Book Description
Hard Bargaining in Sumatra is an artfully written and penetrating examination of interactions between Western travelers and Toba Batak wood carvers in the souvenir marketplaces of Samosir Island, North Sumatra. Toba Batak carvings, ranging from simple human figures of wood to elaborately engraved water buffalo horns, are described in tourist guidebooks and by Toba Batak vendors alike as "traditional" and "antique," despite many recent changes and inventions in form. This pathbreaking work investigates how notions of place and self are constructed by the travelers and the Bataks in the context of ethnic tourism. The author proposes that these interactions be understood in light of Louis Marin's concept of utopics, suggesting that tourist venues such as hotels and marketplaces are neutral spaces where both locals and visitors can act out behaviors that would ordinarily be constrained by their respective cultures.
The transformation of Toba Batak woodcarving is one result of such marketplace interactions. The Western tourist's desire for traditional art has encouraged Batak carvers to continue to make objects based on forms developed by their animist predecessors, the majority of whom converted to Christianity at the turn of the century. Toba Batak carving style, however, is far from static; artisans create innovative pieces that they frame within the same historically legitimizing narratives used for "traditional" objects. Tourists, seeking proof of their travels in representative icons of place, purchase both innovative and traditional forms, largely unaware of the difference.
Rich in ethnographic description and employing a lively narrative style, Hard Bargaining in Sumatra is essential reading for students and scholars with interests in anthropology, cultural studies, globalization and tourism research, art history, and identity studies.
Customer Reviews:
You'll never get this good a vacation by yourself.......2004-05-25
Like most working stiffs, I save up for a big vacation to some far away land and when it finally happens I get shuffled around from one tourist spot to the next. The culture presents itself for purchase and I buy.
"Hard Bargaining in Sumatra" isn't just a book by an affable scholar. It immediately took me into the home of a very different family, sat me on a 'fancy mat' and amused me with a narrative by the author to his Toba Batak friends. He told a story for their entertainment that might easily have described my own hapless first experience in an exotic culture. The family's reaction and the unfolding details of their work in the woodcarving-for-tourists trade was a pleasure to read.
I was continuously surprised at how clearly Causey expressed complicated, seldom-analyzed notions of place and identity. The relationship between tourist and vacation spot is alive and dynamic in a way I'd never imagined. The author's struggle to learn the skills of the woodcarver gave extra dimension to my understanding of this traditional craft. The friendship between the student/researcher and the teacher/subject made the dynamics of the familial roles and societal obligations disarmingly vivid and personal. The book enriched my understanding of a distant culture to a degree I could never have achieved by hopping a plane and wandering their marketplaces. When I saw a Toba Batak carving at an art museum a few weeks later, I had a wealth of feelings and observations that would never have occurred to me before. For me, reading this book was like the best kind of vacation. I learned a lot, felt a connection to the people and culture, and enjoyed the process.
A Sense of Place.......2004-01-08
"What happens when the homeland of one group is also claimed as the vacationland of another group?"
This question put by the author rather succinctly sums up a major theme of the book, and perhaps should be a guiding thought for all of us who ever take a vacation...anywhere.
Whether we are taking a "package" vacation or just winging it in a new location, we have an impact not only on the place we visit, the feeling of the place, the services it provides, and perhaps most importantly, the ART of the place. Souvenirs...mementos...folk art...all these tokens and totems that come from our vacation spot are evolving to meet our desires.
The author handles this idea and others in a very human and sensitive way, inviting us into his experience in Sumatra, Indonesia and filling our minds with the sense of the place: its smells, visuals, sounds, landscape and its people. It is easy to lose oneself in this book as if it were a novel or the travelogue, yet it tackles some very difficult issues without sounding preachy or judgmental. I have always been interested in, and sensitive to the general "sense" of a place. I can be easily spooked by the quality of light or the sight of long shadows in the afternoon. I found Dr. Causey to be a kindred spirit, as he has addressed this feeling (because it is at heart a "feeling") very poetically in his writing about Lake Toba.
There are many humourous vignettes within the book, as well as many parables and lessons.
It in indeed educational, and educational on a new level-it reaches right into the spaces between ideas and brings into being a hybrid way of looking. It is accessible, informative and heartfelt.
I would recommend this book to anyone - it can be read for sheer pleasure. But if you are planning to travel, and would like to get some ideas on developing a very diplomatic and culturally sensitive approach to your new destination, this is most certainly the book for you.
I nominate Dr. Causey for Goodwill Ambassador!
A delightful surprise and interesting book about Sumatra.......2003-10-27
A first rate work and a wonderful read. This book was delightful to read. Right from the beginning of the book, I was drawn in. It's clear this is a scholarly work, well researched and carefully detailed. As a reader of more casual literature, I was agreeably surprised at the superior writing style of the author. I thoroughly enjoyed the experiences and anecdotes throughout the whole book. Anyone who enjoys reading about other cultures and other places would definitely enjoy reading this book. I stayed up to 1:00 am one night reading it. I look forward with real anticipation to future works from this author.
Fascinating Reader-Friendly Scholarship.......2003-10-09
This book is a true rarity--a work of serious scholarship, written in a user-friendly, personal, poetic, eminently-readable style. You'd almost be fooled into thinking you were reading a romantic travel narrative, one of those popular memoirs à la "Under the Tuscan Sun" where a naive American goes off and has a life-transforming experience while in a foreign land. But as Dr. Causey relates his tales of the months spent with the Toba Batak in their remote, beautiful homeland in northern Sumatra, learning something about their culture, something about woodcarving, and a LOT about shopping, he also unfolds a series of subtle, complex observations about aesthetics, about colonialism and acquisition, and about the role of tourists / collectors in a market economy and their effect as both destroyers and saviors of traditional culture. Absolutely fascinating stuff, and certainly not just for students of anthropology--this is a book that should be read by art historians as well as by economists, as well as by anyone who simply enjoys a well-written tale of a beautiful place that they've never been...
I particularly admire "Hard Bargaining" for the lack of any tang of cultural superiority on Dr. Causey's part--he never assumes that he knows more than the people he's observing, or that since he has a Ph.D., his observations must be considered correct. He went there; he lived, he learned, he shopped; and he thought about it, hard, and critically, comparing the Toba Batak culture to our own, and letting the reader make the judgement calls, not the anthropologist. Very well done!
Book Description
This digital document is an article from SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, published by Thomson Gale on April 1, 2006. The length of the article is 1379 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Hard Bargaining in Sumatra: Western Travelers and Toba Bataks in the Marketplace of Souvenirs.(Book review)
Author: Glenn Reeves
Publication:
SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 21
Issue: 1
Page: 129(4)
Article Type: Book review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Amazon.com
Michael Lewis was supposed to be writing about how Jim Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics and Netscape, was going to turn health care on its ear by launching Healtheon, which would bring the vast majority of the industry's transactions online. So why was he spending so much time on a computerized yacht, each feature installed because, as one technician put it, "someone saw it on Star Trek and wanted one just like it?"
Much of The New New Thing, to be fair, is devoted to the Healtheon story. It's just that Jim Clark doesn't do startups the way most people do. "He had ceased to be a businessman," as Lewis puts it, "and become a conceptual artist." After coming up with the basic idea for Healtheon, securing the initial seed money, and hiring the people to make it happen, Clark concentrated on the building of Hyperion, a sailboat with a 197-foot mast, whose functions are controlled by 25 SGI workstations (a boat that, if he wanted to, Clark could log onto and steer--from anywhere in the world). Keeping up with Clark proves a monumental challenge--"you didn't interact with him," Lewis notes, "so much as hitch a ride on the back of his life"--but one that the author rises to meet with the same frenetic energy and humor of his previous books, Liar's Poker and Trail Fever.
Like those two books, The New New Thing shows how the pursuit of power at its highest levels can lead to the very edges of the surreal, as when Clark tries to fill out an investment profile for a Swiss bank, where he intends to deposit less than .05 percent of his financial assets. When asked to assess his attitude toward financial risk, Clark searches in vain for the category of "people who sought to turn ten million dollars into one billion in a few months" and finally tells the banker, "I think this is for a different ... person." There have been a lot of profiles of Silicon Valley companies and the way they've revamped the economy in the 1990s--The New New Thing is one of the first books fully to depict the sort of man that has made such companies possible. --Ron Hogan
Book Description
As American capitalism undergoes a seismic shift, Michael Lewis, author of the bestselling Liar's Poker, sets out on a Silicon Valley safari to find the true representative of the coming economic age. All roads lead to Jim Clark, the man who rewrote the rules of American capitalism as the founder of (so far) three multi-billion dollar companies-Silicon Graphics, Netscape, and Healtheon. Lewis's shrewd, often brilliantly funny, narrative provides ahead-of-the-curve observations about the Internet explosion and how the success of Silicon Valley companies is forcing a reassessment of traditional Wall-Street business models.
Weaving Clark's story together with that of this new business phenomenon, Lewis has drawn us a map of markets and free enterprise in the twenty-first century and blown the lid off the changing economy.
Customer Reviews:
What would you do if you researched a book and didn't find anything?.......2007-10-18
I'm a big fan of Michael Lewis. He usually brings characters and situations to life and provides a perspective on a situation that introduces me to a new way of looking at things. That's not the case here.
I get the feeling when Michael Lewis got permission to follow Jim Clark around for several months to write about him he thought he'd hit the mother load of great book material. Here was a guy who had traipsed through the daunting world of technology with a seeming Midas touch. Heck, the man had started Silicon Graphics and Netscape.
As I read the book, however, something strange happened, I started wondering, "When did Michael Lewis realize he was following the most improbably boring man in the world?" Jim Clark should be fascinating; he starts huge companies and turns venture capitalists on their ears, he flies helicopters, rides motorcycles and builds ludicrously complex, large and expensive sailboats. Jim Clark is a man who is never satisfied and always striving for the "New, New Thing." Yet somehow, Jim Clark is also apparently stone cold dull.
In the course of the whole book, not one Jim Clark quote is interesting, entertaining, or insightful. It doesn't seem like Clark won't open up to Lewis, it's more like he's a one-dimensional guy. Lewis writes the book in a way that indicates that he's an author that knows he's got nothing but has invested far too much time in research to try to turn back. The book becomes focused on the attempt to get Clark's newest technology-laden boat ready for an Atlantic crossing; hardly what I'm guessing Lewis set out to write.
The crossing itself turns out to be a non-event and unfortunately the book does to. Don't despair though, read Moneyball or Liar's Poker or Blindside and you'll find that Michael Lewis can, and usually does, deliver the goods in spades.
A distorted view of Silicon Valley technology startups.......2007-10-01
"The New New Thing" tells two stories. The first is the story of Jim Clark, a technical entrepreneur who founded three companies -- Silicon Graphics, Netscape, and Healtheon -- that achieved phenomenal heights during the Internet boom of the 1990's. Clark is, to say the least, an interesting character; at least two of Clark's business associates are quoted in the book calling him a "maniac". Clark is driven almost entirely by an unending greed, so for me at least, he quickly became an unsympathetic character around which to hang an entire book. Another criticism I have is that far too many pages of the book are spent on Clark's quest to build and debug Hyperion, the world's largest computer-controlled sailboat. These sections were a distraction from the rest of the narrative. (By the way, it's pretty clear that although they may have been smart, the people writing the software for Hyperion -- including Clark himself -- were all pretty lousy software engineers.)
The second story is that of Silicon Valley, and it doesn't come off looking much better than Clark. Lewis seems to have been granted incredible access to Clark's life, which included the ability to interview and attend meetings with the Valley's top movers and shakers -- the engineers, senior managers, and venture capitalists who fund them. As a computer scientist who has lived and worked in the Valley since 1991, I found this material to be enlightening, and certainly the strongest part of the book. Perhaps most fascinating is the way the decisions of the venture capital (VC) firms and investment banks are based so much on perception rather than sound reasoning. For example, one minute the VCs are writing off their Healtheon investments as a total loss, but the next minute -- when Clark offers to invest $40M of his own money in the failing venture -- they all clamor to invest more in it. Sadly, during the "irrational exuberance" of the late 1990's, this was actually a winning strategy.
One danger in writing a book about the new new thing -- at the height of the Internet bubble no less -- is that it can quickly become old. And this book has not aged well. Yes, Jim Clark was the first person in Silicon Valley to have founded three companies with a market capitalization exceeding $1 billion, and yes, he made himself and many others around him obscenely rich. But most of the companies he started have not been lasting successes: as of this writing in 2007, Silicon Graphics is dying, having lost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars in each of the last four fiscal years; Netscape was acquired by AOL, whose subsequent acquisition by Time Warner nearly killed the latter company; Healtheon merged with WebMD, whose business model is substantially less ambitious than Clark's original concept for the company; and myCFO, the newest new enterprise mentioned at the end of the book, morphed into a company that offered illegal tax shelters to wealthy clients, came under investigation by the IRS, and was eventually sold for only one third of the original money poured into it. Toward the end of the book, Lewis also wryly mocks John Doerr's VC firm Kleiner Perkins for paying $25M for a 33% stake in Google, which he writes "consisted of a pair of Stanford graduate students who had a piece of software that might or might not make it easier to search the Internet." Poor Kleiner Perkins. Their Google investment was obviously a terrible mistake.
Michael Lewis is a great writer, but I enjoyed two of his other books far more: Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street and Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.
All in all, "The New New Thing" does a good job of exposing the underbelly of Silicon Valley capitalism. But its focus on Clark and companies born out of the Internet bubble gives a distorted picture of the challenges in founding and running a technical startup. For a more accurate depiction, I recommend Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure.
Classic Michael Lewis on Silicon Valley .......2006-10-18
If you have read any of Michael Lewis's other books and found them enjoyable (either writing style or topic), you will find this a good read, worthy of your time. You will learn a little about the atmosphere of Silicon Valley during the height of the bubble / late 90s as well as about a very unique figure who helped (over exagerated, per Economist) start it all.
How Silicon Valley Was Built and the Next Gen Entrepreneur!.......2006-07-30
A must read for any entrepreneur or intrapreneur(someone within a company who must innovate). Lewis opens with stories about Jim Clark -- reknown Silicon Valley entrepreneur and innovator and his boat that 'built Netscape"...the book talks about Netscape which Lewis says launched the Information age (it may or may not have but it certainly ushered in the IPO era and online businesses. Interesting what has since happened to Silicon Graphics and Healtheon that was supposed to turn the health care industry 'on it's head'. The inside cover talks about --- what else-- Paradigm shift in American culture-- from conventional business models (the old economy) to the new economy. Yet in retrospect we know that a mix of the best of both is really probably the way to go. The titles of the chapter are more clever than the chapters themselves. I personally would have liked to see more about different innovators not just Clarke but then I didn't write the book. The chapter titles include "Pasts in a Box" Disorganization Man, Home of the Future God Mode -- How Chickents Become Pork, Cheese Sandwiches for Breakfast, Chasing Ghosts, The Turning Point and The New New Thing....
A Fascinating Insight into Silicon Valley.......2006-01-27
The July 1999 issue of Forbes magazine makes the astonishing observation that there are now 465 people who have a billion or more dollars. Incredibly, as this book notes, there are an estimated 180,000 Americans who are deca-millionaires (over ten million dollars in assets). An inventor or entrepreneur, upon reading these statistics, may note that not only has a great amount of wealth been created, but that it is not in the hands of just a handful of people.
This book tells how one man, Jim Clark, starting out as a thirty-eight year old unsuccessful college professor and whose second wife just left him, went on to create, in succession, three billion-dollar corporations. These creations were Silicon Graphics, Netscape, and Healtheon. In the process of achieving this hat trick, he also reinvented the social order. The "Organization Man" and conformity have been replaced by brilliant engineers and nonconformity. Bitter at how little the actual creators of Silicon Graphics received and how much the venture capitalists profited, Jim Clark made sure in his next two ventures that, by such means as stock options, his creative people prospered very well indeed.
One of Clark's great strengths has been to rapidly change directions. As the book notes, "A stunning ignorance of mass tastes was a common problem in high technology." For example, Honeywell, in the 1960's, created The Kitchen Computer and assumed housewives would welcome the monster size computer in their kitchens and would know how to program it. "Neiman Marcus failed to sell a single unit." When Marc Andreesen mentioned 25 million people were then using the Internet, Jim Clark saw the potential of Marc's Mosaic code and formed Mosaic Communications (which became Netscape). This time around, Clark cut a deal with venture capitalists that was unprecedented. When the initial public stock offering was made, "It was one of the most successful share offerings in the history of U.S. stock markets and possibly the most famous." In the past, shares were not sold to the investing public until four consecutive quarters were profitable. Now it was the future potential, the rapid growth, that lured investors. Also, the young engineers profited. Inventor Marc Andreesen, at twenty-four, was now worth eighty million dollars! Stock options were now the name of the game for engineers.
The author compares the changes in the Silicon Valley value system to the changes that have taken place in Hollywood's value system. He notes "The stars seized power and once they'd seized power they raised their price and demanded the right to direct their own picture." He compares Jim Clark to Marlon Brando.
A fascinating insight into Silicon Valley is that almost half of the companies there have been founded by Indian entrepreneurs. The book tells how Nehru set up an educational system that found the very best young minds among 900 million people and brought them to the Indian Institute of Technology. They all spoke English and America offered the highest pay and the most opportunity.
Another informative bit in the book is the origin of the word "debug." It turns out that back in the 1960's a computer problem was found to be literally due to a large moth trapped inside. The word become the standard term for removing errors from programs.
This book is so up to date you may feel you are reading your daily newspaper. How Microsoft attempted to achieve complete domination over the world's 500 million computers is explained. Netscape informed the U.S. Department of Justice of Microsoft's threats. Together with information furnished by other firms, this led to the Justice Department's antitrust action.
The author observes that, generally speaking, stock market investors now fall into two categories: Those who follow the Graham and Dodd's system of careful analysis and those who are "kamikaze investors." It will be interesting to see which of these two opposing financial philosophies has the last laugh.
Considerable book space is devoted to Jim Clark's obsession with building his completely computer controlled world's largest sailboat. A sad observation made by sailors is that when approaching an island a land bird, such as a hawk, may appear, but it may be too far out and it will perish in the sea. The author notes how this is "The first bird, like a man ahead of his time, a tragic figure." It is a reminder that all inventors and entrepreneurs are not Jim Clarks.
A highly readable book and, if you delight it) the thought that bankers and venture capitalists should not rule the business world; you will enjoy Jim Clark's triumphs.
Product Description
4 MICHAEL LEWIS Books - 1) - Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game / 2) - The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game / 3) - Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street / 4) - The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story - (Unboxed Set of Books), in either Hard or Softcover, (See Seller Condition Comments), Shipped in one
package to save on shipping costs.
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Hook Your Audience (Pocketbook Squares)
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Designing Financial Systems in Transition Economies: Strategies for Reform in Central and Eastern Europe
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Emerging Financial Markets
ASIN: 0262133911 |
Book Description
This collection examines the design of financial systems for central and eastern European countries engaged in the transition to market-based economies. It highlights the need for better approaches to measuring performance and providing incentives in banking and for financial mechanisms to encourage private-sector growth. Written by leading European and North American scholars, the essays apply modern finance theory and empirical data to the development of new financial sectors.
Two broad themes emerge. The first is the critical relationship between reforms in the financial sector and in the real economy. Lending policies, which have a significant impact on business performance, need to discourage bad firm performance without prematurely liquidating potentially profitable enterprises. Conversely, the quality of firms influences the financial sector. If banks cannot find good credit risks, they cannot improve the quality of their portfolios. Until a critical mass of viable firms is built, equity markets will not develop sufficiently. The second theme is that the lack of fully developed markets and institutions may distort the policy outcomes predicted under models based on fully developed economies. Reliance on these models may therefore be inappropriate for transition economies.
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Designing Financial Strategies
Manufacturer: Dearborn Financial Publishing
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Designing Financial Strategies, 2E
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A three part course for professionals who help people accumulate and protect money. It provides an understanding of the full range of financial concerns facing clients and shows how an agent's products and services fit in a client's overall financial plan.
Designing Financial Strategies looks at the importance and the role of risk management and tax reduction strategies in a client's overall financial plan. Part one focuses on understanding client needs. It examines the basic factors that influence the financial planning process, including the most common financial goals, needs and objectives. Part two focuses on building a client's net worth through the accumulation and growth of investment assets. And part three focuses on protecting client assets.
Due to the recent passage of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, many Dearborn courses have been affected. A quick reference guide on the Tax Act has been created to explain the impact the Act has on these courses. A reference guide will be included with the purchase of this course.
If you are taking this course for CE, the CE exam will automatically be added to your basket when selecting CE credit. Certain states require that a proctor or monitor supervise the exam taking process.
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Why Bank Regulation Failed: Designing a Bank Regulatory Strategy for the 1990s
Helen A. Garten
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As the United States banking system enters the 1990s, the industry and its regulators face a crisis of major proportions. Successive problems have plagued various lending markets, bank failure rates have increased, and traditional regulatory techniques of risk control have proved unsuccessful. In this work, Helen A. Garten examines the current crisis in bank regulation and the regulatory response. In addition, she provides a series of recommendations for reforming the system so that regulatory failure will not occur again. Garten begins her study with a strategic view of bank regulation as a response to financial crises in the banking business. Just as the bank failures of the 1930s led to a radical shift in bank regulatory technique, recent competitive pressures and technological innovations that have lessened the profitability of the deposit-lending business are leading to a shift in regulatory strategy today. Although some deregulation has taken place, Garten contends that more significant changes are occurring in the regulation that remains. Regulators are experimenting with a new approach to risk control that will create economic incentives for banks to adopt more successful investment strategies. Garten compares these new regulatory initiatives to the disciplinary techniques of the typical corporate equityholder and shows how they differ from the debtholder's techniques of traditional post-Depression bank regulation. She concludes that the new regulatory strategy may not be enough to help the banking industry emerge from its current difficulties. This work will be an essential resource for lawyers and bankers involved with regulatory policy, as well as for economists and scholars of finance and administrative law.
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Designing Financial Strategies
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The Safety Audit: Designing Effective Strategies (Financial Times)
Roger Saunders
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Amazon.com
In less than a decade, former social worker Jim McCann turned a nearly bankrupt florist into a $300 million enterprise that dominates the field. Stop and Sell the Roses: Lessons from Business and Life is his brightly written story of 1-800-FLOWERS, the failing company he turned around through business savvy and personal insight. Weaving the tale of his firm's odyssey with observations on his own management style, McCann offers a prescription for success centered upon individualized customer interaction that encompasses everything up to and including the Net (where 1-800-FLOWERS now does 10 percent of its business). --Howard Rothman
Book Description
Lessons from Business and Life
Everybody knows Jim McCann. He's the "flower guy," the CEO of 1-800-FLOWERS, who appears in all those terrific television ads. McCann is actually a unique corporate leader who in less than a decade took his company from the verge of bankruptcy to a $300 million business that ranks as the world's largest florist. Now in this upbeat, engaging book, McCann tells the amazing story of how he bootstrapped his way to phenomenal business success--and how you can do it too.
Forget the hard sell, the killer instinct, the power suit, and the iron handshake. If you want to make a business take off these days, you need to base it on relationships--warm, real, human contact with the people you work with and sell to. McCann says it best: "Like all human relationships, business involves a need to make contact. Satisfy that need and the money will follow."
In
Stop and Sell the Roses, McCann shares the secrets he learned along his unique road to success, a journey that began in one of New York's toughest neighborhoods and resulted in a multimillion-dollar business. Learn from McCann how to:
Build invaluable loyalty through emotional bonds
Pick the technology that frees up your creative time
Harness the awesome power of the brand
Prepare for crunch times and stay tough when business is slow
Make money on the Internet by reaching beyond the computer screen
Hire passionate people
Leap-frog from job to job with an eye to your long-term success
And much more!
Funny, insightful, brimming with McCann's irresistible wit and street-smart wisdom, this is a business book like no other you've ever read--a book that will make you laugh as it gives you the tools you need to build your own winning business today.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
He's telling the story that entrepreneurs need to hear. .......2005-10-01
If you're an entrepreneur, I think you'll find this tape encouraging.
There's a ton of ways to run a business. You can follow the advice of some marketing guru or pay thousands of dollars for the counsel of a business consultant.
But nothing beats hearing how someone who's been there done that, and still doing it tell you have to run your business from start to finish.
McCann gives wise business counsel including how to hire people and how to treat your customers.
Also, his prediction that businesses of the future will be ran like large movie productions is not off base.
If you have a sentimental side and the success of your business depends on forging immense trust between you and your would-be customer, I suggest you listen to what McCann has to say. He's business has to overcome several customer barriers and he maneuvered them well.
Moreover, McCann lets his previous work as a student counselor, or "cultural engineer", play a big role in how he manages 1 800 FLOWERS.
He's telling the story that entrepreneurs need to hear.
Not so useful.......1999-01-23
If you like listening to an arrogant braggart pretend to be life's guru, this book is for you. However, that not being MY cup of tea, I spent the last half of it skimming it to get done with it, and it was like, gag me, you arrogant, full of yourself man who has found a scam, skimming money from flower purchasers, thereby contributing to the demise of flowers being good gifts.
If you want to learn how to scam people, and then brag about it, maybe you'll like this, but for me it was not only non-educational, but rather disgusting.
Brilliant with basic fundamentals and entertaining!.......1999-01-03
Jim McCann's book is entertaining, enlightning, and a great tune up for business people and anyone interested in an easy read. He offers the basics in the best business philosphy that people will do business with people they like, respect and trust. Jim also offers a unique perspective and feel for New York City. Sharing of his family experiences and the lessons learned both good and bad make this work genuine and fun to read. I've shared this book with family, friends and business associates. Treat yourself and Enjoy!
Mandatory For Your Business Library.......1998-09-29
Jim McCann confirms the value of relationship selling. Be sure to read and maintain in your core library of business reference books.
Engaging, real life saga of a successful and funny guy........1998-05-28
Jim McCann has built a national image and reputation and it is fascinating to hear him describe his roots and the things that went into making him a success. You can just imagine being at his kitchen table with his family and working the late shift at 800-Flowers. I also really liked his blend of tongue in cheek humor and business advice. After reading this you sure want to buy stock in his company.
Books:
- Historial Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970
- Hoover's Handbook of American Business 2006 (Hoover's Handbook of American Business)
- Immigration Policy and the Challenge of Globalization: Unions and Employers in Unlikely Alliance (ILR Press Books)
- Knowledge and Social Capital: Foundations and Applications (Knowledge Reader)
- Learning in Chaos: Improving Human Performance in Today's Fast-Changing, Volatile Organizations (Improving Human Performance Series)
- Local Justice: How Institutions Allocate Scarce Goods and Necessary Burdens
- Longrun Dynamics: A General Economic and Political Theory
- Macroeconomics Activebook Enhanced and OneKey CourseCompass Package
- Managerial Economics in a Global Economy: Study Guide, Fifth Edition
- Markets or Governments - 2nd Edition: Choosing between Imperfect Alternatives
Books Index
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