Best Outsourcing
Virtual Freedom: How to Work with Virtual Staff to Buy More Time, Become More Productive, and Build Your Dream Business is the step-by-step guide every entrepreneur needs to build his or her business with the asset of working with virtual employees. This is the field guide for building a team, outsourcing, and taking back control of your life.” Jay Baer, New York Times bestselling author of Youtility Chris Ducker explains exactly how to get more done in less timeand, as a bonus, get back the life you gave up when you decided to go into business for yourself. Virtual assistants are the key, and Virtual Freedom gives you everything you need to know.” Michael Hyatt, New York Times bestselling author of Platform. He takes the fear out of virtualizing your business and shows you how to live your life, while your business works for YOU!” Peter Shankman, bestselling author of Nice Companies Finish First. In Virtual Freedom , Ducker gives incredibly practical, proven advice for getting our time back so we can live a life of true freedom with the most luxurious of luxuries: choice over what we do with our time. Virtual Freedom did that for me because what Chris has produced in this book will literally change your business, and your life!” Pat Flynn, bestselling author of Let Go.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This book is THE authoritative guide to finding and managing a virtual staff. What makes this book extra special is not only is it a good guide for someone starting out, but even for those who have been managing some or all of their team online Virtual Freedom will show you how to take that to the next level. Even without a virtual team on a full time or regular basis this book will help you hire and manage for one off projects, and even improve your own productivity."
"I've found the book very useful, both in the practical component of what a VA can do (and considerations of getting a VA per project vs full time team member), and also with the thinking component, to design your business (or life) how you want it to be run."
"Right from the start, the book quickly grabbed my attention and I was impressed with the very usable information right out of the blocks. Chris's book provides all the information anyone needs to take the leap into the world of hiring a virtual assistant."
"When Chris speaks about Superhero Syndrome in the book, trying to do everything ourselves because we think no one can do it better, or we've done it ourselves out of necessity in the beginning stages of starting a business, I could really relate. Chris shares everything from how to properly hire and train virtual assistants, to project work vs full time when looking to get tasks off your plate. Chris explained how working with a virtual assistant can make a daunting task easy when utilizing your time and theirs efficiently."
"Since first reading your book in March (2016) I have hired a full-time General Virtual Assistant (who is AWESOME... not to mention the hiring process was painless thanks to all of your guides and advice)!"
A machine plays the strategy game Go better than any human; upstarts like Apple and Google destroy industry stalwarts such as Nokia; ideas from the crowd are repeatedly more innovative than corporate research labs. “This is a book for managers whose companies sit well back from the edge and who would like a digestible introduction to technology trends that may not have reached their doorstep--yet.”. - Randall Stross, Wall Street Journal. “The authors aptly illustrate how the extraordinary progress of technology is reshaping our lives, and they share powerful ideas relevant to world leaders. The book is a must-read for policymakers who seek a road map for how to combine the strengths of humanity and technology to build a better future for their citizens.”. - Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund. Happily this volume by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson offers exactly this opportunity, using their deep knowledge of the business and technology sectors to build a detailed, cogent and conversational guide to where we are and where we are going. The story is warmly and richly told, using footnotes approaching a third of a page in length when things get really exciting, and amply supported by notes, references and links.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"They describe the ‘three rebalancings’: first, as machine learning either complements or supplants human minds, secondly , as platforms drive the selection, production and distribution of products and services, and thirdly, as on-line crowds increasingly augment or surpass the core functions of companies. Although the three themes are given equal billing, in the end what dominates is the potential for platforms to capitalise on machine learning and crowd mobilisation. Investors have tolerated this, placing faith in the platforms' ability to turn rapid growth in their user base into longer term profits. The authors argue that there is room for incumbent companies to co-exist with platforms, but they leave little room to doubt that the momentum is with the latter. The authors end on an optimistic note, saying that “the next few decades should be better than any other […] so far”, although they are careful to describe this as “possibility and a goal”."
"Every aspiring entrepreneur needs to read this book."
"I decided to read it anyway, because the authors of “Machine Platform Crowd” are who I thank for waking me up to the fact that we are living through a proper, bona-fide depression. Just like the depression that the discovery of the tractor and phosphates caused in the 1930’s, by dint of putting out of work, permanently, the 25% of the US workforce who used to work in agriculture, McAfee and Brynjolfsson argued six year ago in their 76 page monograph “Race Against the Machine” that we are living a new depression brought about by a “Second Machine Age.” (which is the title of their second, less sombre, book, incidentally) The victims this time round are educated people who do repetitive work that once upon a time (but not any more!). “Machine Platform Crowd” is to the machine age what Candide and Ingenu were to the Enlightenment, but with no trace of irony, sarcasm or, indeed, doubt about what promises to be the best of possible worlds. (You’ve guessed right, it does not say this in the book, that’s me extrapolating, sorry). Next let’s look at the machines themselves. What’s new and amazing, basically, is a machine that, like me, could not tell you why it played the move, but very much unlike me, plays the correct move! The future is in machines that don’t know what they know, just like us, basically. The final frontier is that machines are starting to do creative work. Exactly how they play Go without knowing why they played the move, merely that it will probably work, they can design a radiator that looks like no radiator you’ve seen before, rig up a very effective chassis for your racing car, or compose a piece of music that you are likely to enjoy. From “Machine” the book moves on to “Platform,” which actually is a tremendous section. (There are two authors at work here, basically, and this is the one I prefer). The authors start by explaining that Apple makes 110% of all money made in phones today because 1. it controls the “platform” for all the apps and 2. nobody is counting the money Google is making off of Android. Jokes aside, they make the very strong point that making devices comes down to competing on costs, whereas establishing a platform allows you to reap the positive externalities generated by every single new participant in your platform. The virtuous circle works like this: • every app that runs on an iPhone creates demand for the iPhone itself. • if many people own an iPhone, this creates a bigger supply of good apps. So 700 dollars is a lot of money for a telephone, but not if it can run 700 apps you’d pay a dollar each for, and things work out such that it will. I do not remember my days of starting book2eat.com that fondly (a good 40 VC’s were aghast at the fact that I was trying to sign up both restaurants and punters at the same time, and another 200 never answered my calls or emails) but the point is that if you manage to fill more seats the word gets out and you sign up more restaurants and if you’ve signed up more restaurants punters are likelier to make a booking on your platform and this creates a dynamic that becomes irresistible. The third, final, section of the book is about “the crowd”. It starts by explaining that crowdsourced software rocks, basically, and that the ingredients you need are: 1. Geeky leadership: it’s the kind coders will write code for. Hayek and Polanyi make another guest appeareance in the chapter, but it works fine without them. A further important point about the crowd is that very often the contribution to a project that makes the big difference does not come from an expert in the field. From there we jump to a painfully banal chapter on Bitcoin that addresses the points about cryptocurrency I could not care less about (like the mechanics of how it works, described just inaccurately enough for you not to be able to actually work it out, or the effete generalization that blockchain may be more important than Bitcoin,) barely gets into the aspects that matter (is it money? By that point, we find ourselves in a final chapter that’s nothing to do with Machine, Platform or Crowd, but is there to make the customers feel good who are attending the seminar and assures them that companies will still carry on being necessary in the future, because they are who possesses “the residual rights to control: the right to make decisions not specified in contracts.”. Given that, presumably for the benefit of the same attendees, there is a need to sketch (very well, I must say, see pp 154-156) how the demand curve and the supply curve work and what happens when they intersect, one can safely say that this short paean to the firm is guaranteed to go over their head."
Virtual Freedom: How to Work with Virtual Staff to Buy More Time, Become More Productive, and Build Your Dream Business is the step-by-step guide every entrepreneur needs to build his or her business with the asset of working with virtual employees. This is the field guide for building a team, outsourcing, and taking back control of your life.” Jay Baer, New York Times bestselling author of Youtility Chris Ducker explains exactly how to get more done in less timeand, as a bonus, get back the life you gave up when you decided to go into business for yourself. Virtual assistants are the key, and Virtual Freedom gives you everything you need to know.” Michael Hyatt, New York Times bestselling author of Platform. He takes the fear out of virtualizing your business and shows you how to live your life, while your business works for YOU!” Peter Shankman, bestselling author of Nice Companies Finish First. In Virtual Freedom , Ducker gives incredibly practical, proven advice for getting our time back so we can live a life of true freedom with the most luxurious of luxuries: choice over what we do with our time. Virtual Freedom did that for me because what Chris has produced in this book will literally change your business, and your life!” Pat Flynn, bestselling author of Let Go. Chris C. Ducker has helped thousands of entrepreneurs around the world implement successful virtual staffing strategies into their businesses, releasing them from the shackles of the over-worked, over-stressed lifestyle that most business owners endure on a daily basis.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This book is THE authoritative guide to finding and managing a virtual staff. What makes this book extra special is not only is it a good guide for someone starting out, but even for those who have been managing some or all of their team online Virtual Freedom will show you how to take that to the next level. Even without a virtual team on a full time or regular basis this book will help you hire and manage for one off projects, and even improve your own productivity."
"I've found the book very useful, both in the practical component of what a VA can do (and considerations of getting a VA per project vs full time team member), and also with the thinking component, to design your business (or life) how you want it to be run."
"Right from the start, the book quickly grabbed my attention and I was impressed with the very usable information right out of the blocks. Chris's book provides all the information anyone needs to take the leap into the world of hiring a virtual assistant."
"When Chris speaks about Superhero Syndrome in the book, trying to do everything ourselves because we think no one can do it better, or we've done it ourselves out of necessity in the beginning stages of starting a business, I could really relate. Chris shares everything from how to properly hire and train virtual assistants, to project work vs full time when looking to get tasks off your plate. Chris explained how working with a virtual assistant can make a daunting task easy when utilizing your time and theirs efficiently."
"Since first reading your book in March (2016) I have hired a full-time General Virtual Assistant (who is AWESOME... not to mention the hiring process was painless thanks to all of your guides and advice)!"
Best Human Resources & Personnel Management
In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Patrick Lencioni once again offers a leadership fable that is as enthralling and instructive as his first two best-selling books, The Five Temptations of a CEO and The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive . This time, he turns his keen intellect and storytelling power to the fascinating, complex world of teams. In keeping with the parable style, Lencioni (The Five Temptations of a CEO) begins by telling the fable of a woman who, as CEO of a struggling Silicon Valley firm, took control of a dysfunctional executive committee and helped its members succeed as a team.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Corporate has made teamwork backwards and now we need to fix what was originally a good idea, implemented completely wrong due to personal goals instead of group goal."
"A great, quick read on the darker side of leadership that few are every educated or coached on and expected to figure out themselves regarding dysfunctional teams."
"Dysfunction within teams can be covered up with moderate success but greatness will on,y be a i.e. end when those dysfunctions are addressed."
"It was very interesting to read about (hypothetical) social interactions in a professional climate from the perspective of the chief officer, president, principal, etc."
"Written as a use case story, Five Dysfunctions guides the reader through navigating the essentials of teamwork, leadership, and communication."
"I'm only about five years into being a leader at my organization, so an older more experienced crowd might already know this stuff... then again you just might not, and you should read this book!"
"This book helps take a deeper look at the situation and most common issues experienced within a team."
"I like that the book explains things in details."
Best Knowledge Capital
Why Simple Wins helps leaders and their teams move beyond the feelings of frustration and futility that come with so much unproductive work in today's corporate world to create a corporate culture where valuable, essential, meaningful work is the norm. Using simple stories and techniques, Why Simple Wins shows that by using simplicity as an operating principle, we can eliminate the busy work that puts a chokehold on us every day, and instead spend time on the work that we value. Lisa Bodell shows that simplification can be the competitive advantage of our time, helping us to be more innovative, more adaptable, and better positioned to thrive and truly have an impact." Lisa Bodell empowers us to move toward the elegant, delivering practical tools for reducing time wasted on low-value tasks so we can free up energy for innovative thinking." But far from throwing up her hands in despair, Lisa Bodell uses compelling real world stories, eye-popping statistics and practical hands-on tools to show how work itself has become too complex, and how simplifying can help reclaim what's gotten lost: time for work that matters. Lisa Bodell shines a bright light on the single most significant leadership priority of this era. "Lisa Bodell unearths the root of complexity: the fears, need for control, and risk aversion of human beings. In Why Simple Wins Lisa Bodell shines a bright light on how too often we create and collude in the frustrating, time wasting systems we rail against. In doing so, she makes a compelling - and simple - case for making simplification a habit, and she gives us the practical tools to do just that. Lisa Bodell shows that simplification can be the competitive advantage of our time, helping us to be more innovative, more adaptable, and better positioned to thrive and truly have an impact." Lisa Bodell empowers us to move toward the elegant, delivering practical tools for reducing time wasted on low-value tasks so we can free up energy for innovative thinking." But far from throwing up her hands in despair, Lisa Bodell uses compelling real world stories, eye-popping statistics and practical hands-on tools to show how work itself has become too complex, and how simplifying can help reclaim what’s gotten lost: time for work that matters. Lisa Bodell shines a bright light on the single most significant leadership priority of this era. "Lisa Bodell unearths the root of complexity: the fears, need for control, and risk aversion of human beings. In Why Simple Wins Lisa Bodell shines a bright light on how too often we create and collude in the frustrating, time wasting systems we rail against. In doing so, she makes a compelling - and simple - case for making simplification a habit, and she gives us the practical tools to do just that.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Why Simple Wins is an engaging read and terrific primer on simplification by renowned futurist Lisa Bodell. If you are not already aware of the increasing complexity that bedevils every aspect of our modern lives, from work to home life, Lisa’s book will humorously and gently open your eyes to the myriad ways that we and our organizations are our own worst enemies."
"She also delivers in this book some very practical guidelines to help you simplify - A diagnostic tool to help you work out where the complexity problems lie in your organisation, key questions to help you refine your thinking, specific tools to identify and eliminate excess baggage, and even ways to strategically alter your organisation so that you can stay on top of the complexity problem."
"Simplicity is a powerful weapon in business, and as a small business owner I take Lisa's "simplicity mindset" to heart."
"We have lost focus of easy in our quest for quality/speed/cost. In general: Chapter 1-3 = Problem -- Why. Chapter 4-5 = Solution – What. Chapter 6-8 = Process & Tools -- How. A few keys: * Simplify for the SYSTEM benefit -- Sometimes an effectively run, 5-minute stand-up is better than emails / phone / blog / twitter or vica versa. Overall a great, easy read -- I picked up a few new ideas and reinforced the most important ones that get lost in the over-production of other leadership, communication, and change books."
Best Business Conflict Resolution & Mediation
The key text on problem-solving negotiation-updated and revised Since its original publication nearly thirty years ago, Getting to Yes has helped millions of people learn a better way to negotiate. “The authors have packed a lot of commonsensical observation and advice into a concise, clearly written little book.” — Businessweek. No other book in the field comes close to its impact on the way practitioners, teachers, researchers, and the public approach negotiation.” —National Institute for Dispute Resolution Forum. All of us, as negotiators dealing with personal, community, and business problems need to improve our skills in conflict resolution and agreement making.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Maybe I missed the other great truths, but nothing special compared to other books on the topic."
"As the authors themselves admit, it's largely common sense, but they present it very straightforwardly and usefully."
"Good book."
"Best I have ever read on the subject."
"I bought this book because it was required reading for my Conflict Management class, but I ended up lending it to a couple friends, because it is honestly valuable knowledge for anyone who is looking to communicate better with the people in their lives."
"An interesting and easy read with negotiating tactics that can be useful and applied in many, many scenarios."
"The theme of this books falls into 4 steps: (1)disentangle people from problems (2)attend to mutual interests that are similar, different, or can be dovetailed."
"This is a timeless book on the basics of establishing good negotiations."