Book Description
Xena, the warrior princess, and her loyal companion, Gabrielle, have battled the airwaves for love, peace, and forgiveness and become modern icons for fervent devotees. These stories, written by fans, describe the impact the show has had on their lives, from people they've met, relationships cultivated with other viewers, and special encounters with the stars of the show in times of need. Other stories illustrate lessons learned and achievements gained, inspired by Xena's physical strength or Gabrielle's intellect.
Customer Reviews:
Mildly entertaining for the non-Xenite, but probably great for hardcore fans.......2007-08-16
I am not now nor have I ever been a hardcore XENA fan. I enjoy the show and appreciate how important the characters of Xena and Gabrielle were -- along with Dana Scully and Buffy -- for ushering in the modern era of heroic women on television. Although XENA was never as popular as THE X-FILES nor as critically acclaimed as BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, for a host of people Xena and her constant companion Gabrielle were the archetypes of the heroic female, a character amazingly absent in the first fifty years of television. But XENA did not change my life nor the life of anyone I know. I do know that she, along with Buffy, Max Guevara, and other heroic female characters provided my daughter with examples of strong women at a time when strong women were being presented on television for the first time.
Interestingly, this was the second of two books that I have read in the past week on television fandom. I've read a fair amount about fandom, but I've never been much a part of it. I post on a couple of boards, but I'm not a great community member. None of my social life revolves around celebrating a television show, even though I'm a fairly serious student of television and much of my writing and research centers on specific series in particular or the medium as a whole in general. But I've never been to a convention for any show or to any event (apart from a TV Guide sponsored preview of an episode of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA) connected to a TV series and probably am never likely to do so. I have published essays on specific TV series and plan to write additional pieces in the future. So while I'm completely familiar with the series the fans in this book talk about, I'm really not a participant in their world.
Unfortunately, nothing in the book really makes me want to go to conventions. Much of the activity described in this book simply doesn't appeal to me. Out of sheer curiosity I have read a tiny bit of fanfic (BUFFY and BSG) but quickly quit. I found the writing to be of pretty low quality and, to be honest, a tad embarrassing. Most fanfic seems to me to be pretty bald fantasy projection and the examples I experienced fell into the category of "too much information." Nor do conventions interest me. I can't understand standing in line to get someone's autograph or wanting to exchange three or four lines of conversation with someone. I've seen a fair number of celebrities in my life, but apart from a long conversation I had once with Charlton Heston (initiated by him -- I would never have started a chat with someone just to talk with someone famous -- he was, his silly politics aside, an incredibly nice man) and a briefer one with jazz great Sonny Rollins, who asked me where he could get some decent carry out, I've never exchanged words with any celebrity. So I don't "get" why someone would get so excited because they met and talked with Renee O'Connor's mother or exchanged words with Hudson Leick in an autograph line. It is behavior that I neither admire nor envy. It is, in fact, behavior that generates a certain "ick" reaction in me. I personally like my stars exactly where they ought to be: onscreen. This not to say that I wouldn't talk to someone famous out of principle. It is to say that I'd only talk with someone I encountered during the normal course of my life (which happened with Charlton Heston), not because I sought them out at a fan convention or pestered them on a sidewalk or saw them eating in a restaurant. I just don't understand wanting to luxuriate in the presence of someone you don't know, just because you've seen them on TV.
But this is why we read books, to understand and to be exposed to things that are not a normal part of our lives. I'm not a celebrity chaser, but perhaps it is good to read the remarks of people who are in order to understand why they do. Most of us don't read fanfic, so it can be good to read about people who do or people who write it. Most of us don't go to conventions, but reading about the experiences of people who do will expand our horizons a bit. In short, you can learn about the behavior of others by reading this.
The people who will most enjoy this are, however, those who are a part of the XENA fandom. This book truly is created with them in mind.
I did find it interesting to read that the opinions of many others meshed with many of my own to the series. For instance, I found both the second musical episode of XENA and the absolutely horrendous "Married with Fishsticks," which might be the single worst episode that I have seen of any show ever made (it makes the notoriously awful "Beer Bad" of BUFFY look like CITIZEN KANE). I did get a kick out of reading the "subtext" opinions. Here is the truth about the "subtext": the show wanted to tease the fans with the possibility without making it an actuality. They could easily have made it definitive in one direction or another, but they deliberately chose not to. But there is no question that it is the most passionate friendship between two women that we've ever seen on TV. And whether they were physically intimate (I suspect they were not, given Xena's closing line in the episode where Michael Hurst's reporter character bluntly asked them whether they were lovers -- Xena starts to answer but gets out only the one "Technically . . . " before technical difficulties cut off her reply, but the only thing that makes sense would be something like, "Technically no, but we love each other." But even that could be a tease. Truth is, they didn't want to tell us.) or not, they obviously and truly loved one another. I've never quite understood (along with other things that I don't understand) why we had to nail down the kind of physical relationship they had.
So, I'm not sure what kind of recommendation to make here. Casual fans of the show should probably pass. Rabid fans will enjoy it. 'Tweeners like me could either take it or leave it. I needed to read it for something I'm writing, but not many can claim that need. The only other consideration is that there are shockingly few decent books on XENA. There are virtually no serious guides to the show and no critical discussions in book form apart from essays in a couple of books. Speaking objectively, I think XENA was almost as important in creating the new heroic woman on TV as BUFFY (Buffy came first in movie form, but Xena was first on TV, but most subsequent female heroes were based more on Buffy), but the number of critical works on BUFFY is staggering, while next to nothing has been released on XENA. Among TV critics and historians of TV and scholars, XENA has yet to get its due. So, in the absence of other books on XENA, this is one of the few books with which we are left.
Touching, funny and a great Xenite adventure.......2004-03-25
Now, first, I promise I'm not just giving this book 5 stars because Nikki is a good pal of mine, nor because I have a segment in it (Forget Eden, Give Me Adrienne).
Nikki Stafford has passion for the books she writes/edits. From her first book "Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Connor: Warrior Stars of Xena" to this one, Nikki never fails to grasp the fandom. "Warrior Stars" to this day is the best compainion book for "Xena." "How Xena Changed Our Lives" was created when Nikki had trouble getting fans to write for "Trekkers: True Stories by Fans for Fans" and it was suggested to her to make a "Xena" book. Though the "Trekker" book has some great stories, "How Xena Changed Our Lives" has all the passion. People can finally read WHY a tv series can change a person's life. Whether it helps you out of a rut, is the cause for meeting new people or inspires you to volunteer, this book captures the heart of Xenites. There are stories that will make you laugh, ones that will make you jealous, and ones that will truly make you cry. An Xenite will love this book, and I recommend it for non-Xenites as well (especially if you know a Xenite) as an invation into our world.
Greatest Xena Book.......2002-12-07
Read it if you love TV.
Sarah
A Treasure for the True Xena fans.......2002-11-27
I perchased this book, and was pleasantly surpised by how much I enjoyed it. Of course this book isn't stricktly for fans of the Xenaverse. It has some wonderful stories from the fans on how the show changed thier lives. Some are funny, some are very touching and personal. Xena was a show that transcended it's cheezy mythology setting, and introduced the world to two characters (brilliantly played by Lucy Lawless & Renee O'Connor) that broke so many new grounds with the journey they took us on. This book celebrates the effect it had on the fans, and does so wonderfully.
Average customer rating:
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Music and Gender: Perspectives from the Mediterranean (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology)
ASIN: 041593656X |
Book Description
The Mediterranean region, which includes Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa, along with Italy, Greece, Spain and other European countries, encompasses a plethora of diverse but also interconnected cultures. The musical styles are just as diverse. Mediterranean Mosaic weaves together issues of music contemporary geopolitics and identity struggles. Acknowledging the region's historical legacy, it examines the ebb and flow of traditional musics within the region as well as outside influences on these traditions. Topics covered include: Klapa singing and Cha Wave from Croatia, the pop group Alibina, Pop-Rai from Algeria, and jazz in the Mediterranean. Also includes 20 musical examples.
Book Description
This comprehensive, up-to-date, all-purpose guide to chess is guaranteed to improve the game of the novice and to enable players of even limited experience to advance to good club level or better. Not only does this invaluable volume illuminate the elegance and mysteries of the classic chess game, it has also been revised to bring readers up to the minute about the myriad possibilities of chess on the Internet. Among the outstanding features of this user-friendly mammoth book are a complete guide to the main chess openings, hundreds of test positions for players of all standards, courses in tactics and attacking strategy, practical advice for further study, and an exceptionally helpful glossary as well as information about international chess events. In addition to providing a history of some of the greatest games ever played, it forecasts the exciting future for chess around the world and on the Internet.
Customer Reviews:
3 Stars Is Generous.......2007-03-08
Unless, you have time to set up a board and mimic the countless moves, or you have an out standing memory, this book is hard to follw. The parts that I am able to read is pretty good good ideas, but mostly massive chess notation. It says 900 diagrams but with each one is 50 moves to get to the postion and 50 after the picture to get the logic of the position. I guess if you are a master it would make sense. Defininatly not for beginers or even intermediate players I would say.
Good value. Decent book. Reprinted as "Chess" in hardcover........2003-10-04
The 1st edition has been reprinted in hardcover and is now called "Chess" by Graham Burgess. As chess instruction books go, this is average at best, but it is a good value for the money. However, it is not so good for beginners.
The best thing about the book are the descriptions of plans for various openings, and typical traps. So this is a very good book for trying new openings.
The 2nd edition has more current info on computers, but that section is really unnecessary anyway.
The rest of the book has decent material, enough to last you quite awhile, but nothing that will give you any epiphanies.
By the way, the companion (still out-of-print as of October 2003) games collection, Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games, is a truly excellent book for intermediate players.
wide selection of topics, a real bargain!.......2003-09-28
I think Mr Burgess has done a great job by doing this book a very readable and it's a small inexpensive paperback, so I like to have it when travelling. It's suitable, in my opinion, for 'intermediate' beginners, having nice exercises: mates in two, combinations etc.(although I think they are a little bit too difficult in comparison to mate exercises. but they are taken from real matches, and could anybody say finding combinations with no refute is easy?!). this books contains a lot of opening info with traps and strategic play examples. Besides there is coverage of chess-related topics which you could probably not find in most of books.
Get the book, you'll love it.
The price is right!.......2003-07-12
For the price this is an excellent introduction to Chess. Its not for absolute beginners, you should have read at least one other book on beginners Chess (Chess for Dummies is a good one) but its not for "intermediate" players or advanced players only either. If you know enough of the basics (basic endgames, algebraic notation, etc), you will get a lot out of this book. I love the puzzles, they really make you think and it feels great to get a particularly hard one right. This book will make you a better chess player, if your just starting out (with the caveat above) or have been playing awhile. I would recommend this book for beginners and intermediate players. Advanced players might like this in their library, if only to loan out to friends that are trying to get up to speed. Buy it, at this price you won't be disappointed!
Chessboard or smorgasbord?.......2003-06-15
This is sort of a buffet of a chess book. There's a little of everything, and not a lot of depth in anything, but what's there is fun, though in some spots Burgess seems to be writing for everybody: there are arcane references to past games, players and techniques; there are "tests" of considerable difficulty and some of incredible ease. There's a section on how to play chess, so apparently he wants notices to pick up this book too. There are sections that address simple questions like "If I just started playing, is there any chance I can ever become a master?" which again leads one to believe the book is aimed at novices. But then a few pages later there will be position analyses with many variations and sub-variations that make my head spin (and I am an Expert-level player) plus some solutions I flat-out do not get. I wonder who the intended audience is for this book.
Most puzzling, though, is the section on computer chess. I guess this made sense when he wrote it back in 1996-97...but now the chapters read as a relic, albeit an often amusing one. He talks about the latest in computers and computer chess: 486s and Pentium IIs, and Fritz 3 and 4! (We're up to Fritz 8 now, if you're counting.) He shows strategies to defeat computers that any recent program will mow down. He gives URLs to chess sites and publishers, most of which no longer work. He gives Telnet addresses! It's kind of like using a telephone directory from 1966 to find somebody today.
But despite all the apparent griping, the book is useful, but more as a quick reference, or entertaining page-turner than as a serious study. If you really want to improve your game and you're an intermediate-level player, I recommend, for starters, Silman's "How To Reassess Your Chess," and "The Amateur's Mind," Nimzovichs "My System" and Pachman's "Modern Chess Strategy." You will have a strong foundation. (Heck, if I reread them, I'd have a stronger foundation.) This book also had some glaring typos. Some were just grammatical ("Fischer took on the hole Russian chess team" or something like that) but there are at least two moves in games I've caught that are wrong, ie, impossible from the diagrammed position. Both times I went to a computer database to find the game and see the correct move.
Still, I find most chess books to be fun at the very least, so I gave it four stars. (I'll rarely give less than that to any chess book so long as it wasn't written by Eric Schiller.) If you can get this title for cheap, it is a reasonably good book, but more as a supplement. It's not comprehensive, it's not up-to-date and it certainly won't teach a beginner very much. Seirawan's series on strategy, tactics, brilliancies, etc., from Microsoft Press is much better at that.
Book Description
This new and expanded edition of The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games contains the 112 greatest chess games of all time—selected, analyzed, re-evaluated and explained by a team of experts and illustrated with more than 900 diagrams. Among the highlights are Kasparov vs. Topalov; Kasparov vs. Wijk aan Zee; the super-computer Deep Blue’s historic first win over Kasparov; Boris Spassky’s “James Bond” Mating Combination; and Bobby Fischer’s “Game of the Century.” Study these games and learn about defense and counterattack, logical opening play, endgame strategy, psychological warfare, and how great players think.
Customer Reviews:
The copy I saw was a mis-printing.......2007-06-08
I looked at this book (2nd edition) specifically for a game where Nigel Short marches his king across the board to defeat Jan Timman. I got interested in this because chess teacher Fred Wilson mentioned it in his "Four Fighting Kings" tape (available from fredwilsonchess.com).
It was a real disappointment to see that the book I examined was apparently the result of a printing that went from pp. 481 to 486, then went back to 482 and was missing the first 8 moves of the game!
So I ordered a copy of the first edition.
Games Chosen By Committee.......2007-03-12
"I have played against you both...in my opinion Morphy was the King of all chess players who ever lived and Anderssen, in his prime, was next to him. As for you and the rest of us - oh, we play chess."
--Paulsen to Steinitz, Vienna, 1873
**********
Anderssen has two games in this book. Morphy has none. Morphy beat Anderssen twelve times, lost to him three times, and drew against him twice.
In addition to a faulty selection of games, this book has poor quality binding and paper.
I blame a strange committee process rather than national bias for the authors' omission. The book even acknowledges that Anderssen was bested by "the brilliant young American, Paul Morphy." The trouble is, Morphy's greatest achievements have become less famous than his spectacular quick wins against lesser opponents. A book like this, where the authors chose games for their renown as well as for their quality, has no way of dealing with a player whose great games are not famous and whose famous games are not great. The result is a one-hundred-twelve-game collection that leaves out one of the greatest chess players who ever lived. To set the record straight, I recommend PAUL MORPHY: A MODERN PERSPECTIVE by Valeri Beim.
The Mammoth book has some good commentary on a lot of fantastic games, but the claim made in its title is unfounded and the binding and pages fall apart quickly. Aside from the absence of Morphy, there are too many contemporary games for a book purporting to be a historical overview.
I deduct one star for poor material quality and one for a game selection that overemphasizes the last twenty years while ignoring the player who stood out above his contemporaries more than any other player in the history of chess.
I have noticed reviews by a couple of Morphy bashers. They will probably never change their tune, but anyone who wants to have an informed opinion really ought to read Beim's book on Morphy or at least see the section on Morphy in Kasparov's MY GREAT PREDECESSORS. Why people still judge Morphy based on his wins against weak players is beyond me. Nobody judges Kasparov by his exhibition game against Sting.
Fantastic game collection.......2007-02-28
The authors have put together an excellent collection of great games from the last 175 years of chess history. The book is aimed at the intermediate and advanced player. It starts with a brief introduction to the players and the game for each game and then proceeds to explain and analyze what is happening in the game. It contains the right amount of explanation and analysis to appeal to a wide variety of players and has plenty of diagrams so that the stronger player will not need to have a board and set to follow the action. For the less experienced player, the authors place a aynopsis of the lessons to be learned at the end of the game.
Although the description of the book say 512 pages, it is actually 624 pages. The amount of material, quality of annotation and reasonable price make this a very worthwhile book to own.
Analyzed Games Old and New "want to improve your chess will be good for you!".......2006-11-20
This book contains selected games. Both of the masters of new, old all great which will help your ability to checkmate! One Hundred and Twelve games analyzed games study, alone or with your best buddy. The analysis though not real deep makes is light enough for your mind to keep. Want deeper analysis using games get books by Nunn (Understanding Chess) or by Snyder ("Unbeatable Chess Lessons for Juniors"). They are move by move both fun and the the analysis more tighter. These days when it comes to books with games and good analysis you have many to choose so start reading them all it's no time to snooze.
Now down to real business! "The Mammoth Book" contains a wide variety of games over a long time span by many strong players. The analysis ranging from light to moderate in depth is for an intermediate level to stronger player level. This is not a down to basics level book. I was disapointed only in that the book was made out of really cheap paper and is hard to keep open when using (why four instead of five stars). True, I prefer the "every move commented on approach" used by Chernev, Nunn and Snyder, but "the Mammoth book" is still excellent.
I love the first edition.......2006-09-26
This review pertains specifically to the first edition. I do not have the second edition and probably will not buy it because I will probably never finish learning everything that I can from the first! I really like the book and have learned much so far. The selection of games is very good and that analysis is good. Based upon some of the other reviews here, it may not be perfect analysis, but it is very good. At first I thought that the biographies were unnecessary because anyone who could use this book would know about the players, but then I learned quite a bit there too. A very good book and at a very reasonable price.
Book Description
Knowledge workers create the innovations and strategies that keep their firms competitive and the economy healthy. Yet companies continue to manage this new breed of employee with techniques designed for the Industrial Age. As this critical sector of the workforce continues to increase in size and importance, that’s a mistake that could cost companies their future. Thomas Davenport argues that knowledge workers are vastly different from other types of workers in their motivations, attitudes, and need for autonomy—and so they require different management techniques to improve their performance and productivity. Based on extensive research involving over one hundred companies and more than six hundred knowledge workers, Thinking for a Living provides rich insights into how knowledge workers think, how they accomplish tasks, and what motivates them to excel. Davenport identifies four major categories of knowledge workers and presents a unique framework for matching specific types of workers with the management strategies that yield the greatest performance. Written by the field’s premier thought leader, Thinking for a Living reveals how to maximize the brain power that fuels organizational success.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Buy - A must have .......2007-09-17
I have read a number of Tom's books, but this one beats them all (I am saving up to buy another one!). The knowledge worker is an essential ingredient for innovation. Fascinating title, well prepared and perfectly laid out thoughts and a simple style writing makes this book a choice material for anyone seeking personal development or involved in self-directed learning. This book is a true blessing and I am glad I bought it. It is a steady reference for my knowledge management project and hopefully, practice.
The average knowledge worker believes in his skills and he can not be taken for granted. Davenport describes the knowledge worker's attributes fully and provides employers and senior management a new direction on how to view their organizational assets. It also helps the knowledge worker to realize his potentialities. After reading this book, my motivaion to improve myself has been further enhanced. Indeed, KM is an essential strategy for supporting performance
You have got to be kidding?.......2007-07-20
I endeavor to follow the addage that if you have nothing nice to say then say nothing; however, this work is redundant, virtually devoid of any actionable insights, and smacks of a self indulgent attempt to justify his own ideosycratic work habits. I kept going in hopes that one concept would justify my investment of mind. The only return on my investment is a book I can now confindently refer to those I distain and assiduously warn those I adore to avoid.
I am fairly sure the majority of previous reviews are from nodes in his social network who have seized upon his scintilating suggestion that effective knowledge workers maintain and nuture their relationships by treating them well. It is sycophantic myopia when work which could and should be great barely achieves mediocracy receives any praise whatsoever.
If Mr. Davenport reads these words please know that I harbor no ill will to you personally I just found this particular publication of your work seriously wanting.
Insightful and pragmatic.......2007-05-26
Though he starts with a fuzzy definition of knowledge workers, Thomas Davenport quickly gets to the point where his ideas are both illuminating and practical. His logical structure covering multiple approaches to improving the performance of knowledge workers both changes some foundations upon which to approach the task and also provides many practical ideas to implement.
Having focussed for many years on process improvement in software projects, I found his insights on the difference betwen professional practice and process improvement very helpful. The discussion on information technology covered a range of tools, and included some inspiring examples. There is certainly another book or few just on this topic. Completing the books with the topic of managing knowledge workers at first appeared out of order, but upon a second reading the flow of his ideas started to make sense.
Overall, Thinking for a Living has been inspiring and useful. I would recommend it to anyone who manages knowledge workers, or aims to improve their performance. And as Mr. Davenport argues, that is an important aim for just about all companies in the rich countries.
Must-read if you have any Knowledge Workers in your company.......2006-11-09
Knowledge Workers are those people whose main professional output is Knowledge. Because all work requires some knowledge, the boundary can be arbitrary. So, depending on where you draw the line, Knowledge Workers represent ¼ to 1/3 of the labor force in the developed world. Doctors, lawyers, researchers, consultants, and computer programmers all share this trait.
We saw (in Corporate Longitude by Leif Edvinsson and Intangibles by Baruch Lev) that the market value of all publicly traded companies exceeded the market value of their tangible assets sometime in the early 90's. This gap has grown ever since. We assume that Knowledge accumulated inside a company is responsible for a good part of this difference. Ergo, our Knowledge Workers represent a very important, if mostly intangible, asset.
Because their main output is Knowledge, you can't quite measure what they are doing. If one of your best Knowledge Workers says she has her best ideas in the shower, you have no choice but to take her word for it. Knowledge Workers resist most controls on their quality and productivity. Sometimes this resistance is built into the rules of their professional associations (check out the rules and regulations of any legal or medical association and you'll witness this). Most Knowledge Workers hate bureaucracy and hierarchy. Some Knowledge Workers do not run on money: they prefer to be compensated with, for example, easier access to Knowledge.
Trouble is, our management models have changed little since the Industrial Revolution, so they're uniquely inadequate for managing Knowledge Workers. In fact, because the person who manages Knowledge Workers is in most cases a Knowledge Worker him/herself, this suggests that the ideal management model for Knowledge Workers must contain a "Player/Coach" flavor.
Enter Prof. Davenport, who has dedicated the past several years to the study of Knowledge Workers. This book distills most of what he has learned, and has a wealth of references to those who need more detail.
Knowledge Workers cannot easily be grouped into one category. One important lesson throughout the book is that, when coming to grips with the Knowledge Workers inside your company, you must segment them into different groups. After all, because Knowledge can be invented, discovered, packaged, distributed, or consumed, each Knowledge Worker you deal with will be active in one or more, but rarely all, of these activities. Prof Davenport proposes a basic taxonomy for this, with two dimensions: the level of interdependence among Knowledge Workers, and the level of Complexity of the work itself. This in turn spawns four basic models:
* Transaction Model (low interdependence, low complexity): The Knowledge Worker is essentially by him/herself and most of the situations he/she faces are repetitive. This is the only segment where "scripting" (ie, standard, pre-rehearsed speeches covering the most common situations) is effective. A good example of this is the 0800 customer-support people in a software company.
* Integration Model (high interdependence, low complexity): The task is repeatable but integration is critical, both intra-team and across disciplines. In this segment, the key is to establish tight process routines and standards. The best example of this is geologist/geophysicist/drilling engineer teams in oil&gas exploration.
* Expert Model (high complexity, low interdependence): Performance here is highly reliant on a person who contains most if not all the necessary Knowledge. Still, these people might profit from easy access to databases containing similar situations that took place in the past. Trial attorneys, systems analysts, and some types of medical doctors are excellent examples of this model.
* Collaboration Model (high complexity, high interdependence): People in these teams feel they're improvising all the time, when in fact there's an enormous degree of judgement in every decision made. This is the most difficult type of Knowledge-Worker team to improve in any organized way. Structured-deals teams in Investment Banks are probably the best example of this.
He is the first to admit that the above model is only a very basic first approach. When you do this in your company, you may find two or three of the above. Also, look out for hybrid situations. For example, a neurosurgeon fits the Expert model (without him, there's no surgery), but his supporting team (nurses, anesthesiologists, etc) fits the Collaboration model.
Prof. Davenport strongly encourages people to quickly move beyond the above models and develop their own Knowledge Worker segmentation models, and then to develop and use different management, performance-metrics, office-space, recruitment, remuneration, retention, succession, and IT-support strategies for each segment.
One set of research findings described in the book will not surprise most of us: business-process reengineering, a consulting buzzword in the past decade, has probably done more harm than good to the Knowledge Worker community.
The book also dispels some myths about Knowledge Workers with some hard research performed by Prof. Davenport and colleagues: for example, surprisingly few of them prefer to tele-commute (explanation: interaction among Knowledge Workers is critical to their success). Another interesting example is that they're not as much into electronic gadgets as we, coming from a geek stereotype, all thought.
Because it summarizes the author's past publications and research, the writing can be of variable quality, and progress from one chapter to the next is not exactly seamless, but neither of these foibles is enough to detract from the overall impact of a very timely and important book.
Some people may be offended by the summary at the end of each chapter; they didn't bother me, knowing there are so many print-challenged executives around us.
Highly recommended. Executive coaches dealing with technical teams may find this book invaluable.
Written by a manger for managers.......2006-09-10
I was able to go cover to cover in about 5 minutes. If you manage people that use their brains to do their work and you have no idea how to understand, manage and motivate them then this book might help you out a bit. I found it to be off-topic for me as I was hoping that it was going to be written for the people who Think for a Living rather than their managers.
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating....and most helpful!.......2006-10-26
This is a fascinating book that offers valuable information to anyone running a business. Davenport presents a unique strategy which will yield the greatest performance from knowledge workers in our companies today.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Human Resource Planning, published by Thomson Gale on March 1, 2006. The length of the article is 1368 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Thinking for a Living: How to Get Better Performance and Results from Knowledge Workers.(Book review)
Author: Michael L. Moore
Publication:
Human Resource Planning (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 29
Issue: 1
Page: 52(2)
Article Type: Book review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Books:
- I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay
- Its A Bitter Little World: The Smartest Toughest Nastiest Quotes From Film Noir
- James Whale : A New World of Gods and Monsters
- Jesus and Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ: The Film, the Gospels and the Claims of History
- Kinsey: Public and Private
- Korean Cinema: The New Hong Kong
- Making Meaning: Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema (Harvard Film Studies)
- Manhattan on Film Updated Edition : Walking Tours of Hollywood's Fabled Front Lot
- Mighty Movies: Movie Poster Art from Hollywood's Greatest Adventure Epics and Spectaculars
- Mise en scène: cinéma et lecture
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- The GE Work-Out : How to Implement GE's Revolutionary Method for Busting Bureaucracy & Attacking
- Mastering Color: The Essentials Of Color Illustrated With Oils
- Finding God in the Movies: 33 Films of Reel Faith
- Fallen Astronauts: Heroes Who Died Reaching for the Moon
- How to Start a Magazine
- Oh Danny Boy
- Nigel Calder's Cruising Handbook: A Compendium for Coastal and Offshore Sailors
- CIMA Exam Practice Kit Management Accounting Performance Evaluation, Third Edition
- Economies in Transition: Comparing Asia and Europe
- It's Me Again: Volume Three of the Bandy Papers
All I Need To Know I Learned From Xena: Warrior Princess
Xena Warrior Princess: Complete Illustrated Companion
Double Dare
Xena: Warrior Princess - Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire: Original Television Soundtrack
Battle On!: An Unauthorized, Irreverant Look at Zena: Warrior Princess (Xena, Warrior Princess)
