Boomer Selling: Helping the Wealthiest Generation in History Own Your Premium Products and Services by Steve Howard. ACTion Press. 2009. 208 pages. $15.95.
Baby boomers might hold the key to nationwide economic recovery, argues business consultant Howard. He notes that they hold 70% of the U.S. wealth and are responsible for more than half of the nation’s discretionary spending. They are the demographic group most likely to have substantial savings, home equity, and stable jobs. They also tend to spend robustly, even in the current recession—though they are becoming more selective about what they buy.
Howard surmises that a business’s best hope for success is to thoroughly understand boomers, their needs, and how to serve them. Howard lends his observations on boomers’ spending habits, attitudes, and general likes and dislikes. He explains why sales tricks, gimmicks, and pressure tactics commonly associated with sales will not work. Boomers as a group share a unique frame of reference, he says. A seller would be well-advised to learn it and design products that accommodate it.
Building Peace: Practical Reflections from the Field edited by Craig Zelizer and Robert A. Rubinstein. Kumarian Press. 2009. 332 pages. Paperback. $29.95.
“Peace building” operations have increased since the 1980s in response to increasingly complex conflicts around the globe, according to conflict-resolution expert Zelizer, international-relations scholar Rubinstein, and 33 other scholars and field directors. They record the accomplishments of peace building during that time frame in Angola, Crimea, East Timor, Palestine, and other troubled regions.
Describing 13 endeavors in grassroots capacity building, community dialogue, peace education, psychosocial healing, media campaigns, creation of new structures for addressing conflicts, and behind-the-scenes negotiations with government leaders, the authors attest that peace-building operations have made lasting impacts in their zones of operation. They offer practical suggestions for policy makers and practitioners, concluding that, when they initiate a peace operation in a sensitive manner, in accordance with local context and in strong partnerships with local actors, they can hope to make momentous progress toward turning a war-torn region into a society that enjoys long-term peace.
Crime Signals: How to Spot a Criminal Before You Become a Victim by David Givens. St. Martin’s Griffin. 2009. 220 pages. $13.95.
No buyer has to ever heed the salesperson who says “read my lips,” according to Givens, a certified expert in nonverbal communications. He explains how body language can be a telltale indicator of almost any person’s motives—including those of swindlers, criminals, and terrorists. Crime rarely happens without prior warning, he argues.
A savvy eye that knows how to decode body language can spot and avoid many foul acts before they happen, as well as speed up the apprehension of offenders after the fact, says Givens. Citing his own field observations and the accounts of judges, journalists, police, and convicted offenders, he decodes dozens of hand gestures, shrugs, changes of complexion, dilations of the pupils, and other cues that can keep a would-be victim from walking unknowingly into danger.
Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry by Lenore Skenazy. 2009. Jossey-Bass. $24.95.
Columnist Skenazy incited a maelstrom of controversy when she wrote in a news column about having once allowed her nine-year-old son to ride a subway in New York City alone. Many pundits expressed outrage that she would give her child such free rein. In Free-Range Kids, she counters these critics and argues that more freedom is just what children need.
Children who are overly monitored, she argues, will never learn to become independent adults. She cites evidence that many perceived dangers—online predators, germs, poisoned Halloween candy, hazardous playground equipment, and others—are real but are grossly exaggerated. Parents should exercise reasonable caution to keep their children safe without going into excess. Skenazy recommends setting realistic ground rules for using the Internet, playing in the woods, and transiting to or from school, as well as keeping toxic chemicals in household goods out of children’s reach. She also offers ideas on how to approach difficult issues, such as sexuality and school bullies.
Futures Research Methodology: Version 3.0 edited by Jerome C. Glenn and Theodore J. Gordon. Millennium Project. 2009. Approximately 1,300 pages. CD-ROM. $50.
Due to the increasing complexity and pace of change in our world, organization leaders seek better ways to anticipate opportunities and risks. Futures research methodologies—exercises in which participants explore, create, and test both possible futures and desirable ones in order to chart better paths forward—are going into increasingly widespread use, according to Glenn and Gordon, co-founders of the futures-research think tank Millennium Project.
They and more than 27 other leading futurists detail 37 futures-research methods, including Environmental Scanning, the Delphi Method, and Trend Impact Analysis. All methods are widely used by government agencies, private corporations, nongovernmental organizations, universities, and other decision-making bodies across the globe. The authors describe each method, recount its history, and explain how it is used, its strengths and weaknesses, its usefulness in combination with other methodologies, and the prospects for its use in the future.
How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2009. 302 pages. $25.
We weren’t designed to be rational creatures, says neuroscientist Lehrer. For centuries, most scholars have said that the human brain is guided by reason. Lehrer begs to differ. He argues that any time the brain must make a decision, it confronts multiple impulses and emotions; often, these emotions and impulses–our “gut feelings”-are our best guides. On the other hand, there are times when we have to use logic, because gut feelings could lead us blindly astray.
Nature gave us brains that are fundamentally pluralistic—amalgamations of reason and emotion—according to Lehrer. The secret, he adds, is knowing when to use reason and when we should let our feelings decide.
Lehrer examines real-life decisions made by airplane pilots, hedge fund investors, poker players, professional athletes, and other individuals to chart how each one thinks in the heat of the moment. He draws conclusions about how the human mind makes decisions, and how we can make our decisions better.
Long-Range Futures Research: An Application of Complexity Science by Robert H. Samet. 2009. 593 pages. Paperback. $39.20.
The sciences of evolution and complexity provide an approach for exploring the unprecedented patterns of global change expected in the future. Futurist consultant Samet views the human civil system’s ongoing processes of development as akin to natural-world evolution. The human system is, he says, as organic and evolutionary as Darwin’s model of biological change. Civil artifacts are a “second nature” that superimposes on the first and yet becomes entangled in it. Civilization is guided by visions of the future, and humans contribute the genetic structure of societal systems in the form of ideas, images, knowledge, blueprints, etc.
Samet provides a guide to evolutionary future research and explains how the concept of far-from-equilibrium stability replaces the notion of economic equilibrium. He applies complexity science to a world city region, derives macrolaws of Ecodynamics, and describes the geopolitical macrostructure and scenarios for the global macrosystems.
The Overflowing Brain: Information Overload and the Limits of Working Memory by Torkel Klingberg. Oxford. 2009. 202 pages. $21.95.
The human brain’s capacity has scarcely changed since prehistory, but the amount of information it is forced to process has increased exponentially, notes neuroscientist Klingberg. E-mails, phone calls, advertisements, text messages, multiple news headlines, and other bits of information confront us continually. We multitask and become used to constantly seeking more, quicker, and more-complex information. But feelings of inadequacy, distractedness, and information overload are common.
According to Klingberg, the modern work environment is so fast paced and demanding that our brains cannot keep up. But he thinks that this can change. Any continued activity shapes the brain and expands it, he explains. As we learn more about our brain’s limitations, we might learn how to change it and improve our abilities to multitask and gather information. Klingberg describes what is currently known about attention abilities, information processing, and training the brain for expanded capacity.
The Parents We Mean to Be: How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children’s Moral and Emotional Development by Richard Weissbourd. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2009. 241 pages. $25.
Parents, not society at large, are the primary shapers of their children’s moral lives, according to psychologist Weissbourd. He challenges parents to focus on their children’s moral development first and their happiness second.
Many parents, he warns, unintentionally harm their children’s moral development by trying too hard to make their children happy, by striving unnecessarily to be closer to their children, or by becoming too invested in their children’s lives and intensely pushing them to be achievers. All of these impulses can ultimately lead to young adults who are self-involved, emotionally fragile, and conformist.
Weissbourd suggests constructive alternatives for helping children learn to deal with emotions, find motivation to live in accordance with values, and develop a strong sense of self that will resist peer pressure and adversity, as well as attend to and care for others.
The Passionate Mind Revisited: Expanding Personal and Social Awareness by Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad. 2009. 362 pages. Paperback. $16.95.
Conscious social evolution is both possible and necessary, according to yoga practitioners Kramer and Alstad. They link many of the problems in today’s world to limited worldviews, beliefs, and identities, and they urge readers to break through this lifetime of conditioning and thereby see life and the world in a new way.
The process, as they see it, involves synthesizing the best parts of Eastern and Western worldviews, valuing and protecting democracy, evolution, social justice, and—most importantly—self-awareness. The expanded social awareness that the world needs is best achieved not by setting our own selves aside, but by understanding ourselves more deeply first, and realizing what brought us to where we are today, and what we must do to continue our evolutionary journey.
The authors argue that humanity has achieved great things, but it has yet to turn its collective intelligence toward moving the world to where it can makes the lives of all its people livable, valuable, and valued, all of which are essential for creativity to flower.
The Penn Center Guide to Bioethics edited by Vardit Ravitsky, Autumn Fiester, and Arthur Caplan. Springer. 2009. 828 pages. $65.
Biotechnology presents us with promising breakthroughs, potential wonder cures, frightening dangers, and many perplexing ethical questions, according to Ravitsky, director of the Penn Center for Bioethics, and Center fellows Fiester and Caplan.
The editors compile 80 essays by bioethics specialists, each of whom presents an overview of his or her area of expertise and where the research in that area is heading. They explore a variety of developments and their implications for society: reproductive technologies, eugenics, biological threats to national security, vaccination, abortion, nanotechnology, organ transplantation, end-of-life issues, the meaning of free will in light of new discoveries of the brain and neural wiring, and more.
The Price of Perfection: Individualism and Society in the Era of Biomedical Enhancement by Maxwell J. Mehlman. Johns Hopkins University Press. 2009. 309 pages. $25.
Altering a patient’s genome or hormones to prevent a disease might be a good thing, says bioethicist Mehlman. But should doctors use such enhancements to improve a patient’s eyesight, brain function, mood, or physique? Biomedical treatments now enable doctors to do all of the above, he explains. And, he adds, its powers keep growing: Before a child is even born, doctors can now screen him or her for genetic traits and abnormalities; in time, they might be able to preprogram genes and weed out undesirable traits.
The potential to mitigate human suffering is exhilarating, Mehlman argues, but we run risks of going too far. Critics warn that we do not know enough about the human genome to tamper with it. Moreover, the benefits might not be realizable for all: What if the affluent use biomedicine disproportionately and become a genetically enhanced “genobility”? Mehlman concludes that biomedicine will continue to move forward, but that we can and should set appropriate boundaries for its use. He outlines several policy recommendations.
ReBound: A Proven Plan for Starting Over After Job Loss by Martha I. Finney. 2009. FT Press. 187 pages. Paperback. $16.99.
There is no such thing as a job-for-life; all of us can expect to lose our job at some point. What can we do when it happens? Business journalist and employment consultant Finney poses a comprehensive answer, proceeding chronologically from what to do prior to a layoff, during a layoff, and in the first few weeks of its aftermath. She offers specific pointers for how to handle the pain, anger, and other negative feelings; what to remember when negotiating a severance package and other final arrangements; what to tell family and loved ones; and how to minimize expenditures and find adequate short-term health coverage while waiting for a new job.
Finney follows with a complete game plan for finding a new job through networking and online resources, succeeding in a job interview, evaluating a new job offer, and—should a job offer prove acceptable—beginning strong and thereby lowering the chances of yet another layoff.
2009 State of the Future by Jerome C. Glenn, Theodore J. Gordon, and Elizabeth Florescu. The Millennium Project. 2009. 100-page paperback plus a CD-ROM with 6,700 pages of research. $49.95.
The combination of a global recession, climate change, increasing migrations, and shortages of water, food, and energy spell difficult times ahead, warn scholars Glenn, Gordon, and Florescu of the futures-research think tank Millennium Project in their 2009 State of the Future report. Global strategies and international coordination will be necessities, as will a greater awareness of the relationship between environmental problems and national security.
Combining research and projections from hundreds of futurist experts, the authors forecast the future with the recession ending in 2010 and with it continuing, a key variable that will hugely impact worldwide quality of life. They also present 35 elements of the world’s post-recession economic system, 300 items related to environmental security, three Middle East peace scenarios, science and technology scenarios, a Global Energy Collective Intelligence Design, the formation of future strategy units in selected governments, and 15 Global Challenges that communities will have to confront.
Taming the Dragons of Change in Business: 10 Tips for Anticipating, Embracing, and Using Change to Achieve Success by Richard Stieglitz. Acuity. 2009. 230 pages. Paperback. $19.95.
Prepare for never-before-seen levels of global interconnectedness and information exchange, says business consultant Stieglitz. Twenty-first-century communication tools—YouTube, Blackberrys, Twitter, etc.—are already changing commerce as we know it: Users can connect with other users anywhere and anytime to disseminate ideas and innovations at lightning-fast speeds, he notes.
By mid-century, he predicts, use of these tools will have brought the world’s businesses into a new global “relationship economy,” in which supply chains link every business on earth, business-government joint ventures the norm, and industry a steadfast caretaker of the environment, and governments across the world join together in powerful multinational ventures. Stieglitz outlines 10 specific ways in which this new economy will be different, and 10 new ways of thinking that business leaders will need to adopt in order to thrive among them.
The Truth About Trust in Business: How to Enrich the Bottom Line, Improve Retention, and Build Valuable Relationships for Success by Vanessa Hall. Emerald. 2009. 264 pages. $22.95.
Trust is fundamental to the life of a business or organization, says Hall, an entrepreneur who has spent most of her career in compliance and risk management in Australia’s financial services sector. She states that, while effective marketing strategies, quality products and services, and winning communications strategies are all important, customers will inevitably do business with the companies that they trust.
Hall defines trust, presents examples of why it is so important, and explains what a business or organization can do to build and maintain solid foundations of it among its staff and with clients and customers. Using diagrams, models, and anecdotes, she explains how to become more trustworthy, build trustworthy brands and businesses, determine whom you can—and cannot—trust, and ensure that trust that has been earned is not broken.
Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum. Perseus Books. 2009. 209 pages. $24.
Scientists are achieving as many breakthroughs as ever, but the U.S. general public barely seems to care, according to science journalist Mooney and marine scientist Kirshenbaum. They warn that scientists and the public are increasingly at a disconnect due to a weak education system, an apathetic media, and concerted efforts by anti-scientific politicians and religious demagogues to sideline science, as well as scientists’ systematic failure to counter all these trends.
This is dangerous, the authors warn. Scientific knowledge is needed now more than ever to help avert such threats as climate change, nuclear proliferation, pandemics, and cybernetic warfare. And scientific perspective is vital to help make sense of developments in genetics and neuroscience that stand to redefine human identity itself. The authors propose initiatives for reopening the lines of communication between scientists and the public before it is too late.
Why Don’t Students Like School? A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom by Daniel T. Willingham. Jossey-Bass. 2009. 180 pages. Hardcover. $24.95.
Teachers need to understand how their students’ minds work, says psychologist Willingham. He sympathizes with teachers who get frustrated because they feel they are not inspiring their students or keeping their interest.
Using graphs, charts, and scientific studies, Willingham offers teachers these insights: how their students’ brains work, why classroom instruction isn’t interesting to them, and what strategies a teacher could employ to make instruction more interesting to them. He explores, and answers the pros and cons of “drills”; the secret to getting students to think like mathematicians, scientists, and historians; and how to meet the challenges of the standardized tests without just “teaching to the test.” He also shares some surprising findings about the similarities between most students’ learning styles and the possibility of increasing their intelligence.
Work Hard, Be Nice: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising School in America by Jay Mathews. Algonquin. 2009. 328 pages. Paperback. $14.95.
Education reporter Mathews tells the success story of Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, two teachers who refused to believe that low-income, at-risk students could not be taught. Fresh out of college, the two took up teaching in a fifth-grade classroom at a disadvantaged inner-city school and introduced a new model of teaching based on lively lesson plans, high expectations, and involved teachers who believe in their students. Their students responded with gusto—in the first year, attendance went up, classroom participation soared, and students’ scores on the state assessment tests more than doubled.
Feinberg and Levin have since expanded their model into a nationwide network of 66 middle schools, the Knowledge Is Power Program. Mathews describes why Feinberg and Levin embarked on their teaching mission, the challenges they met, and what they did to overcome them. Mathews cites their endeavor as a hope for struggling students everywhere: With an enthusiastic teacher, he says, any young person can learn to achieve.