“Useful insights” about what self-made successes do differently, from the coauthor of The Middle-Class Millionaire (Publishers Weekly). In Business Brilliant, Lewis Schiff combines compelling storytelling with groundbreaking research to reveal what America’s self-made rich already know: It’s synergy, not serendipity, that produces success. He explodes common myths about wealth—and explains how legendary entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson, Suze Orman, Steve Jobs, and Warren Buffett have subscribed to a set of priorities that’s completely different from those of the middle class. Schiff identifies the seven distinct principles practiced by individuals who may or may not be any smarter than the rest of the population, but seem to understand instinctively how money is made. This guide also reveals how these business icons excel in areas of team building, risk management, and leadership development to accumulate their wealth. And he offers a practical four-step program—from choosing one’s livelihood and pinpointing skills to focus on to negotiating job terms and salary—in order to bring upon greater success. “Schiff builds his narrative on solid evidence, including research data comparing and contrasting the self-made person with the usual middle class.” —Booklist

A unique and fresh perspective on how to achieve business success based on the careers of modern history’s greatest pop figures. Stroll through the past and discover the fusion of pop culture and business. From Walt Disney to Bill Gates, from Burt Bacharach to Howard Hughes, from Steven Spielberg to John D. Rockefeller, and from Col. Harland Sanders to Steve Jobs, this is the comprehensive study of pop icons, historical innovations, and business pioneers. In Pop Icons and Business Legends, legendary business advisor and former presidential speech writer Hank Moore embraces the past as a roadmap to the future. This is history, cultural enlightenment, and business innovation, all rolled in one, plus a dynamic panorama of non-profit and humanitarian contributions to society. “How can one person with so much insight into cultural history and nostalgia be such a visionary of business and organizations? Hank Moore is one of the few who understands the connection.” —Dick Clark, TV icon “Hank Moore's Business Tree™ is the most original business model of the last 50 years.” —Peter Drucker, business visionary

Coca-Cola. Harley-Davidson. Nike. Budweiser. Valued by customers more for what they symbolize than for what they do, products like these are more than brands--they are cultural icons. How do managers create brands that resonate so powerfully with consumers? Based on extensive historical analyses of some of America's most successful iconic brands, including ESPN, Mountain Dew, Volkswagen, Budweiser, and Harley-Davidson, this book presents the first systematic model to explain how brands become icons. Douglas B. Holt shows how iconic brands create "identity myths" that, through powerful symbolism, soothe collective anxieties resulting from acute social change. Holt warns that icons can't be built through conventional branding strategies, which focus on benefits, brand personalities, and emotional relationships. Instead, he calls for a deeper cultural perspective on traditional marketing themes like targeting, positioning, brand equity, and brand loyalty--and outlines a distinctive set of "cultural branding" principles that will radically alter how companies approach everything from marketing strategy to market research to hiring and training managers. Until now, Holt shows, even the most successful iconic brands have emerged more by intuition and serendipity than by design. With How Brands Become Icons, managers can leverage the principles behind some of the most successful brands of the last half-century to build their own iconic brands. Douglas B. Holt is associate professor of Marketing at Harvard Business School.

Examines the legendary success that Steve Jobs has had with Pixar and his rejuvenation of Apple through the introduction of the iMac and iPod.

In the popular imagination, the business media, and the schools of business and management that train new generations of entrepreneurs and executives, achieving extraordinary success in business is attributed to far-sighted individuals who have taken bold risks, provided innovative leadership, and introduced new products, services, or ideas superior to those of the competition. Amid the growing skepticism about the means by which vast amounts of wealth are accumulated and its consequences, however, this belief is long overdue for reevaluation. In From Predators to Icons, Michel Villette, a sociologist, and Catherine Vuillermot, a business historian, examine the careers of thirty-two of today's wealthiest global executives--including Warren Buffett, Ingvar Kamprad, Bernard Arnault, Jim Clark, and Richard Branson--in order to challenge the conventional explanations for their extreme success and come to a better understanding of modern business practices. In contrast to the familiar image of the entrepreneur as a visionary with a plan, Villette and Vuillermot instead discover a far less dramatic process of improvised adaptations gradually assembled into a coherent course of conduct. And rather than being risk-takers, those who are most successful in business are risk-minimizers. Huge gains, these case studies reveal, are most reliably obtained in circumstances where the entrepreneur has established careful provisions for risk reduction. As for the view that innovation makes success possible, the authors find that because innovation is an expensive process that takes a long time to produce profits, innovators first of all require capital; success makes innovation possible. The necessary resources, they show, are most often derived from what they provocatively term "predation" ruthlessly taking advantage of imperfections, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities within the market or among competitors. Finally, From Predator to Icon considers the "practical ethics" implemented during the phase in which capital is most rapidly accumulated, as well as the social consequences of these activities. Drawing on interviews with some of their subjects and, crucially, close readings of the authorized biographies and other hagiographic accounts of these figures, which eliminates the bias of malicious interpretations, Villette and Vuillermot provide revelatory insights about the creation and maintenance of business wealth that will be profitably read by both the captains and the critics of contemporary capitalism.

Ro murmurs into my ear. "Don't be afraid, Dol. They're not coming for us." Still, he slips his arm around me and we wait until the sky is clear. Because he doesn't know. Not really. Everything changed on The Day. The day the Icon appeared in Los Angeles. The day the power stopped. The day Dol's family dropped dead. The day Earth lost a war it didn't know it was fighting. Since then, Dol has lived a simple life in the countryside with fellow survivor Ro-safe from the shadow of the Icon and its terrifying power. Hiding from the one truth she can't avoid. They're different. They survived. Why? When the government discovers their secret, they are forced to join faint-hearted Tima and charismatic Lucas in captivity. Called the Icon Children, the four are the only humans on Earth immune to the power of the Icons. Torn between brooding Ro and her evolving feelings for Lucas, between a past and a future, Dol's heart has never been more vulnerable. And as tensions escalate, the Icon Children discover that their explosive emotions-which they've always thought to be their greatest weaknesses-may actually be their greatest strengths. Bestselling author Margaret Stohl delivers a thrilling novel set in a haunting new world where four teens must piece together the mysteries of their pasts-in order to save their future.

When Bob Lutz retired from General Motors in 2010, after an unparalleled forty-seven-year career in the auto industry, he was one of the most respected leaders in American business. He had survived all kinds of managers over those decades: tough and timid, analytical and irrational, charismatic and antisocial, and some who seemed to shift frequently among all those traits. His experiences made him an expert on leadership, every bit as much as he was an expert on cars and trucks. Now Lutz is revealing the leaders-good, bad, and ugly-who made the strongest impression on him throughout his career. Icons and Idiots is a collection of shocking and often hilarious true stories and the lessons Lutz drew from them. From enduring the sadism of a Marine Corps drill instructor, to working with a washed-up alcoholic, to taking over the reins from a convicted felon, he reflects on the complexities of all-too-human leaders. No textbook or business school course can fully capture their idiosyncrasies, foibles and weaknesses - which can make or break companies in the real world. Lutz shows that we can learn just as much from the most stubborn, stupid, and corrupt leaders as we can from the inspiring geniuses. The result is a powerful and entertaining guide for any aspiring leader.

A riveting, behind-the-scenes account of the near collapse of the Ford Motor Company, which in 2008 was close to bankruptcy, and CEO Alan Mulally's hard-fought effort and bold plan--including his decision not to take federal bailout money--to bring Ford back from the brink.

Who are history's most iconic graphic designers? Let the debate begin here. In this gorgeous, visual overview of the history of graphic design, students are introduced to 50 of the most important designers from the early 20th century to the present day. This fun-to-read, pretty-to-look-at graphic design history primer introduces them to the work and notable achievements of such industry luminaries as El Lissitzky, Alexander Rodchenko, A.M. Cassandre, Alvin Lustig, Cipe Pineles, Armin Hofmann, Paul Rand, Saul Bass, Herb Lubalin, Milton Glaser, Stefan Sagmeister, John Maeda, Paula Scher, and more. Who coined the term "graphic design"? Who designed the first album cover? Who was the first female art director of a mass-market American magazine? Who created the "I Want My MTV" ad campaign? Who created the first mail-order font shop? In Graphic Icons: Visionaries Who Shaped Modern Graphic Design, students start with the who and quickly learn the what, when, why, and where behind graphic design's most important breakthroughs and the impact they had, and continue to have, on the world we live in.

Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a general-purpose notation language for specifying and visualizing complex software, especially large, object-oriented projects. Object-oriented programming is when a programmer defines not only the data type of a data structure, but also the types of operations/functions that can be applied to the data structure. Applying UML addresses the practical issues faced by users in adopting UML. As the title suggests, it helps the reader in actually applying UML to real life situations, rather than just in learning the language. The book covers in depth detail of UML, including notation on profiles and extensions. The scope of the book assumes prior experience in software engineering and/or business modeling, an understanding of object-oriented concepts and a basic knowledge of UML.* Case study driven approach covering a wide range of issues* Contains advanced tutorial material to aid learning* Focuses on practical issues in the application of UML