Apr 25 2010

In the Mail: Robert’s Rules of Innovation

Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival

Synopsis

Innovation, the key to your company’s survival, must be encoded in your corporate DNA. It is an imperative—because you can bet your competitors are going at Innovation full-throttle.

Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival chronicles decades’ worth of collective, invaluable experience contributed by Innovation guru Robert Brands and his international network of Innovate-For-Success experts. Much like Robert’s Rules of Order, which created order from chaos in meetings around the world, Robert’s Rules of Innovation sets a new standard for “doing” Innovation, equipping you with the principles needed to:

  • Inspire, lead, and drive the process
  • Manage risk, without letting fear of failure kill innovation
  • Create a formalized New Product Development (NPD) process—an absolute must
  • Convince others to work outside their comfort zone
  • Build value for your Innovation
  • Instill accountability—one of the most important of Robert’s Rules of Innovation
  • Properly hire, train, and coach—to create, reinforce, and enhance your company’s culture and mindset
  • Stay open to new ideas
  • Observe, measure, and track NPD results—essential to optimal ROI
  • Grow profitably, which benefits shareholders, stakeholders, employees, customers, and consumers

Let’s face it, whether you manage a multinational company or an entrepreneurial start-up, or if you are a manufacturer, distributor, service provider, supplier, retailer, or a not-for-profit, the pressures today—in terms of time, budget, everything—are unprecedented in our lifetimes. Robert’s Rules of Innovation introduces you to easy-to-implement, immediately useful world-class guidance for starting, nurturing, and profiting from a culture of sustained innovation in the work environment.

Get passionate about creativity. Prepare to unleash your team’s abilities. Create the next home-run new product. Do it all with the high-performance ideas found in Robert’s Rules of Innovation.

By Kevin Holtsberry • In The Mail • 0 • Tags: , , ,

Apr 23 2010

The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781 – 1997 by Piers Brendon

The title of the most recent book I read, The Decline and Fall of the British Empire (Vintage) by Piers Brendon, intrigued me because of its similarity in title to Edward Gibbons’ The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.  In fact, in the book’s introduction, Brendon acknowledges that his humble book echoes Gibbons’.  Brendon does compare the administration and fate of the Roman Empire with that of the British Empire (in some cases his comparisons are a bit thin).

The book is generally organized in chapters according to the colonies.  Several of the colonies have more chapters dedicated to them.  For example, Brendon devotes chapters on India regarding the initial British incursion and expansion, the Indian Mutiny of 1857, and its route to independence.  I think this organization works best (rather than a chronological one) because the reader gets to focus on one colony or group of colonies at a time – it helps the reader to put events in the context of that country for a period of time.

Keep Reading

By Jeff Grim • Reviews • 0 • Tags: , , ,

Apr 20 2010

Attention Publishers

On the off chance that publishers monitor this site on a regular basis (outside of when I post reviews of their books) I wanted to make an announcement of sorts.

This is one of those good news bad news sort of things. The good news is I have a new job which really is good news in these trying times. The bad news is it will take up more and more of my time and thus seriously curtail an already somewhat reduced focus on books and reviews.

Work and two young children had already begun to limit the time I have available to read and more seriously limit the time I have to follow literary and book news; conduct interviews; and post reviews. This site has moved from a once rather active book blog to a place with the occasional review combined with post on books I receive “In the Mail.”

And now – with a new job – I am really not sure how much time I will be able to devote to the site.  Jeff will continue to review military/history and fiction that touches on both. I too plan to continue to read – albeit at a reduced pace – and will try to offer my thoughts as I am able.

But I have a feeling that from my side it will be more like a site that notes and tracks my reading rather than anything approaching a full fledged literary blog (if I ever approached such a thing).

So I wanted to post this note so that publishers are aware of the circumstances and can allocate resources as they see fit.  (Our readers have shrunk to a dedicated few with the majority surfing in from Google or other search engines seeking reviews of specific titles.

BTW, If any of you reading this are avid readers, don’t already have your own blog and are interested in picking up the slack and becoming a blogger here please do let me know.

By Kevin Holtsberry • Site news • 0 • Tags: ,

Apr 19 2010

The Imaginary Jesus by Matt Mikalatos

I found out about Imaginary Jesus from the Tyndale Blog Network.  I received my free copy and promptly read the book. But I only manged to post anything to Goodreads. So I wanted to rectify that and offer my take on this book in this space in a more formal way (at least slightly).

Here is the basic plot (cribbed from the publisher’s blurb):

When Matt Mikalatos realizes that his longtime buddy in the robe and sandals isn’t the real Jesus at all, but an imaginary one, he embarks on a mission to find the real thing. On his wild ride through time, space, and Portland, Oregon, he encounters hundreds of other Imaginary Jesuses determined to stand in his way (like Legalistic Jesus, Perpetually Angry Jesus, and Magic 8 Ball Jesus). But Matt won’t stop until he finds the real Jesus—and finally gets an answer to the question that’s haunted him for years.

As you might be able to tell even from this short synopsis, the book walks the fine line between slapstick comedy and insightful spiritual commentary – and in my opinion manages to pull it off for the most part.

Mikalatos has a lot of fun with his spiritually themed romp but the issue of how Christians create imaginary Saviors in order to avoid dealing with the real Jesus is worth exploring. The author touches on some rather profound and emotional issues but never gets too heavy or loses the rhythm of his largely comic story.

I don’t think Mikalatos offers any startling insights or deep perspectives. Instead he simply creates – based in part on his own experiences – humorous and thought provoking examples of how we try to pigeon hole or caricature Jesus.

Imaginary Jesus is a quick and chuckle inducing read but one with a valuable lesson at its core.

By Kevin Holtsberry • Reviews • 1 • Tags: , , ,

Apr 19 2010

In the Mail: Alone With You

Alone With You: Stories by Marisa Silver

From the Publisher

Marisa Silver dazzled and inspired readers with her critically acclaimed The God of War (a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist), praised by Richard Russo as “a novel of great metaphorical depth and beauty.” In this elegant, finely wrought new collection, Alone With You, Silver has created eight indelible stories that mine the complexities of modern relationships and the unexpected ways love manifests itself. Her brilliantly etched characters confront life’s abrupt and unsettling changes with fear, courage, humor, and overwhelming grace.

In the O. Henry Prize–winning story “The Visitor,” a VA hospital nurse’s aide contends with a family ghost and discovers the ways in which her own past haunts her. The reticent father in “Pond” is confronted with a Solomonic choice that pits his love for his daughter against his feelings for her young son. In “Night Train to Frankfurt,” first published in The New Yorker, a daughter travels to an alternative-medicine clinic in Germany in a gambit to save her mother’s life. And in the title story, a woman vacations in Morocco with her family while contemplating a decision that will both ruin and liberate them all.

From “Temporary,” where a young woman confronts the ephemeral nature of companionship, to “Three Girls,” in which sisters trapped in a snowstorm recognize the boundaries of childhood, the nuanced voices of Alone With You bear the hallmarks of an instant classic from a writer with unerring talent and imaginative resource. Silver has the extraordinary ability to render her fictional inhabitants instantly relatable, in all their imperfections. Her stories have the singular quality of looking in a mirror. We see at once what is familiar and what is strange. In these stirring narratives, we meet ourselves anew.

By Kevin Holtsberry • In The Mail • 0 • Tags: , ,

1 2 3