Article Review

The Results-Driven Manager 5-Volume Set, Harvard Business Online, March 11, 2004
Managers are under increasing pressure to deliver better results faster than the competition. These timely guides help managers improve their performance today - and give them the edge they need. This specially priced set includes: “Presentations That Persuade and Motivate,” which helps managers overcome stage fright, tackle the tough questions, and deliver messages that audiences will act on; “Face-to-Face Communications for Clarity and Impact,” which helps managers use the spoken word more effectively; “Winning Negotiations That Preserve Relationships” an essential primer for managers who seek to develop their negotiation skills and deal with difficult adversaries; “Teams That Click,” which offers insights on getting team members on board, avoiding pitfalls, and boosting productivity; and “Managing Yourself for the Career You Want,” which helps managers evaluate future job prospects, find mentors, and stay on a rewarding career track.

Creating the Buzz Behind Bill’s Blockbuster, June-July 2004, http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1012.cfm
He’s been called Elvis, Bubba, the Comeback Kid and Slick Willie. Now Bill Clinton can add another moniker to that list: Laydown King. In the world of publishing, the laydown date is a book’s official release day, the focal point upon which a publisher brings to bear all the marketing prowess it can muster in order to generate a blockbuster. Yet according to Wharton faculty and others, executives at Knopf Publishing Group, which paid the former president a reported $10 million advance to produce My Life, did nothing special and broke no new ground in launching their marketing blitz. Rather, their success has come from making the most of tried and true marketing tactics - and Bill’s celebrity.

Dot-Com IPOs: They’re Baaaack, June-July 2004, http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1006.cfm
In a seeming replay of the dot-com boom scenarios of the late 1990s, Salesforce.com saw a first-day increase of 56 per cent in its stock price when the software company went public last week. What does this mean for other technology and Internet companies, some of which are waiting to go public? Experts at Wharton and elsewhere say that rather than signaling the beginning of another technology bubble, the ability of firms like Salesforce.com and Google to raise capital may be a sign of a healthier stock market. Tech companies that are tapping Wall Street now differ from the 1990s dotcoms in another key aspect: They are profitable.

What’s behind the Four-minute Mile, Starbucks and the Moon landing? The power of impossible thinking, June - July 2004, http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1007.cfm
Impossible thinking. It is what put men on the moon, allowed Starbucks to turn a commodity product into a powerful global business and permitted Roger Bannister to run the four-minute mile. While not every “impossible thought” can become a reality, very often the greatest obstacle to transforming our organizations, society and personal lives is our own thinking. This may seem to be a simple idea in theory - that what we see and act upon is more a product of what is inside our heads than out in the world - but it has far-reaching implications for how we approach life and decision-making. In their new book titled, The Power of Impossible Thinking: Transform the Business of Your Life and the Life of Your Business, Wharton marketing professor Jerry Wind and Colin Crook, former chief technology officer at Citibank, discuss the process - and promise - of “impossible thinking.”

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