Posted by Elena del Valle on April 13, 2012
The Cancer Dancer book cover
Photos: San Pedro Productions
“You have breast cancer.” Those dreaded words are heard by many women in the United States and world wide. Among them was Patricia San Pedro, a Miami publicist. With the help of friends and loved ones she kept track of her four year journey of treatment and recovery. She shared photos, her findings and 400 patient-to-patient tips in The Cancer Dancer Healing: One Step at a Time ($14.99), a 148-page softcover book self published in 2011. The book was among the items in this year’s 54th Annual Grammy Awards Gift Bag.
“From the moment I was diagnosed, I felt a need to document my healing journey. My hope and goal was to share as much information as I could, in order to ease the journey for others who would follow. My book include more than 400 patient to patient tips that I gathered in the midst of my journey. My hope is also to inspire others to see the blessings and accept the gifts that come from every situation in our lives…even the difficult ones,” said San Pedro by email when asked why she wrote the book.
She set up English, PositivelyPat.com, and Spanish language, PatriciaPositiva.com, websites and found volunteer translators to assist her in spreading the message to speakers of other languages. Not content with just publishing a book the positive thinker approached the Discovery Channel to share her video journal and message with a television audience. The 60-minute documentary, produced by Discovery Channel, Imagina U.S. and the author, aired on Discovery Familia in the United States and Discovery Home and Health in Latin America October 2011.
Patricia San Pedro, author, The Cancer Dancer in 2010
“I am on unofficial nonprofit. Everything I’m doing is a public service, but I haven’t formed an official non profit yet. I’m actually hoping to raise funds so I can keep doing more of this. It’s not easy to fund it all yourself. I’ve done lots with volunteers. Right now I need sponsors to be able to distribute the book for free to patients. And to print the Spanish and Portuguese versions, which are only in ebook format at the moment. I receive requests every single day asking for the book in a variety of languages,” said San Pedro when asked about funding for her projects.
San Pedro, a three-time Emmy Award winner, is owner of San Pedro Productions. She is also a photographer and contributing author of Dish & Tell: Life, Love and Secrets written with five other women.
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Posted by Elena del Valle on March 23, 2012
Banding Together for A Cause book cover
Photo: Newman Communications, Inc.
Nonprofit organizations are often in need of funding and public relations on a shoestring. Drawing the attention of the public and potential donors to their cause or organization requires time, effort and the right mix of positioning and branding. Ribbon and wrist band campaigns have become a common way to bring people together and catch attention in an easy and affordable way. For many people wearing wrist bands for a cause or as a reminder of something important to the wearer gained great momentum years ago thanks to the Lance Armstrong Foundation.
Lance Armstrong, the world famous cyclist, brought sympathy and attention to cancer and his race by wearing a yellow wristband in one of the best known awareness campaigns of the past decade. The Livestrong campaign, created to raise money for the Lance Armstrong Foundation and cancer research, reached its goal within six months and has raised more that $500 million for the cause.
“If I hadn’t personally been involved in the campaign. I almost wouldn’t believe it,” said Rachel Armbuster, former director of development for the Lance Armstrong Foundation (2000-2006), overseeing all fundraising and managing the Nike relationship that created the Livestrong gel bracelet campaign.
In her recently published book, Banding Together for a Cause: Proven Strategies for Revenue and awareness Generation (Wiley, $45), Armbuster set out to provide insights and pose questions to guide others who wish to embark on their own yellow wristband journey. Through her efforts she hoped to assist others seeking ways to generate funding through partnerships.
The 232-page hardcover book is divided into nine chapters: The Importance of Time in Moving Your Mission Forward, Reflecting the Essence and Spirit of Your Organization Through Banding, The Right Partnerships, Pinpointing Experts and Using Their Strenghs, The Role of Strategic Planning in Your Mission’s Success, Assembling the Perfect Team, Strategies for Integrating and Mobilizing, Creating Feedback Mechanisms, and What It Takes to Be a Visionary.
The author believes better branding can be accomplished by following the process, focusing on improvement and having passion for the relationships that pave the way for success. It is important to be a leader and to be discriminating in your use of resources, she says in the book.
Armburuster is an executive nonprofit strategist and founder for Armbruster Consulting. According to her bio, she has provided consulting services to hundreds of organizations seeking to improve goals actualization, program management, development and training, department integration, or corporate partnership program development. She lives with her husband and two sons in Austin, Texas and serves on the Fertility Advisory Committee at Livestrong.
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Posted by Elena del Valle on March 16, 2012
The Blame Game book cover
Photos: Free Press Publicity, Seth Dinnerman
Studies at the Center for Creative Leadership indicate one of the reasons managers fail is because they lack good people management skills. Although it’s good to know someone has studied the issue for many employees and some managers this may be well known information. Ben Dattner, Ph.D., a New York City organizational psychologist and workplace consultant, is convinced that there is high pressure in organizations to assign credit or blame and that this process causes conflict and managerial problems. The best way to win that game is to refuse to play, according to Dattner.
In The Blame Game: How the Hidden Rules of Credit and Blame Determine Our Success and Failure (Free Press, $16), published in hardcover in 2011, Dattner examines the issue. Last month, the book was published first the first time in a 245-page paperback edition.
Ben Dattner, Ph.D., author, The Blame Game
The author identifies 11 types of people he believes are the most common players of the blame and credit game: Bold, Cautious, Colorful, Diligent, Dutiful, Excitable, Imaginative, Leisurely, Mischievous, Reserved and Skeptical.
When credit and blame are well managed people are willing to experiment, learn and grow; when they are poorly managed people shut down, become demotivated and concerned with protecting themselves, according to the author. In the book, he examines the credit and blame style of management and proposes ways in which individuals and organizations can make credit and blame play a positive role to drive growth and change instead of a negative force that drives stagnation and failure.
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Posted by Elena del Valle on March 9, 2012
Search Engine Optimization Secrets book cover
Photos: Erik Dafforn, Danny Dover
As online portals gain momentum and the digital world around us continues to morph so fast it’s hard to know where it will settle one priority remains constant for many: maximizing their online presence through search engine optimization strategies. How to do that most effectively within a reasonable budget and in a timely fashion is the topic of much debate and many books.
There are a number of titles for do-it-yourself types and beginners and myriad articles that outline the basics. For those who already understand the essentials of search engine optimization, commonly referred to as SEO, a specialized title may be helpful. Search Engine Optimization Secrets (Wiley Publishing, $34.99) by Danny Dover with insights from Erik Dafforn, a 435-page softcover book written for those who already have a basic understanding of search engine optimization issues and want to improve their knowledge and for consultants who want to sell SEO services, is one such book.
Erik Dafforn, co-author, Search Engine Optimization Secrets
“From various studies, we believe about 90 percent of the Fortune 1000 have search programs in place, but we also believe the success rates fluctuate wildly, depending on whether the brand simply defends their ‘branded’ queries, or whether they aggressively pursue non-branded search traffic as well. Larger brands, those that can afford significant TV and radio reach, often have a search budget that represents about 10-25 percent of their overall marketing spend, while smaller (non-TV) clients tend to have a greater percentage devoted to search, anywhere from 25-75 percent of the overall marketing budget,” said Dafforn by email in response to a question about the percent of Fortune 1,000 companies that allocate resources to search engine optimization. “Their budgets for paid and organic search grow as they realize that budgets for other forms of advertising, such as yellow pages, outdoor, and direct mail, are often unable to match the measured results and offer the same ROI as search does.”
Published in 2011 the book is divided into 14 chapters and one appendix: Understanding Search Engine Optimization, Relearning How You See the Web, Picking the Right SEO Tools, Finding SEO Problems, Solving SEO Problems, SEO Best Practices, The SEO Consulting Process, Comprehensive Site Audit (Informational Website), Comprehensive Site Audit (E-Commerce Website), Understanding the SEO Industry, Search Engine Verticals, Optimizing for Alternative Search Engines, SEO Resources and Test, Test, Test.
Danny Dover, author, Search Engine Optimization Secrets
“Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a fundamental strategy for any business that offers a product or service that can be researched or purchased online,” said Dover by email in response to a question about how knowledge of search engine optimization strategies is beneficial to business executives. “While SEO as a strategy takes a long to fully implement, it is essentially free and fantastic for driving conversions.”
The authors discuss SEO issues for practitioners in detail, outlining steps and providing examples of reports and tools of the trade. Dover is the former lead of SEO at SEOmoz.org. Daforn is executive vice president and director of Organic SEO for Intrapromote.
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Posted by Elena del Valle on March 2, 2012
Getting More book cover
Photos: Sullivan and Partners
Stuart Diamond, a Pulitzer Prize Winner and Wharton School of Business professor who taught negotiation to 30,000 people in 45 countries, believes obtaining the most out of a negotiation varies with the situation. Although it may sometimes seem counter intuitive, good negotiations are about more than the familiar win-win or win-loose approaches, according to Diamond. In Getting More: How to Negotiate to Achieve Your Goals in the Real World (Crown Business, $26), a 400-page hardcover book published in 2010, Diamond outlines his situation specific approach to negotiation in 16 chapters.
Based on years of personal experience and the experience of his students, including 400 anecdotes in the book, he believes that: focusing on your goals, being knowledgeable about the other party and making human contact is key to success; emotion destroys negotiation; preparing, even briefly, is essential; dealing with the decision maker is necessary; acknowledging the other party’s power and position may be helpful; an incremental strategy can be most productive; being yourself and transparent is conducive to good negotiations; constant communication is powerful; identifying the source of the problem and converting it into an opportunity can lead to getting more in the negotiation; celebrating differences can be conducive to better negotiations; using power in a negotiation may harm a relationship, and result in retaliation and loss of credibility.
Stuart Diamond, author, Getting More
To get more when negotiating he relies on emotional sensitivity, clear goals, relationships, being incremental and viewing each situation independently; trusting while insisting on commitments in return. According to his biography, Diamond has advised executives from Google, Microsoft, JP Morgan, and Prudential as well as managers from more than 200 of the Fortune 500 countries.
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Posted by Elena del Valle on February 24, 2012
Why Has America Stopped Inventing book cover
Photo: Planned Television Arts
Contrary to what many of us think it seems the United States is not the most innovative nation on the planet any more. Darin Gibby, a Colorado patent attorney, has dedicated two decades of his life to representing clients filing patent registrations and claims. Over time his frustrations bubbled over and he realized it had become increasingly difficult and expensive to file a new patent registration, especially for individuals and small business owners. He researched the history of patents in the United States to discover how it was that our nation was rich in patents 150 years earlier and poor in patents today relative to the overall population. In Why Has America Stopped Inventing (Morgan James Publishing, $19.95), a 241-page softcover book published this year, he shares his findings.
An ineffectual patent registration system has made it nearly impossible for a lone inventor to register a new patent, according to Gibby. At its low point the United States patent overseers were only approving 12 percent of applications. Due to a series of actions by the government over the past century which continues to the present day patents have become the domain of large corporations with the resources to register and protect them yet little time for new inventions.
The book is divided into an Introduction and 22 chapters. In the last two chapters, the author addresses the high costs of registering an invention which start at $25,000 and can escalate steeply from there, and ways to fix the broken patent system.
“When I discovered that America invents half of what it used to, I wanted to know the reason. So, I began studying the lives of America’s famous early inventors for clues. In the process, I discovered that inventing in nineteenth century America was much more central to America’s culture than today,” said Gibby in response to a question about the most interesting part of the book project. “From Abraham Lincoln selecting the country’s three leading patent attorneys to be on his cabinet (Seward, Chase, and Stanton) to Daniel Webster arguing Goodyear’s case before the Supreme Court while still Secretary of State, all of America prized innovation. Patent cases were front page news, with transcripts of the Colt revolver cases being published daily in the N.Y. Times. Most important, I found that what made America successful more than a century ago could be brought back today. Why Has America Stopped Inventing? tells that story.”
Gibby spent two years researching and writing the book which includes much historical data and case studies. Over his legal career Gibby has procured patent registrations for hundreds of inventions and built IP portfolios for Fortune 500 companies.
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Posted by Elena del Valle on February 17, 2012
Who We Are: Hispanics book cover
Marketers and planners across the nation continue to examine the findings of the 2010 United States Census. One of the notable findings, from a big picture ethnicity and race perspective, is that there were three million more people of minority background and one percentage point higher than the experts anticipated.
The Second Edition of Who We Are: Hispanics (New Strategist, $89.95), published last year, outlines the main findings of the 2010 Census about the Hispanic population of the United States, including counts by state and major urban areas.
The book, provides black and white tables and illustrations and data on spending, household wealth, impact of the Great Recession, time use and attitudes about some issues. Who We Are: Hispanics is part of the Who We Are Series of three books sold together and individually. The other two titles are Who We Are: Asians and Who We Are: Blacks.
The 312-page book is divided into an Introduction, an Executive Summary and 11 chapters titled: Attitudes, Education, Health, Housing, Income, Labor Force, Living Arrangements, Population, Spending, Time Use and Wealth.
For the Who We Are Series the publisher’s staff dedicated, according to promotional materials, hundreds of hours reviewing, compiling and analyzing information and data from the federal government about the size and characteristics of the Asian, black, and Hispanic populations, described as “the most rapidly growing segments of the consumer marketplace.”
New to the second edition of the Who We Are Series is a chapter on the attitudes of Asians, blacks, and Hispanics on issues such as political identification, happiness and trust in others, religious beliefs, and support for gay marriage.
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Posted by Elena del Valle on February 10, 2012
Find Your Next book cover
Photos: Andrea Kates
Andrea Kates, a branding specialist, believes many businesses share a similar “genetic” structure. She is convinced that by understanding what works for a company’s “genetic” type it is possible to fine tune that company focusing on strengths and avoiding weaknesses. In Find Your Next: Using the Business Genome to Find Your Company’s Next Competitive Edge (McGraw Hill, $30), a 226-page hardcover book published this year, she outlines the method and steps she proposes to unlock a company’s basic structure in order to focus on the fine tuning.
She believes there are six main parts to a business: product and service innovation; customer impact; talent, leadership, and culture; process design; trendability and secret sauce. Part of the research she conducted for the book consisted of in-depth interviews with representatives of P.F. Chang’s, GE ecomagination, GM/OnStar, IndieGoGo, Placecast, Autodesk, Cisco Systems, and Jones Lang LaSalle.
Andrea Kates, author, Find Your Next
Kates fours steps are meant to combine experience and instinct. They are: sort through options and evaluate hunches; compare your business structure (she calls it genome) with existing successful businesses in your field; adopt the ideas of others you think will enhance your company; and release habits that are no longer useful and adopt those that can help your business grow.
Kates, according to her book bio, has worked as a business strategist, facilitator, and speaker, with 250 business innovation initiatives for corporations, entrepreneurs, and organizations including Royal Dutch Shell (Asia-Pacific), Audi, Allstate, Continental Airlines, Hewlett-Packard, JP Morgan Chase, KPMG, the Houston Texans (NFL), and OnStar.
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Posted by Elena del Valle on February 3, 2012
Up Your Sales in a Down Market book cover
Photos: Career Press
As consumer worries continue following the Great Recession and purchases decline the role of sales staff gains importance. Ron Volper, Ph.D., a consultant who has advised 300 companies including 87 Fortune 500 Companies on ways to increase sales, shares his thoughts on how to survive and thrive in the New Economy in Up Your Sales in a Down Market: 20 Strategies From Top Performing Salespeople to Win Over Cautious Customers (Career Press, $15.99), a 224-page softcover book published this year.
Based on 30 years of sales experience and his firm’s proprietary research on the topic Volper is convinced that people in sales need to update their strategies to adjust to customers attitudes and behaviors toward buying. He felt so strongly that he dedicated one year and nine months to publishing the book, his first.
The change in attitudes has had tangible effects on the purchasing process in today’s budget conscious companies, he says in the Introduction. For example, where a single person may have made purchasing decisions in the past a committee may be deciding now; and where a customer may have relied on sales assurances of quality in the past they may require proof today.
Ron Volper, Ph.D., author, Up Your Sales in a Down Market
In the book, he outlines 20 strategies to increase sales and discusses practical skills designed to help sales staff win over cautious customers, orient buyers to overcome fears and objections, prepare presentations to convince hard-to-win-over customers and train sales teams to rely on the winning habits of top-performing salespeople.
“Ask more questions to find out your customers’ needs and expectations,” he said by email in reply to a question asking his advice to novices, nonprofits and small businesses. “Talk less and later in the sales conversation and listen closely to what the customer says and does not say. Once you make a sale do everything you can to stay in touch with your customers and exceed their expectations; for a current customer is 25 times more likely to buy another product (or in the case of a non-profit contribute to your cause) than a new customer is likely to buy anything. And the best way to develop new customer relationships is by getting referrals and introductions from existing customers.”
Volper is managing partner of the Ron Volper Group and an adjunct faculty member at New York University. Before founding his company he was vice president of Sales and Marketing for McGraw-Hill and headed Sales Consulting and Training for Xerox Learning Systems.
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Posted by Elena del Valle on January 27, 2012
Search Engine Optimization book cover
Photos: Jennifer Grappone, Gradiva Couzin
Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin make their living as partners of a California search engine optimization and social media consulting company. They dedicated six months to writing a book about what they do for clients. Two updates followed, each one requiring about six months to achieve. In the third and most recent edition of Search Engine Optimization An Hour A Day (Wiley, $29.99), published in 2011, they outline their thoughts on the subject starting with a basic explanation in the first chapter and making their way slowly to the final tenth chapter where they suggest supplemental ideas in Extra Credit and Guilt-Free Slacking. Every section was updated and the authors added more information on social media, online reviews, and local search optimization.
“The tactics laid out in the book can apply to any site, and we have customization tips dedicated to many types of companies, from one-person shops to large B2C or retail sites. We hear from readers in a wide range of industries and organizations large and small, however we think our book is probably most popular with small business owners,” said Couzin by email in response to a question about their target audience. “The book definitely has some readers in the over-50 crowd who might be turned off by more technical books, and we also hear from readers in their 20s who are just getting started in online marketing. We’ve also learned that the book is being used as a textbook for college-level marketing courses, which is exciting!”
Along the way they address large, small and really small companies and their needs in the 408-page softcover book divided into three parts. In Chapter 4, for example, they discuss current search engine procedures and emphasize the importance of building a visitor centered website without obsessing about search engines. Success with search engines and clients remains part science and part art, according to them.
Gradiva Couzin, co-author, Search Engine Optimization
“There is no such thing as ‘set it and forget it’ with SEO and social media.You have to keep updating your site, generating excellent content, building relationships, and trying new strategies to keep ahead of your competitors. This is particularly true with regard to social media, you have to be open to new strategies and constant testing,” said Couzin.
Jennifer Grappone, co-author, Search Engine Optimization
In the book, the authors point out what they consider the most important factors that may lead to high search engine placement: incoming links and link text, the standing of the site, the title of the page in HTML code, HTML text visible on a page, how old a domain is, being the first publisher of the content and having fresh content or updates and the loading speed of the site.
They also discuss search ranking factors, paying for placement, and trend spotting. Other chapters address the importance of team work, a monthlong plan for three months, and options to lower the workload while maximizing results.
Before turning her efforts to search engines in 2000 Grappone was a web project manager and video producer. Couzin, a civil engineer and programmer, started working with search engine optimization a year before her colleague.
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