Ramblemuse^SM Annotated General Bibliography

In today's world, yesterday's methods just don't work. Veteran coach and management consultant David Allen shares his methods for stress-free performance. Allen's premise is simple: our productivity is directly proportional to our ability to relax. Only when our minds are clear and our thoughts are organized can we achieve effective results and unleash our creative potential. From core principles to proven tricks, "Getting Things Done" can transform the way you work and live, showing you how to pick up the pace without wearing yourself down. Learn how to: apply the "do it, delegate it, defer it, drop it" rule to get your in-box to empty; reassess goals and stay focused in changing situations; plan and unstick projects; overcome feelings of confusion, anxiety, and being overwhelmed; feel fine about what you're not doing.

Setting up a network of contacts is the single most important thing people can do to protect and advance their careers. All businesspeople, no matter what they do for a living, can use networking know-how to reach their goals, and this book is the best place to start. Filled with quizzes, checklists, and sample conversations, the book opens with a Strategic Networking Activities self-assessment test and lets readers chart their increasing skills as they master the strategies needed to effectively build business relationships.

Make Your Contacts Count is a practical, step-by-step guide for creating, cultivating, and capitalizing on networking relationships and opportunities. Packed with valuable tools, the book offers a field-tested "Hello to Goodbye" system that takes readers from entering a room, to making conversations flow, to following up. Updated from its first edition, the book now includes expanded advice on building social capital at work and in job hunting, as well as new case studies, examples, checklists, and questionnaires.

This book covers everything from the beginning of the sales process through the close. Using the everyday human communication factors that are present in every situation imaginable, you can learn to take these factors to engineer your sales approach on-the-fly, as each situation deserves.

The World Café is a flexible, easy-to-use process for fostering collaborative dialogue, sharing collective knowledge, and discovering new opportunities for action. World Café originators Juanita Brown and David Isaacs outline seven core design principles and provide practical tips and tools for convening and hosting "conversations that matter," even with very large groups. Each chapter features actual stories of Café dialogues from business, education, government, and community organizations across the globe, demonstrating how the World Cafe approach can be adapted to many different settings and cultures. Based on living systems thinking, this is a proven approach for fostering authentic dialogue and creating dynamic networks of conversation around your organization or community's real work and critical questions--improving both personal relationships and people's capacity to shape the future together.

Let's say you're trying to convince a new employer to sweeten its job offer to you. Or perhaps you're buying or selling a company. Or maybe you're even solving for peace in the Middle East. If any of these scenarios is yours, Roger Fisher, Daniel Shapiro, and their colleagues at the Harvard Negotiation Project have ideas that they would like to share.

The average life span of a Fortune 500 company is less than half a century, yet there also are corporations around the world that have been in business for 200, 500, even 700 years. Arie de Geus, a retired Royal Dutch/Shell Group executive, maintains after studying both extremes that the most enduring treat their companies as "living work communities" rather than pure economic machines. "The Living Company: Habits for Survival in a Turbulent Business Environment" persuasively outlines his resultant prescription for organizational longevity.

In an irresistible invitation to lighten up, look around, and live an unscripted life, a master of the art of improvisation explains how to adopt the attitudes and techniques used by generations of musicians and actors. Let’s face it: Life is something we all make up as we go along. No matter how carefully we formulate a “script,” it is bound to change when we interact with people with scripts of their own. “Improv Wisdom” shows how to apply the maxims of improvisational theater to real-life challenges—whether it’s dealing with a demanding boss, a tired child, or one of life’s never-ending surprises. Patricia Madson distills thirty years of experience into thirteen simple strategies, including “Say Yes,” “Start Anywhere,” “Face the Facts,” and “Make Mistakes, Please,” helping readers to loosen up, think on their feet, and take on everything life has to offer with skill, chutzpah, and a sense of humor.

Many people focus on other talents and abilities first — such as polishing their communication or leadership shills or taking courses to expand their base of knowledge — but they forget that good relationships are the foundation for achievement. They are more than just the icing on the cake in life; they are the cake — the very substance we need to live successful and fulfilling lives.

"Before and After" magazine's focus on clarity and simplicity and its insistence on approaching design not as mere decoration but as an essential form of communication have won it legions of fans. If you're among them, you'll welcome the first book from B and A's founder and publisher. John McWade walks his own talk, bringing you a beautifully clear, cohesive, and elegant primer on page design. You'll learn by example how to design single-page and multi-page publications, brochures, and advertisements, applying the principles design professionals live by. You'll also learn how to choose the right font for your project, why one typeface works better than another, and lots more. Best of all, you'll discover how to think visually--transforming the images in your head into documents that communicate effectively on the page.

Build on that bright idea with a solid business plan. A business plan is invaluable for both new businesses and existing small companies. It helps entrepreneurs analyze their business and the market to stay ahead of the competition, and obtain start-up capital and loans. This book has everything business owners need to create a clear and comprehensive business plan, including guidance on the important decisions that must be made before drafting a plan, a tutorial on business-writing basics, sample business plans, and more.

Susan RoAne provides the tools and techniques for savvy socializing in all situations so that you are comfortable in any room. She identifies the roadblocks that prevent us from meeting new people, developing new contacts, and establishing connections that build personal and professional relationships.

The leading authority on system dynamics explains this approach to organizational problem solving, emphasizing simulation models to understand issues such as fluctuating sales, market growth and stagnation, the reliability of forecasts and the rationality of business decision-making. The CD includes modeling software from Vensim, ithink, and PowerSim.

We all want to get to yes, but what happens when the other person keeps saying no? How can you negotiate successfully with a stubborn boss, an irate customer, or a deceitful coworker? In "Getting Past No", William Ury of Harvard Law School's Program on Negotiation offers a proven breakthrough strategy for turning adversaries into negotiating partners.

"Running A One-Person Business" provides a comprehensive approach to the needs of the one-person business. With interviews of many successful entrepreneurs who have struck out on their own and stuck with it, this book is brimming with practical information needed by those currently in business for themselves or those who are planning to be.