Four books
on the latest trends in business today
Reviews by Michael Pellecchia
These four books hit right on what's happening. Marketing lousy products is an art with continuing relevance, and Jon Spoelstra relates what he learned marketing a losing NBA team. Like Adversity Quotients, Emotional Quotients are a recent development in measuring success. Web databases and virtual teams are more logical outgrowths of technology ever-adapting to meet the needs of business.
Virtual Teams:
Reaching Across Space, Time and
Organizations with Technology
By Jessica Lipnack & Jeffrey Stamps
Wiley, $28
ISBN 0471165530
The biggest responsibility of a leader is in recruiting the best people for a group. Increasingly, this means going beyond the immediate location and time constraints. To be comfortable in this territory requires familiarity with how teams work in the past and the present.
Particularly for geographically dispersed organizations, "virtual teams" are becoming more common. A virtual team is simply a team that crosses boundaries of location and time.
The authors are experts in network communications who have assembled the equivalent of a virtual teams manual in this new book. The logic of various planning and purposing schemes is meticulously illustrated. Current examples of successful video conferencing sessions are illustrated. There's plenty of detail here for both the hands-on manager and the one who simply needs to keep up with the latest trends in project work.
Executive EQ:
Emotional Intelligence in
Leadership & Organizations
By Robert K. Cooper, Ph.D., and Ayman Sawaf
Grosset/Putnam, $24.95
ISBN 0399142940
Adversity Quotient (mentioned above) is one of many new ways to measure success potential beyond the obvious aspects of intelligence. Another good tool for business is based on Daniel Goleman's theory of Emotional Intelligence. As described here, it emphasizes intuition, accountability and other matters of the heart over the head. Thought, action, reasoning and rationality are as much a function of emotion as they are of intellect, the authors postulate. I've enjoyed several of Cooper's previous books and this one does not disappoint.
Developing Databases
for the Web & Intranets
By John Rodley
Coriolis Group Books, $39.99
ISBN 1576100510
High-performance database applications are now within reach of all World Wide Web marketers, thanks to the development of Java applets and shopping cart systems. The author is an experienced programmer who covers a wide range of Web and intranet-related database topics.
Ice to the Eskimos:
How to Market a Product
Nobody Wants
By Jon Spoelstra
HarperBusiness, $22
ISBN 0887308511
This book is a lively collection of tips by the guy who turned around the NBA's last place team, the New Jersey Nets. He tells how to jump-start the marketing and turn around a product no matter how bad it is. Spoelstra fills his book with first-hand experiences told in a colorful style.
Editor's note: After six years and hundreds of reviews, Michael Pellecchia steps down from his post as "BookPage" business books columnist to devote time to his Web site, www.moneyblows.com. We are deeply grateful to Michael for his devoted efforts in the name of this publication and wish him every success as he sails off into the cyberfuture.
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