Business

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Liar’s Poker

From Terry DelBalso

Title:  Liar’s Poker

Author:  Michael Lewis

A book that truly places you in the moments of 1980’s Wall Street, filled with colorful characters and intense scenes. Author Michael Lewis does an amazing job of bringing you along with him as he starts out his own career as a bond salesman at Salomon Brothers. You don’t have to understand everything about the finances industry to understand this book, and for the technical terms he does mention, he explains them all perfectly for a non-bonds salesperson to understand.

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Drive

From Donna Southard
author: Pink, David
Drive
This is an interesting business book related to the concept of employee motivation.  Pink explains that there is a third way that people are motivated (compared to Theory X and Theory Y)and he labeled it Theory I (intrinsic).  Pink believes that most people want to make a positive difference in the world rather than just obtain a paycheck. Pink states that there is a missing link between scientific studies on human motivation and what is being applied in the business world.   I learned about “for-benefit” companies where profits are not the main focus of operations.  Pink states that Theory I (intrinsic) should be implemented by managers to develop a higher level of employee input.  I liked the concept of 20% work days where an employee can use one day a week to work on whatever interests them.  This is a quick and interesting business book to read.  It did make me think about the concept of motivation and how the current strategies to motivate people are seemingly misdirected in today’s industries and schools.

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Getting organized in the Google era : how to get stuff out of your head, find it when you need it, and get it done right

From Rita Gross
author: Douglas Merrill and James A. Martin
Getting organized in the Google era : how to get stuff out of your head, find it when you need it, and get it done right
I think most of us have felt overwhelmed in the face of the information barrage that we face daily in our professional and personal lives.   In Getting Organized in the Google Era, the author lets us off the hook, by explaining that our brains are just not biologically able to accommodate the amount of information that we now require to conduct our lives.   He finds the remedy for this predicament in Google Apps, and explains how to use those digital tools to stay organized.

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Little pink house : a true story of defiance and courage

From Jackie Cantwell
author: Benedict, Jeff
Little pink house : a true story of defiance and courage

Chronicles events leading up to the 2005 U.S. Supreme court decision Kelo
v. New London, CT. Susette Kelo and her Fort Trumbull neighbors sued after eminent domain was used by New London to pave the way for Pfizer
Pharmaceuticals R&D facility. They didn’t just want abandoned property;
they wanted the entire peninsula. This is when Pfizer got FDA approval for
Viagra, so they were expecting a windfall of cash. There’s no shortage of
villains: a college president, lawyers for the city, the New London
Development Corporation, Pfizer executives, the governor, and several
judges. Historically, eminent domain was used by governments to take
property from private citizens, if it helped the public good, such as to
construct roadways. In this case, it was used to take private property
from individuals and give it to a corporation because the second owner
could generate more revenue.  You will be outraged and you’ll cheer on the
plaintiffs. Hopefully you’ll also be galvanized to fight for state
legislation to limit the powers of eminent domain. It is as engrossing as
any suspense novel.