Toastmasters International

The featured item for this post is Toastmasters International. This is a fantastic organization that serves to help those who need help with public speaking skills...and who couldn't use this???

Look for information on a local chapter. There once was one here on the UA campus. I was involved with it for a short while. If you have the time, leadership and inclination I am sure that re-establishing a chapter here at UA would be a wonderful thing to do that would pay huge intangible dividends.

Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Bookshelf

Because I find so many things that are interesting I have difficulty in picking up a book and reading it from cover to cover. I easily and quickly get engrossed in a book and there lies a problem. I am surrounded by books at work and at home. One way to solve this problem is to read book reviews. You can learn a lot and get the essence of the book or the executive summary. One place that I like to read book reviews is from the Wall Street Journal. The reviews appear almost daily in the paper and the books that are featured are very interesting...usually non-fiction (my favorite). To easily see back issues of WSJ book reviews one can quickly enter the ABI/INFORM database that we subscribe to and search for "Bookshelf" in the Wall Street Journal. Here's an effective search if you want to specifically look for books with "management" in the title. Use these search terms:

Wall Street Journal = Publication Title
Bookshelf = Citation and Abstract
management = Citation and Abstract

Happy reading,
Paul

Business for the Glory of God

by Wayne Grudem

This is a great little book of less than 100 pages. It has an index and notes section and is very well written by a great scholar in the field of Bible and Theology. This book will help open your eyes of understanding to a more Biblically-sound side of capitalism and commerce and provoke your thoughts in ways you may not have considered before. Read only if you want to be challenged and have a deeper understanding of things.

See Kindle # 26 in the Bruno Business Library for this title. Be sure to check the Scout catalog for availability. Read this Amazon summary to whet your appetite.

Capitalism Saved the Miners

Here is a great story from the Wall Street Journal related to Center Rock, Inc. and other's innovation, hard work and drive for success.

Financial Intelligence

by Karen Berman and Joe Knight with John Case. Published by Harvard Business School Press.

I read the review for this in "The 100 Best Business Books of All Time" by Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten (posted in an earlier blog entry).

This easy to read book takes the fundamentals of business and conveys the concepts in simple and clear words. Explains the difference in balance sheets and income statements and much, much more. Gives practical advice on how to deal with business expenses over the long run rather than not knowing how to deal with them or improperly dealing with them in the short run. This book can be great for learning the basics of accounting and how to run a business. Lots of great advice is shared in this relatively short book.

Check here for status.

Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People:

Living The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. I found this book at the Tuscaloosa Public Library bookstore where I am a frequent visitor. This handy, pocket-size book has short but very good, daily messages that can help put real life situations in a better and more inspiring perspective.

Read the Amazon reviews here.

Publish or Perish

Can the iPad topple the Kindle, and save the book business? by Ken Auletta

This interesting article from the New Yorker (April 26, 2010) provides an interesting look into the book publishing industry. Here are some snippets that I took from his insightful article:

• e-books (although increasing in popularity) account for 3-5% of the market
• "Amazon had been buying many e-books from publishers for about $13 and selling them for $9.99 to increase market share and encourage sales of the Kindle."
• Publishers didn't like the $9.99 price and was concerned about setting a price precedent in buyer's minds.
• "The decision to enter publishing was a reversal for [Steve] Jobs, who two years ago said the book publishing industry was unsalvageable."
• "Traditionally, publishers have sold books to stores, with the wholesale price for hardcovers set at fifty per cent of the cover price."
  
• "Authors are paid royalities at a rate of about fifteen per cent of the cover price."

If you're interested in reading more please see the full article here. (you must have an active myBama password and login).