about

Your motives are your own, but to proceed without a clear and honest understanding of them is to invite disaster at a crucial moment, cautions Felix Dennis in the opening chapter of 88 The Narrow Road: A brief guide to the getting of money. “Motive makes a fine horse when tamed by understanding and bridled by wisdom.

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Characteristics of information products

Book Mark
The Price Advantage
Walter L. Baker, Michael v. Marn, and Craig C. Zawada
(http://www.wiley.com/)

Pricing information products

Shrink-wrap tax software, video games, enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms, software embedded in physical devices such as mobile phones and automotive engines, hosted applications of the type sold in the form of SaaS or software as a service. How do you price these products? You may find answers in The Price Advantage, second edition by Walter L. Baker, Michael v. Marn, and Craig C. Zawada.

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Thinking ‘big'

Manage Mentor
How to be Your Own Management Guru
Morgen Witzel
(http://www.penguinbooksindia.com/)

Four parts of strategic thinking

Think realistically, think creatively, think big, and think continuously. These are the four parts of ‘strategic thinking' that Morgen Witzel describes in How to be Your Own Management Guru.

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Will the future get better?

Books of Account
When Rebels Become Stakeholders
Subrata K. Mitra and V. B. Singh
( http://www.sagepublications.com/)

Index of financial satisfaction

A relatively prosperous nation, with an equitable distribution of societal resources, provides the best milieu for democracy, write Subrata K. Mitra and V. B. Singh in When Rebels Become Stakeholders: Democracy, agency and social change in India.

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‘The romance of tomorrow'

Books 2 Byte
Employees First, Customers Second
Vineet Nayar
(http://www.hbr.org/)

Employees come first

Once we transfer the ownership of our collective problems from the supposedly all-powerful CEO to the employees, people want to transform and deal with their professional and personal lives in a very different way than they ever did before, writes Vineet Nayar in Employees First, Customers Second (www.hbr.org). Employees then begin to see the company as their own enterprise, and start thinking like entrepreneurs, with a higher energy quotient, he adds.

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Excessive executive pay

BookValue
Crisis of Character
Peter Firestein
( http://www.landmarkonthenet.com/)

Corrosive camaraderie in capital markets

If the axiom that you can't legislate behaviour is true, then you really can't legislate behaviour in financial markets, observes Peter Firestein in Crisis of Character: Building corporate reputation in the age of skepticism.

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Wild ride of surfers

Book Mark
BlackBerry
Rod McQueen
(http://www.hachetteindia.com/)

Count on the other person blinking

Founded in 1984; headquartered in Canada; launched the BlackBerry smartphone in 1999; led by Co-CEO Jim Balsillie and President and Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis. These are among the `Fast Facts' you would find in www.rim.com, the site of Research In Motion Ltd... "As can be expected on such a corporate journey, there are lots of twists and turns with both smooth and bumpy patches along the way," reminisce the founders in the foreword to BlackBerry: The Inside Story of Research in Motion by Rod McQueen.

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Selling techniques

Book Mark
The Science of Selling
Francis Alapatt
(http://www.pqp.in/)

Crossing the `closing' chasm

Many salespersons well into the sale process forget the main reason they are there, rues Francis Alapatt in The Science of Selling. "Surveys indicate that as many as 25 per cent of salespersons, after making their `pitch,' do not ask for the order, and therefore do not get it," he adds.

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