Shop class as soulcraft : an inquiry into the value of work

by Matthew B. Crawford. Philosopher and motorcycle mechanic Crawford presents a fascinating, important analysis of the value of hard work and manufacturing. He reminds readers that in the 1990s vocational education (shop class) started to become a thing of the past as U.S. educators prepared students for the "knowledge revolution." Thus, an entire generation of American "thinkers" cannot, he says, do anything, and this is a threat to manufacturing, the fundamental backbone of economic development. Crawford makes real the experience of working with one's hands to make and fix things and the importance of skilled labor. His philosophical background is evident as he muses on how to live a pragmatic, concrete life in today's ever more abstract world and issues a clarion call for reviving trade and skill development classes in American preparatory schools. The result is inspired social criticism and deep personal exploration. Crawford's work will appeal to fans of Robert Pirsig's classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and should be required reading for all educational leaders. Highly recommended; Crawford's appreciation for various trades may intrigue readers with white collar jobs who wonder at the end of each day what they really accomplished --Library Journal (Check Catalog)

Womenomics : write your own rules for success

by Claire Shipman. This collaboration between broadcasting powerhouses Shipman and Kay gives career women explicit permission to demand the balance that's been missing in their lives. The authors assert that after decades of trying to outdo men or fighting the Mommy Wars in the office trenches of the 1980s and 1990s, women have gained enough corporate clout to start changing the workplace to suit their needs. Shipman and Kay review the depth of women's influence as consumers and earners, maintaining that their power gives them the right and the ability to ask for flexibility in their work lives, to negotiate assertively and effectively, to say no and to give up the guilt associated with getting their needs met. Through Shipman and Kay's own stories of struggling with demanding work and home lives and anecdotes from other working mothers, the authors make a convincing argument that with some mental and emotional effort, women can create their ideal work and home lives. Filled with pragmatic and optimistic steps, this book will inspire readers to set in motion a flexibility-driven business revolution that can benefit all women and men, families and workforces. --Publishers Weekly. (Check Catalog)

The housing boom and bust

by Thomas Sowell. "There was no single, dramatic event that set this off, the way the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand set off the chain of events that led to the First World War or the way the arrest of political operatives committing burglary at the Watergate Hotel led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. A whole series of very questionable decisions by many people, in many places, over a period of years, built up the pressures that led to a sudden collapse of the housing market and of financial institutions that began to fall like dominoes as a result of investing in securities based on housing prices." Book jacket. (Check Catalog)

Implementing beyond budgeting : unlocking the performance potential

by Bjarte Bognes. "A philosophy concerned more with leadership than with actual budgeting, Beyond Budgeting is about releasing capable people from the chains of the top-down performance contract and enabling them to use the knowledge resources of the organization to consistently beat the competition. With intellectual assets accounting for 80 to 90% of shareholder value today, people really are every organization's most valuable asset: Implementing Beyond Budgeting: Unlocking the Performance Potential shows you how to build and maximize a performance climate with teams committed to a common purpose, clear values, and shared rewards."--BOOK JACKET (Check Catalog)

Chaotics : the business of managing and marketing in the age of turbulence

by Philip Kotler. The world has entered a new economic stage : from normality to turbulence -- Management's wrong responses to turbulence now become dangerous -- The chaotics model : managing vulnerability and opportunity -- Designing management systems for resilience -- Designing marketing systems for resilience -- Thriving in the age of turbulence : achieving business enterprise sustainability. (Check Catalog)

Fool's gold : how the bold dream of a small tribe at J.P. Morgan was corrupted by Wall Street greed and unleashed a catastrophe

by Gillian Tett. Peter Hancock viewed almost every aspect of the world around him as a complex intellectual puzzle to be solved, and he especially loved developing elaborate theories about how to push money around the world more efficiently. When it came to his staff, he obsessively ruminated on how to build the team for optimal performance. Most of all, though, he loved brainstorming ideas. The team called his exuberant outbursts of creativity "Come to Planet Pluto" moments, because most of the notions he tossed out were better suited to science fiction than banking. But they loved his intensity, and they were passionately loyal to him. They were also bonded by the spirit of being pioneers.The J.P. Morgan derivatives team was engaged in the banking equivalent of space travel. Computing power and high-order mathematics were taking finance far from its traditional bounds, and this small group of brilliant minds was charting the outer reaches of cyber-finance. (Check catalog)

How we got here : a slightly irreverent history of technology and markets

by Andy Kessler. Kessler (Running Money: Hedge Fund Honchos, Monster Markets and My Hunt for the Big Score), a journalist, former hedge fund manager, Wall Street analyst, venture capitalist, and chip designer, presents a fast-paced, albeit condensed, history that reaches back to the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, breezes through the development of early capital markets and the rise of communications, and connects it all to the explosion of the computer age and the growth of modern capitalism. In offering this brief history of technological change and its ramifications, Kessler seeks to demonstrate the five simple creeds he says he has learned over time: lower prices drive wealth, intelligence moves out to the edge of the network, horizontal beats vertical, capital sloshes around seeking its highest return, and the military drives commerce and vice versa. He writes in a hip style that slings the slang and hits the high points of this fascinating story, providing a more in-depth analysis of how today's modern information age evolved than is found in James Burke's Connections. (Check Catalog)