Never before has IT played such a significant role in transforming organisations, of all sizes. And yet it continues to be dominated by technical jargon, acronyms and irrelevant detail. This book cuts through all of the confusion, and presents a clear, direct, solution based focus on the key IT/business issues facing every company and business leader today. This book contains the complete, first fifteen months of David Taylor's highly acclaimed Computer Weekly column - Inside Track. With a reputation for cutting through the hype, David focuses on the IT/business and personal leadership agenda, covering such issues as: * The key IT issues for the boardroom - in business language * Actions to win in the new world of e-commerce - and get started today * The successful new IT leader - the skills you and your company need to employ * Quick solutions to long-term IT problems - they can be resolved * How to motivate your people, and slash staff turnover - save a fortune on recruitment costs * True IT/business alignment - add real value to your bottom line David Taylor is a leading authority on IT in business. He is President of the association of IT Directors, Certus, a reference partner to the UK Government's National Audit Office, and a registered expert with several global research companies. His overall aim is to enable people and organisations to be all that they can be, through the combination of world class technology, true leadership and the release of human potential. With a prestigious background across companies such as Rolls-Royce, Allianz and Cornhill, David has a driving, positive passion for IT in business, and a reputation for championing IT Directors who want to achieve board level positions in their organisations. David and his team work with FTSE 200 companies on winning in the new internet economy, with entrepreneurs starting new dot com ventures, and with CEOs, advising on the qualities they should seek in their IT leaders. A regular writer, television presenter and speaker, David gives keynote, leadership and IT presentations throughout the world. He lives with his wife, Rosalind and their two children, Anthony and Olivia, in Surrey.

Never before has IT played such a significant role in transforming organisations, of all sizes. And yet it continues to be dominated by technical jargon, acronyms and irrelevant detail. This book cuts through all of the confusion, and presents a clear, direct, solution based focus on the key IT/business issues facing every company and business leader today.This book contains the complete, first fifteen months of David Taylor's highly acclaimed Computer Weekly column - Inside Track. With a reputation for cutting through the hype, David focuses on the IT/business and personal leadership agenda, covering such issues as: The key IT issues for the boardroom - in business language Actions to win in the new world of e-commerce - and get started today The successful new IT leader - the skills you and your company need toemploy Quick solutions to long-term IT problems - they can be resolved How to motivate your people, and slash staff turnover - save a fortune onrecruitment costs True IT/business alignment - add real value to your bottom lineDavid Taylor is a leading authority on IT in business. He is President of the association of IT Directors, Certus, a reference partner to the UK Government's National Audit Office, and a registered expert with several global research companies. His overall aim is to enable people and organisations to be all that they can be, through the combination of world class technology, true leadership and the release of human potential. With a prestigious background across companies such as Rolls-Royce, Allianz and Cornhill, David has a driving, positive passion for IT in business, and a reputation for championing IT Directors who want to achieve board level positions in their organisations. David and his team work with FTSE

The Business Playground is the definitive guide to creativity and innovation Written by musician/entrepreneur Dave Stewart and branding expert Mark Simmons, The Business Playground offers a revealing look at what creativity is and how to apply it in business through an inspiring mix of scientific studies, anecdotes, high-profile interviews, and thought-provoking games that you can play alone or with your co-workers. The Business Playground is not your average business book. Former Eurythmics band member Dave Stewart turns on his rock and roll charm with personal, inspirational stories from his own career as well as interviews with such innovative and influential thinkers as Mick Jagger, Microsoft’s Paul Allen, and Twitter’s Evan Williams. The legendary Sir Richard Branson makes a guest appearance as the author of the book’s foreword where he sets the tone for this quirky, fun, emminently useful guide to creative business thinking. Whether you’re running a one-man show or heading up a multinational corporation, you’ll discover new techniques for finding and harnessing your creative abilities and putting them to work for your business in this entertaining book. The Business Playground includes real-world examples of innovation in action, as well as substantial and practical techniques that you can use immediately to aid in creative thinking and problem solving. Play the games at the end of each chapter and you’ll learn how to: Ask the right questions so you can find the right answers Rediscover, train, and utilize your innate creative abilities Conduct “the perfect brainstorm”—yes, such a thing really does exist Create a work culture that’s conducive to creativity Help people collaborate with others within and outside of the organization Kill ideas that aren’t working before they waste too much time and too many resources In his foreword Sir Richard Branson says, “Dave and Mark’s enthusiasm for creativity and how it can be applied in business leaps off every page. The Business Playground will bring out the creative child inside all of us and I can’t imagine many readers being left uninspired to try it out for themselves. Their mix of insights about creativity, revealing examples, anecdotes, interviews with creative thinkers, and games make for an entertaining and informative read. If you get half as much out of this book as I did, you’re in for quite a treat.” Join in the fun with the Business Playground Facebook community at: www.facebook.com/businessplayground

Ten years of research uncover the secret source of growth and profit … Those who center their business on improving people’s lives have a growth rate triple that of competitors and outperform the market by a huge margin. They dominate their categories, create new categories and maximize profit in the long term. Pulling from a unique ten year growth study involving 50,000 brands, Jim Stengel shows how the world's 50 best businesses—as diverse as Method, Red Bull, Lindt, Petrobras, Samsung, Discovery Communications, Visa, Zappos, and Innocent—have a cause and effect relationship between financial performance and their ability to connect with fundamental human emotions, hopes, values and greater purposes. In fact, over the 2000s an investment in these companies—“The Stengel 50”—would have been 400 percent more profitable than an investment in the S&P 500. Grow is based on unprecedented empirical research, inspired (when Stengel was Global Marketing Officer of Procter & Gamble) by a study of companies growing faster than P&G. After leaving P&G in 2008, Stengel designed a new study, in collaboration with global research firm Millward Brown Optimor. This study tracked the connection over a ten year period between financial performance and customer engagement, loyalty and advocacy. Then, in a further investigation of what goes on in the “black box” of the consumer’s mind, Stengel and his team tapped into neuroscience research to look at customer engagement and measure subconscious attitudes to determine whether the top businesses in the Stengel Study were more associated with higher ideals than were others. Grow thus deftly blends timeless truths about human behavior and values into an action framework – how you discover, build, communicate, deliver and evaluate your ideal. Through colorful stories drawn from his fascinating personal experiences and “deep dives” that bring out the true reasons for such successes as the Pampers, HP, Discovery Channel, Jack Daniels and Zappos, Grow unlocks the code for twenty-first century business success.

For the first time in history, the globe is dominated by one economic system. Capitalism prevails because it delivers prosperity and meets desires for autonomy. But it also is unstable and morally defective. Surveying the varieties and futures of capitalism, Branko Milanovic offers creative solutions to improve a system that isn’t going anywhere.