Books about Consultant from Amazon.com

From the author of the phenomenal New York Times bestseller, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, comes an exposé of international corruption— and an inspired plan to turn the tide for future generations

With a presidential election around the corner, questions of America’s military buildup, environmental impact, and foreign policy are on everyone’s mind. Former “Economic Hit Man” John Perkins goes behind the scenes of the current geopolitical crisis and offers bold solutions to our most pressing problems. Drawing on interviews with other EHMs, jackals, CIA operatives, reporters, businessmen, and activists, Perkins reveals the secret history of events that have created the current American Empire, including:

• How the “defeats” in Vietnam and Iraq have benefited big business

• The role of Israel as “Fortress America” in the Middle East

• Tragic repercussions of the IMF’s “Asian Economic Collapse”

• The current Latin American revolution and its lessons for democracy

• U.S. blunders in Tibet, Congo, Lebanon, and Venezuela

From the U.S. military in Iraq to infrastructure development in Indonesia, from Peace Corps volunteers in Africa to jackals in Venezuela, Perkins exposes a conspiracy of corruption that has fueled instability and anti-Americanism around the globe, with consequences reflected in our daily headlines. Having raised the alarm, Perkins passionately addresses how Americans can work to create a more peaceful and stable world for future generations..
Price: $7.78 [Notify me when price goes down.]

“The amount of knowledge and talent dispersed among the human race has always outstripped our capacity to harness it. Crowdsourcing ­corrects that—but in doing so, it also unleashes the forces of creative destruction.”
—From Crowdsourcing

First identified by journalist Jeff Howe in a June 2006 Wired article, “crowdsourcing” describes the process by which the power of the many can be leveraged to accomplish feats that were once the province of the specialized few. Howe reveals that the crowd is more than wise—it’s talented, creative, and stunningly productive. Crowdsourcing activates the transformative power of today’s technology, liberating the latent potential within us all. It’s a perfect meritocracy, where age, gender, race, education, and job history no longer matter; the quality of work is all that counts; and every field is open to people of every imaginable background. If you can perform the service, design the product, or solve the problem, you’ve got the job.

But crowdsourcing has also triggered a dramatic shift in the way work is organized, talent is employed, research is conducted, and products are made and marketed. As the crowd comes to supplant traditional forms of labor, pain and disruption are inevitable.

Jeff Howe delves into both the positive and negative consequences of this intriguing phenomenon. Through extensive reporting from the front lines of this revolution, he employs a brilliant array of stories to look at the economic, cultural, business, and political implications of crowdsourcing. How were a bunch of part-time dabblers in finance able to help an investment company consistently beat the market? Why does Procter & Gamble repeatedly call on enthusiastic amateurs to solve scientific and technical challenges? How can companies as diverse as iStockphoto and Threadless employ just a handful of people, yet generate millions of dollars in revenue every year? The answers lie within these pages.

The blueprint for crowdsourcing originated from a handful of computer programmers who showed that a community of like-minded peers could create better products than a corporate behemoth like Microsoft. Jeff Howe tracks the amazing migration of this new model of production, showing the potential of the Internet to create human networks that can divvy up and make quick work of otherwise overwhelming tasks. One of the most intriguing ideas of Crowdsourcing is that the knowledge to solve intractable problems—a cure for cancer, for instance—may already exist within the warp and weave of this infinite and, as yet, largely untapped resource. But first, Howe proposes, we need to banish preconceived notions of how such problems are solved.

The very concept of crowdsourcing stands at odds with centuries of practice. Yet, for the digital natives soon to enter the workforce, the technologies and principles behind crowdsourcing are perfectly intuitive. This generation collaborates, shares, remixes, and creates with a fluency and ease the rest of us can hardly understand. Crowdsourcing, just now starting to emerge, will in a short time simply be the way things are done..
Price: $13.25 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A celebrity fashion stylist reveals the tricks of her trade and shows women of all sizes how to pull together their own polished, individual look.

Whether she’s petite, average, or plus size, every woman has experienced the frustration of searching for flattering clothes. In The Pocket Stylist every reader can have a consultation with her own personal stylist and use the author’s behind-the-scenes wardrobe wisdom:
- Taking her true measurements—from eight different body zones—to ensure an attractive fit based on the reader’s unique silhouette and the proportions that will flatter it best
- Why ready-to-wear isn’t, and how and when to use a tailor for a custom fit
- The best fabrics for your unique silhouette
- How to balance trends with the classic, indispensable pieces that are the backbone of any well-conceived wardrobe
- What “closet archaeology” can unearth and reveal about your wardrobe needs
- Why the right lingerie makes a critical difference in the fit of your clothes
- Tips from other experts on the beauty principles that ground your everyday look— Bobbi Brown and Sonja Kashuk for makeup and Kevin Mancuso for hair—offer backstage access
- Accessories that give an outfit an individual look and that no versatile wardrobe should be without

Best of all, The Pocket Stylist features specifically edited shopping lists for various body types. Four “styled” looks for each silhouette—from jeans-casual to cocktails—illustrate ideal proportion and fit. The reader becomes Kendall Farr’s client and will learn to shop and dress herself like a pro. The Pocket Stylist delivers the behind the camera expertise of a veteran stylist in one purse-size indispensable guide..
Price: $9.98 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The second edition of the "consultant's bible" is here!

For over fifteen years, consultants--both internal and external--have relied on Peter Block's landmark bestseller, Flawless Consulting, to learn how to deal effectively with clients, peers, and others. Using illustrative examples, case studies, and exercises, the author, one of the most important and well known in his field, offers his legendary warmth and insight throughout this much-awaited second edition. Anyone who must communicate in a professional context--and who doesn't?--will use the lessons taught in this book for years to come!

"Who would have thought the 'consultant's bible' could be improved upon? Count on Peter Block--the consulting profession's very own revolutionary--to push us to confront and struggle with the paradoxes inherent in our work."
--Candace Thompson, organization development consultant, First Chicago NBD--A Bank One Company

"Block has distilled years of experience into a wise, down-to-earth, and eminently practical guide to excellence in consulting. If you are new to the practice, Flawless Consulting will chop years off your learning cycle. And even if you're an old pro, Block's insights will elevate you to new levels of effectiveness. Flawless Consulting is not simply about becoming a better consultant; it is about using consulting as a path toward becoming a better person."
--Barry Oshry, president, Power & Systems, Inc.; author of Seeing Systems and Leading Systems.
Price: $32.40 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In this gripping memoir, John F. Kennedy's closest advisor recounts in full for the first time his experience counseling Kennedy through the most dramatic moments in American history.

Sorensen returns to January 1953, when he and the freshman senator from Massachusetts began their extraordinary professional and personal relationship. Rising from legislative assistant to speechwriter and advisor, the young lawyer from Nebraska worked closely with JFK on his most important speeches, as well as his book Profiles in Courage. Sorensen encouraged the junior senator's political ambitions—from a failed bid for the vice presidential nomination in 1956 to the successful presidential campaign in 1960, after which he was named Special Counsel to the President.

Sorensen describes in thrilling detail his experience advising JFK during some of the most crucial days of his presidency, from the decision to go to the moon to the Cuban Missile Crisis, when JFK requested that the thirty-four-year-old Sorensen draft the key letter to Khrushchev at the most critical point of the world's first nuclear confrontation. After Kennedy was assassinated, Sorensen stayed with President Johnson for a few months before leaving to write a biography of JFK. In 1968 he returned to Washington to help run Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign. Through it all, Sorensen never lost sight of the ideals that brought him to Washington and to the White House, working tirelessly to promote and defend free, peaceful societies.

Illuminating, revelatory, and utterly compelling, Counselor is the brilliant, long-awaited memoir from the remarkable man who shaped the presidency and the legacy of one of the greatest leaders America has ever known.

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Price: $13.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This best-selling guide provides the skinny on business frameworks, sample cases, guesstimates, brainteasers, and more! The Guide inclides more than 50 actual case interviews, guesstimates, brainteasers and other consulting interview cases. It also covers important framewoeks inclusing Porter's Five Forces, the capital asset pricing model (CAPM), the BCG Matrix, the four P's, and the four C's..
Price: $17.28 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In his fifties, Michael Gates Gill had it all: a big house in the suburbs, a loving family, and a top job at an ad agency with a six-figure salary. By the time he turned sixty, he had lost everything except his Ivy League education and his sense of entitlement First, he was downsized at work. Next, an affair ended his twenty-year marriage. Then, he was diagnosed with a slow-growing brain tumor, prognosis undetermined. Around the same time, his girlfriend gave birth to a son. Gill had no money, no health insurance, and no prospects.

One day as Gill sat in a Manhattan Starbucks with his last affordable luxury—a latté—brooding about his misfortune and quickly dwindling list of options, a 28-year-old Starbucks manager named Crystal Thompson approached him, half joking, to offer him a job. With nothing to lose, he took it, and went from drinking coffee in a Brooks Brothers suit to serving it in a green uniform. For the first time in his life, Gill was a minority--the only older white guy working with a team of young African-Americans. He was forced to acknowledge his ingrained prejudices and admit to himself that, far from being beneath him, his new job was hard. And his younger coworkers, despite having half the education and twice the personal difficulties he’d ever faced, were running circles around him.

The other baristas treated Gill with respect and kindness despite his differences, and he began to feel a new emotion: gratitude. Crossing over the Starbucks bar was the beginning of a dramatic transformation that cracked his world wide open. When all of his defenses and the armor of entitlement had been stripped away, a humbler, happier and gentler man remained. One that everyone, especially Michael’s kids, liked a lot better.

The backdrop to Gill's story is a nearly universal cultural phenomenon: the Starbucks experience. In How Starbucks Saved My Life, we step behind the counter of one of the world's best-known companies and discover how it all really works, who the baristas are and what they love (and hate) about their jobs. Inside Starbucks, as Crystal and Mike’s friendship grows, we see what wonders can happen when we reach out across race, class, and age divisions to help a fellow human being..
Price: $11.12 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A new revision of the successful guidebook for novice consultants
Getting Started in Consulting, Second Edition provides practical solutions and proven strategies for launching a consulting business. Readers will learn how low overhead and a high degree of organization can translate into a six-figure income working from a home office. The book also offers key information on how to finance a consulting practice, how to write proposals, how to set up billing and bookkeeping, and more. A new chapter also explains how to get started quickly for those who can't wait to generate cash flow or those who have a cash reserve they are immediately willing to commit.
Alan Weiss (East Greenwich, RI) has consulted with hundreds of organizations around the world, including Mercedes-Benz, Hewlett-Packard, Merck, and the Times Mirror Group. He lectures widely and is the author of 12 books..
Price: $11.01 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Foreword by Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the "Guerilla Marketing" series

Get Clients Now empowers readers with its 28-day plan for energizing their marketing efforts and dramatically increasing their client base. With over 100 tactics, tools, and foolproof recipes customizable for any professional service business, this new edition is powered up with road-tested strategies for relationship-based marketing in the Internet age, plus proven techniques for overcoming the fear, resistance, and procrastination that block effective action. Readers will learn:

* how to choose the right marketing tactics for their situation and personality
* a foolproof method to diagnose exactly what is missing in their marketing and how to fix it
* how to use the latest Internet marketing techniques like e-zines, search engine optimization, and blogging
* hands-on approaches for replacing unproductive cold calling with the power of relationship marketing
* and much, much more!.
Price: $9.19 [Notify me when price goes down.]