Simple


Book Description

For decades, Alan Siegel and Irene Etzkorn have championed simplicity as a competitive advantage and a consumer right. Consulting with businesses and organizations around the world to streamline products, services, processes and communications, they have achieved dramatic results. In SIMPLE, the culmination of their work together, Siegel and Etzkorn show us how having empathy, striving for clarity, and distilling your message can reduce the distance between company and customer, hospital and patient, government and citizen-and increase your bottom line. Examining the best and worst practices of an array of organizations big and small-including the IRS, Google, Philips, Trader Joe's, Chubb Insurance, and ING Direct, and many more-Siegel and Etzkorn recast simplicity as a mindset, a design aesthetic, and a writing technique. In these illuminating pages you will discover, among other things: Why the Flip camera became roadkill in the wake of the iPhone What SIMPLE idea allowed the Cleveland Clinic to improve care and increase revenue How OXO designed a measuring cup that sold a million units in its first 18 months on the market Where Target got the idea for their "ClearRX" prescription system How New York City simplified its unwieldy bureaucracy with three simple numbers By exposing the overly complex things we encounter every day, SIMPLE reveals the reasons we allow confusion to persist, inspires us to seek clarity, and explores how social media is empowering consumers to demand simplicity. The next big idea in business is SIMPLE.




Conquering the Crisis


Book Description

It's official: there's a crisis in home health care. The crisis? There aren't enough caregivers This is already a recognized industry problem, but it's likely only to get worse. This is a point in history, after all, when about 10,000 Baby Boomers turn 65 every day--and more of them are needing health care. What do we do? Stephen Tweed is a foremost expert on the home health industry's caregiver recruiting and retention crisis. He shares his insight and solutions in Conquering the Crisis--so that anyone reading it may find themselves doing just that.




Conquering Your Quarterlife Crisis


Book Description

The practical followup to the acclaimed bestseller In 2001, the groundbreaking book Quarterlife Crisis® addressed the unique and unsettling trials of entering modern adulthood. For the first time, it identified how twentysomethings were lost and confused, and lamented the absence of a guide-a roadmap with solutions for how to emerge from the crisis successful, happy, and sane. Now, the author of Quarterlife Crisis® delivers that roadmap. Alexandra Robbins goes beyond defining the problem of the quarterlife crisis and puts readers on the path to conquering it. She asks-and answers-the tough, soul-searching questions that keep young adults awake at night: - How do I weigh doing what I love versus making money? - Will I ever find my "soul mate"? - Why is it so hard to make friends? - Why are my twenties so different from what I expected? With new voices as well as follow-up interviews with some of the original Quarterlife Crisis® twentysomethings, Conquering Your Quarterlife Crisis® is the new go-to guide for people who want it all...but just aren't sure what that is yet.




Before the Lights Go Out


Book Description

What you need to know now about America's energy future "Hi, I'm the United States and I'm an oil-oholic." We have an energy problem. And everybody knows it, even if we can't all agree on what, specifically, the problem is. Rising costs, changing climate, peaking oil, foreign oil, public safety?if the fears are this complicated, then the solutions are bound to be even more confusing. Maggie Koerth-Baker?science editor at the award-winning blog BoingBoing.net?finally makes some sense out of the madness. Over the next 20 years, we'll be forced to cut 20 quadrillion BTU worth of fossil fuels from our energy budget, by wasting less and investing in alternatives. To make it work, we'll need to radically change the energy systems that have shaped our lives for 100 years. And the result will be neither business-as-usual, nor a hippie utopia. Koerth-Baker explains what we can do, what we can't do, and why "The Solution" is really a lot of solutions working together. This isn't about planting a tree, buying a Prius, and proving that you're a good person. Economics and social incentives got us a country full of gas-guzzling cars, long commutes, inefficient houses, and coal-fired power plants out in the middle of nowhere, and economics and incentives will be the things that build our new world. Ultimately, change is inevitable. Argues we're not going to solve the energy problem by convincing everyone to live like it's 1900 because that's not a good thing. Instead of reverting to the past, we have to build a future where we get energy from new places, use it in new ways, and do more with less. Clean coal? Natural gas? Nuclear? Electric cars? We'll need them all. When you look at the numbers, you'll find that we'll still be using fossil fuels, nuclear, and renewables for decades to come. Looks at new battery technology, smart grids, passive buildings, decentralized generation, clean coal, and carbon sequestration. These are buzzwords now, but they'll be a part of your world soon. For many people, they already are. Written by the cutting edge Science Editor for Boing Boing, one of the ten most popular blogs in America




The American Crisis


Book Description

The American Crisis is a collection of articles by Thomas Paine, originally published from December 1776 to December 1783, that focus on rallying Americans during the worst years of the Revolutionary War. Paine used his deistic beliefs to galvanize the revolutionaries, for example by claiming that the British are trying to assume the powers of God and that God would support the American colonists. These articles were so influential that others began to adopt some of their more stirring phrases, catapulting them into the cultural consciousness; for example, the opening line of the first Crisis, which reads “These are the times that try men’s souls.” This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.




Overcoming Crisis


Book Description

The current prolonged season of war and worldwide economic crisis has created countless personal crises. Unemployment, forclosures, threats, and fears loom--and Christians are not exempt. You can survive and even thrive during these times. Myles Munroe tea....




A Path to Power


Book Description




Conquer the Crash


Book Description

Today's financial and economic tribulations were a long time in the making. Many people ask, "Why didn't someone see it coming?" A New York Times bestselling book did see it coming. Over 100,000 people read it in time to protect their wealth. The book foresaw and explained the collapse in home prices, plunge in stocks, subprime debacle, liquidity crisis, the demise of Fannie and Freddie, the Federal Reserve's failure to turn the trend, and lots more. The book was Robert Prechter?s Conquer the Crash, published in early 2002, when the Dow was above 10,000 and the financial world was partying around-the-clock. Fast forward to today: the average U.S. homeowner has suffered a decline of 30% to 40% in property value. Stocks and commodities had their biggest fall since 1929-1932. Fannie Mae is a zombie corporation under the government?s protection. The Fed has pushed every button at its disposal (and then some), to no avail. If Prechter thought a whole new book would help, he'd have written one. But Conquer the Crash is a book-length forecast that's still coming true -- only some of the future has caught up with the specific predictions he published back then. There is much more to come. That means more danger, but also great opportunity. Conquer the Crash, 2nd edition offers you 188 new pages of vital information (480 pages total) plus all the original forecasts and recommendations that make the book more compelling and relevant than the day it published. In every disaster, only a very few people prepare themselves beforehand. Think about investor enthusiasm in 2005-2008, and you'll realize it's true. Even fewer people will be ready for the soon-approaching, next leg down of the unfolding depression. In this 2nd edition, Prechter gives a warning he's never had to include in 30 years of publishing -- namely, that the doors to financial safety are closing all over the world. In other words, prudent people need to act while they can. Conquer the Crash, 2nd Edition readers will receive exclusive online access to the Conquer the Crash Readers Page, where Prechter continually updates the book's recommended services and institutions.




Quarterlife Crisis


Book Description

While the midlife crisis has been thoroughly explored by experts, there is another landmine period in our adult development, called the quarterlife crisis, which can be just as devastating. When young adults emerge at graduation from almost two decades of schooling, during which each step to take is clearly marked, they encounter an overwhelming number of choices regarding their careers, finances, homes, and social networks. Confronted by an often shattering whirlwind of new responsibilities, new liberties, and new options, they feel helpless, panicked, indecisive, and apprehensive. Quarterlife Crisis is the first book to document this phenomenon and offer insightful advice on smoothly navigating the challenging transition from childhood to adulthood, from school to the world beyond. It includes the personal stories of more than one hundred twentysomethings who describe their struggles to carve out personal identities; to cope with their fears of failure; to face making choices rather than avoiding them; and to balance all the demanding aspects of personal and professional life. From "What do all my doubts mean?" to "How do I know if the decisions I'm making are right?" this book compellingly addresses the hardest questions facing young adults today.




The Digital Divide


Book Description

The 'digital divide' refers to the gap between those who have access to the latest information technologies and those who do not. This book presents data supporting the existence of such a divide in the 1990s along racial, economic, and education lines.