DailyLit: Books

The Pursuit of Wow!

by Tom Peters

Description

Once more the "unconventional" Peters stimulates corporate thought processes. Along with the best of his columns, Peters includes questions and rebuttals that come from readers and listeners, as well as his own candid responses. A "must" read for every business person.

Tom Peters—author, provocateur, business visionary—helped us navigate Present Shock in The Tom Peters Seminar, the first book in his exciting series of paperback originals. But hold on to your crash helmet—the wild ride accelerates in The Pursuit of Wow!

Peters wants to give you the words, the tools, to survive in the tumultuous nineties. A dozen years ago his groundbreaking book In Search of Excellence changed the was business does business. Now it's time to take the next leap—into the NAFTA, GATT, all-the-world's-a-cyberstage era. Getting to a place called excellence is no longer the idea. You've got to take that leap, then leap again—catapult their imaginations, blow their mindsets, knock their Nikes off. In a word, wow! them. It's the wow!ers who will win in this brazen new world.

Organized into more than 200 thought- and action-provoking elements—from the importance of clean trucks and bathrooms to conversations with entrepreneurs creating markets where none existed before—The Pursuit of Wow! is a practical guide to impractical times, containing the tactics and strategies you'll need to get on the bullet train.

This brash, digestible book might drive you up the wall, it might drive you to distraction, but it might also drive you (and your business) to new heights in the twenty-first-century global marketplace.

Extended Copyright Information

Originally published by Vintage Books, a division of Random House.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Cover design by Carol Devine Carson.

Sample Installment

The Project50

by Tom Peters

Description

The common denominator/bottom line for both the professional service firm/PSF and the individual/Brand You is: the project. And for the cool individual in the cool professional service firm there is only one answer: the cool project. A seminar participant said: "Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre successes." So, how many of you are at work—right now—on "mediocre successes"? At work on projects that won't be recalled, let alone recalled with fondness and glee, a year from now?

We don't study professional service firms. (Mistake.) And we don't study WOW Projects. (Worse mistake.) There is, of course, a project management literature. But it's awful. Or, at least, misleading. It focuses almost exclusively on the details of planning and tracking progress and totally ignores the important stuff like: Is it cool? Is it beautiful? Will it make a difference? My No.1 epithet: "On time . . . on budget . . . who cares?" I.e., does it matter? Will you be bragging about it two—or ten—years from now? Is it a WOW project?

So, then: Step #1 . . .the organization . . .the professional service firm/PSF 1.0. Step 2 . . .the individual . . .the pursuit of distinction/Brand You. And: Step #3 . . . the work itself . . . the memorable project/WOW Projects.

The Project50 is a simple and handy guide that provides 50 easy steps to help the modern businessperson choose the right project, find the right team, develop strategies for success, and ultimately know when it's time to move on.

Extended Copyright Information

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York.

A Borzoi Book, originally published by Alfred K. Knopf, Inc., a division of Random House.

Cover design by Chip Kidd.

Sample Installment

The Professional Service Firm50

by Tom Peters

Description

Transform white collar departments into "professional service firms" whose sole, powerful asset is knowledge.

Idea: You are boss of a 23-person finance department in a division of a big company. Or, rather, you were boss of the finance department. Now, per our suggestion-model, you are Managing Partner, Finance Inc., a full-fledged professional service firm which is a wholly owned subsidiary of your division.

Goal: Learn from the best professional service firms! Transform your unit! Today, even after re-engineering done well, the "department" doesn't look much like McKinsey, Andersen or Chiat Day. (And that's an understatement!)

Aim, in short: Cool people (call them "talent") working on cool projects with cool clients. The aim redux: A cool Finance/Purchasing, IS, HR, Sales department. Why not?

The cool professional service firm is just that: cool people/talent, a portfolio of cool projects, cool clients. Period. It's only asset—literally—is brains. It's only product is projects. It's only aim is truly memorable client service.

So step #1, then, is the organization (PSF) . . . transforming "departments" in which white collar folks work into way cool professional service firms adding way cool value by doing way cool "stuff".

Peters discusses making the most of presentations, working with outsiders on market analysis, how to improve brainstorming meetings, how to develop relationships with clients and get the most out of them.

50 of Tom Peters's trademark insights on how to get the most our of your department.

Extended Copyright Information

A Borzoi Book, originally published by Alfred K. Knopf, Inc., a division of Random House.

Cover design by Chip Kidd.

Sample Installment

The Brand You50

by Tom Peters

Description

Michael Goldhaber, writing in Wired, said, "If there is nothing very special about your work, no matter how hard you apply yourself you won't get noticed and that increasingly means you won't get paid much either. In times past you could be obscure yet secure—now that's much harder."

Again: the white collar job as now configured is doomed. Soon. ("Downsizing" in the nineties will look like small change.) So what's the trick? There's only one: distinction. Or as we call it, turning yourself into a brand . . . Brand You.

A brand is nothing more than a sign of distinction. Right? Nike. Starbucks. Martha Stewart. The point (again): that's not the way we've thought about white collar workers—ourselves—over the past century. The "bureaucrat" on the finance staff is de facto faceless, plugging away, passing papers.

But now, in our view, she is born again, transformed from bureaucrat to the new star. She works in a professional service firm and works on projects that she'll be able to brag about years from now.

I call her/him the New American Professional, CEO of Me Inc. (even if Me Inc. is currently on someone's payroll) and, of course, of Brand You.

Step #1 in the model was the organization . . .a department turned into PSF 1.0. Step #2 is the individual . . .reborn as Brand You.

In 50 essential points, Tom Peters shows how to be committed to your craft, choose the right projects, how to improve networking, why you need to think fun is cool, and why it's important to piss some people off. He will enable you to turn yourself into an important and distinctive commodity. In short, he will show you how to turn yourself into . . . Brand You.

Extended Copyright Information

A Borzoi Book, originally published by Alfred K. Knopf, Inc., a division of Random House.

Cover design by Chip Kidd.

Sample Installment

The Billionaire Who Bought Christmas

by Barbara Dunlop

Series

Silhouette Desire (a Silhouette Books series)

Description

WIFE TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER

To save the family fortune, billionaire Jack Osland had to marry a woman he barely knew. Getting struggling clothing designer Kristy Mahoney to a Las Vegas chapel a minute after meeting her was no problem. Even though she supposedly loved someone else.

Prenup in hand, Jack planned to enjoy his wedding-night privileges, then walk away with the untouchable Osland billions. He'd teach his gorgeous temporary bride a little lesson and have a very merry Christmas. But he had married the wrong woman...

Extended Copyright Information

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.

Previously published by Harlequin Enterprises Ltd.

All characters, places and incidents in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events or locations is entirely coincidental.

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The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems

by Alexander Pope

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A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

by Henry David Thoreau

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The Way of All Flesh

by Samuel Butler

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Under Western Eyes

by Joseph Conrad

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Under the Lilacs

by Louisa May Alcott

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