Todo sobre mi madre

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Siempre!, published by Edicional Siempre on July 15, 1999. The length of the article is 1460 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: Pedro Almodóvar: La costilla de Manuela.(TT: Pedro Almodovar: Manuela's rib.)
Author: Tomás Pérez Turrent
Publication: Siempre! (Refereed)
Date: July 15, 1999
Publisher: Edicional Siempre
Volume: 46 Issue: 2404 Page: 74

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Poema de Almodóvar a la mujer.(director Español de películas)(TT: Almodovar's poem to women.)(TA: Spanish movie director)(Reseña): An article from: Siempre!

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Poema de Almodóvar a la mujer.(director Español de películas)(TT: Almodovar's poem to women.)(TA: Spanish movie director)(Reseña): An article from: Siempre!
Mario Saavedra
Manufacturer: Edicional Siempre
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B00099MU5K
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Siempre!, published by Edicional Siempre on October 28, 1999. The length of the article is 1768 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: Poema de Almodóvar a la mujer.(director Español de películas)(TT: Almodovar's poem to women.)(TA: Spanish movie director)(Reseña)
Author: Mario Saavedra
Publication: Siempre! (Refereed)
Date: October 28, 1999
Publisher: Edicional Siempre
Volume: 46 Issue: 2419 Page: 78

Article Type: Reseña

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Todo sobre mi madre; al encuentro del corazón.(TT: All about my mother; to the encounter of the heart.)(Reseña): An article from: Fem

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Todo sobre mi madre; al encuentro del corazón.(TT: All about my mother; to the encounter of the heart.)(Reseña): An article from: Fem
Alicia Lozano Mascarúa
Manufacturer: Difusion Cultural Feminista, A.C.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B0008H93EY
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Fem, published by Difusion Cultural Feminista, A.C. on May 1, 2000. The length of the article is 3120 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: Todo sobre mi madre; al encuentro del corazón.(TT: All about my mother; to the encounter of the heart.)(Reseña)
Author: Alicia Lozano Mascarúa
Publication: Fem (Magazine/Journal)
Date: May 1, 2000
Publisher: Difusion Cultural Feminista, A.C.
Volume: 24 Issue: 206 Page: 36

Article Type: Reseña

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Todo Sobre Mi Madre; The Mummy.(reseñas de películas; 29 de abril, 1999)(TT: All About My Mother; The Mummy.)(TA: film reviews; April 29, 1999)(Reseña): An article from: Semana

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Todo Sobre Mi Madre; The Mummy.(reseñas de películas; 29 de abril, 1999)(TT: All About My Mother; The Mummy.)(TA: film reviews; April 29, 1999)(Reseña): An article from: Semana
Olivia P. Tallet
Manufacturer: Spanish Publications, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B00098RTY8
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Semana, published by Spanish Publications, Inc. on April 29, 1999. The length of the article is 444 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: Todo Sobre Mi Madre; The Mummy.(reseñas de películas; 29 de abril, 1999)(TT: All About My Mother; The Mummy.)(TA: film reviews; April 29, 1999)(Reseña)
Author: Olivia P. Tallet
Publication: Semana (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 29, 1999
Publisher: Spanish Publications, Inc.
Volume: 6 Issue: 322 Page: 17

Article Type: Reseña

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Customer Reviews:

Feast for The Eyes..............& Heart...........2006-11-10

As Someone Who has 'Lived' This Era, The Book Was Especially
Gratifing! Esp. The 'San Pedro' Pics (Where I Hail From) Everyday
People Capturing Everyday Situations....Makes The Book VERY
Spontaneous! A Winner!

Sorry, this book is a waste of money.......2006-01-24

You'd be better off buying a pack of postcards. Pictures are certainly NOT exuberant, lack good explanations, and are not relevant enough--I am a native Southern Californian and was bored and disappointed.

"AND STILL THOSE VOICES ARE CALLING FROM FAR AWAY..."*.......2006-01-03

[*Lyric from the song, 'HOTEL CALIFORNIA' by The Eagles.]

I acquired SOUTHERN CALIFORNIALAND by Charles Phoenix just over a week ago in a Christmas gift exchange game. The book is a true celebration of Southern California in its glorious, paradisiacal decades of 1940 through the 1970s. Charles Phoenix who oddly became obsessed with the old 35 mm Kodachrome slides taken by strangers in memorializing their family trips, gatherings, and everyday lives, shares about 150 of his favorites with us in this absolutely charming book. His love and enthusiasm for his subject (SoCal in its glory days) just oozes from every page. Like the author, I grew up in SoCalLand in the '60s & 70s, and so I share his fascination for the magic that it once held.

Enchanting, dreamy, nostalgic, and a tad melancholic (because the enchantment and the dream has been reduced to nostalgia) are words that best describe this picture book. But "surprising" is another word that fits, because I was surprised by the wealth of information to be found in the brief text that accompanies each photograph. Even I - who has traversed so many of these locations - learned some interesting bits of trivia. For example: Did you know that when Vice President Richard Nixon cut the ribbon and became the Disneyland Monorail's first official passenger, unbeknownst to that famous rider, it was the first time the unique transportation train completed a trip without catching fire? Phoenix describes Walt Disney as being very nervous. Yeah, I suppose he was! Did you know that the Luer "Quality Meat" Rocket (a forerunner to the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile) was discovered in a Prescott, Arizona junkyard in 1997, "weathered, but restorable"? (And here I always thought that I was the only good thing to wrench free from the evil clutches of Prescott! I made good my escape in early '94, also "weathered, but restorable.")

I loved perusing the lost details of places where I have traipsed: the famous Brown Derby restaurant and the Pan-Pacific Auditorium; White Front of Anaheim, one of the discount chain of stores fo' po' folks. (My Ma used to drag us to one as children in Orange County. I don't know how many the O.C. boasted of, but this might well be the same White Front.); the Pacific Ocean Park amusement park, which I guarded as a young Police Explorer during its demolition in the Winter of 1973-74; the L.A. International Airport Theme Building where I experienced my first Red Dog beer. The beer wasn't memorable, but the location was.

Phoenix includes insightful, and sometimes funny commentary. When he describes the cover photo (a white, 1955 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz convertible parked near the corner of Walnut & Allen in Pasadena, with palm trees, an orange grove, and snow-capped Mt. Baldy in the background) as "a perfect Southern California shot," he's right on the money! When he writes of the 1954 Mineral Baths photo in Desert Hot Springs, "Hundreds of thousands of acres of beautiful undisturbed desert scenery and someone had to build a wall around this place and paint in [desert] scenery," it's genuinely funny.

This book is a treasure trove for any pre-Hotel California SoCalLand lover. Where else are you going to find a photograph of a 1956 teenager with the perfect ducktail 'do waiting to test Disneyland's Autopia track? Or a photo of President Eisenhower blowing his nose in Palm Springs? Or a photo of Lee and Katie Kellogg eating meatloaf sandwiches in 1955 Alhambra? This book is a vibrant, eye-popping gem of pop culture which I urge you not to buy.

I'd rather you didn't purchase this fun Charles Phoenix book. Why? Because on page 144 we learn that SOUTHERN CALIFORNILAND was "Printed in China." Yes, this is the same China that embraces Communism, a failed economic/social system responsible for murdering approximately 100 million human beings worldwide, and torturing and starving many millions more. The same China that enforces its one-child family policy with forced abortions. The same China that got caught smuggling AK-47s into the U.S. to be sold to Los Angeles street gangs; threatened to nuke L.A. if the U.S. militarily defends Taiwan; kills its citizens who have the audacity to publicly request freedom; sells body parts of executed prisoners to medical facilities; enslaves political opponents & Christians for their faith, and puts them to work in forced labor camps, producing all imaginable types of goods, and printing books, all to be sold to Americans.

Everytime we purchase a Chinese-made product, we are feeding the human rights-abusing monster that has made no secret of its hatred for us - a monster that is increasing its military might at an astonishing rate and will someday overrun its neighbor, Taiwan, and declare war on the United States. Let's have a little foresight for once. Let's stop building our enemies. Let's boycott ALL Chinese products and sleep better at night. SOUTHERN CALIFORNIALAND is a nice book, but until it is being produced in a country that values human life, it's a book that we can LIVE WITHOUT! (Of course, if you're buying a used copy, this is not an issue.)

Southern Californialand: MId-century Culture in Kodachrome.......2005-08-05

I purchased this book for my husband's 50th birthday and it was a big hit!! He loved seeing many of the sights he grew up with in the San Gabriel Valley. We both grew up in So. Cal. in the 50's-70's and the photographs captured the "feel" of those times perfectly. Looking at them was like going back in a time-machine,just a fun blast into the past!

Californian Kodachrome........2004-08-28

This is the author's second bite of life in Southern California, his earlier book 'Southern California in the 50s' (ISBN 1883318491) was an exuberant looking collection of photos and graphics mixed in with the text. I thought it was rather let down by the less than rigorous image selection. 'Southern Californialand' is a much better offering which I think captures the feel of this fascinating part of the Nation.

For a start 'Southern Californialand' only uses photos and none of them are angled like the earlier book. The design is much more formal too, the photos are large, frequently one to a page or one to a spread, the very detailed captions and headings are not set in period typography either.

The 170 were mostly taken by amateurs but don't let that put you off, there are some great shots in these pages and Phoenix has wisely chosen a wide selection of places, for instance the Eastland Shopping Center, West Covina 1957, the Compton Drive-in 1977, Angel's Flight funicular railway 1956, kids enjoying an Easter party in Palm Springs 1953, Vine Street, Hollywood 1948, tract homes in Highland Park 1958, oil derricks at Signal Hill 1953 and the huge globe at Leisure World 1962.

As well as plenty of places and events there are many showing folks having fun in the fifties (why would an amateur take a photo of someone looking glum?) and some of these are sometimes the most interesting, a super photo on page sixty-eight shows four people having a meal, nothing clever about this at all photographically but it has a wealth of information about fashion, interior decor, furniture, utensils and the food on the table. Pages twenty and twenty-one show a husband taken a photo of his wife sitting on a bench at an intersection, again a real amateur shot (I wonder why this photo of someone taking a photo was taken?) but it is full of detail, commercial strip architecture, their clothing, ads on the seat, and the street furniture. So many of these photos have this kind of detail that you can pore over.

Because these are amateur photos there are a few duds but overall I thought this was a lovely book of photo nostalgia and examples of the pop architecture that commercialism in Southern California did so well. If you lived here in mid-century this is the book to get.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

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Very informative

Good information, very poor format.

This Book Changed my Mind about "Lazy" Students

An Aha! Experience

On Target

They Can but They Don't: Helping Students Overcome Work Inhibition
Jerome H. Bruns
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Education | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Learning Disabled | Special Education | Education | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Educational Psychology | Education Theory | Education | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0140152296

Customer Reviews:

Very informative.......2006-04-13

Caveat: I am only halfway through the book.

So far, I have learned a great deal about not only my daughter's issues with work inhibition, but also my own. If only I had had this information when I was in school. I always got great grades, because I did well on tests and in-class assignments. But in high school I became a total underachiever due to the increased volume of independent study. I bypassed college until my 30s for this same reason.

Now, I fear, I have passed this legacy on to my daugther. I also continue to struggle with the problem of work inhibition in my career.

Thus far, the book has covered a great deal of research into how work inhibited students are the same and different from motivated students. This was very enlightening to me and has also proved helpful in parenting my daughter already!

One reviewer commented on content organization. I am a writer by profession, and I personally find this book thus far to be well organized. However, I will admit that everyone has their own style of reading and writing, and what works for one reader doesn't always work for another.

I say this in the hopes that you will not pass this book by because you are concerned about being able to follow the writing. I can assure you, no matter what your reading style, the book is quite readable. There are a table of contents and section headings to assist you should you prefer to read it in a different order. I would caution against skipping ahead to the "what should I be doing" content and read as much of the background information as possible. It really helps.

I also feel the writer's tone is quite clear and easy to follow. Other authors on this subject have been criticized for condemning parents. While this author does point out some parental causes for work inhibition, I feel it was done in a non-judgmental fashion from which I could learn and adjust.

I plan to write another review after I finish the book and have a chance to apply some of the methods; however, I didn't want to let the "content organization" review to go without response for too long. I almost passed this book up due to that review, and I'm glad I didn't!

Good information, very poor format........2003-03-08

The information in this book is very good; but, in my opinion, the organization was just terrible. As far as I could tell, the book's relevant information could have been written with one-third to one-half less words, and been much better for it; and the organization and format of the information was bad enough that it was a good thing that I was sufficiently motivated to make it through the book, because I think it would have discouraged me significantly if I had not been so.

This Book Changed my Mind about "Lazy" Students.......2001-07-22

As a high school teacher I often felt frustrated attempting to teach seemingly intelligent students who repeatedly did not complete their work. This book finally convinced me these students are not "lazy" - they are work-inhibited. These students have associated work with negative emotions. For example, think about the food you hate the most. For me it's brussel sprouts. For work-inhibited students, school work is like being asked to eat brussel sprouts in every class. One might be able to choke down a few for a well-liked teacher, but after a while even the thought of brussel sprouts conjurs up negative emotions. The good news presented by Bruns is that work inhibition is easily identifiable and the sooner apppropriate intervention is begun, the better the chance of reversal. Bruns has writen individual chapters for parents, teachers, counselors and psychologists with positive,workable solutions to address this problem, which affects as many as 20% of students. I'm mailing copies of this book to 2 families ASAP.

An Aha! Experience.......2000-06-03

This book transformed my attitude toward my son's behavior and opened my eyes to things my husband and I have done to contribute to the situation. The book includes specific examples of what parents say and do that is unhelpful, and suggests alternate phrases and actions that are more effective. I immediately applied some of the insights I gained and can see a change already. The author includes chapters specifically for school administrators, teachers, counselors, and parents, with concrete suggestions for each group. I am buying multiple copies of this book to hand out.

On Target.......2000-03-01

As an elementary school principal I find that Bruns has identified a critical area of student failure. These students don't fall into an easy disability slot. They are the ones most likely to stumble along, just doing enough to get by and avioding challenges all their lives. Bruns offers helpful, specific suggestions for reaching them and most interventions don't require any more expertise than the classroom teacher already has. He has further identified the critical year; fourth grade. Get the train on track at that level and it probably won't jump off later!

The Can But They Don't: Helping Students Overcome Work Inhibition.

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The Can But They Don't: Helping Students Overcome Work Inhibition.
Jerome. Bruns
Manufacturer: Viking,
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NI18JG

They Can but They Don't: Helping Students Overcome Work Inhibition

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They Can but They Don't: Helping Students Overcome Work Inhibition
Jerome H. Bruns
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000MU2RA4

Amazon.com's Best of 2001

If you like to keep on top of what's going on in the world but find it difficult to get through more than a section or two of the Sunday New York Times, take heart. Were you to actually plow through the whole thing, even just once, you'd be taking in more factual information than was gathered in all the written material available to a reader in the 15th century. And that's just a Sunday paper; what about all the e-mail, voice mail, meetings, Web pages (2 billion or so of them), and publications (more than 60,000 new books and 18,000 magazines published annually in the U.S. alone) vying for your attention? According to Thomas H. Davenport and John C. Beck, we live in an age of information overload, where attention has become the most valuable business currency. Welcome to The Attention Economy.

If yesterday was the age of information, today is the age of trying to attract or employ people's attention. Indeed, leaders and managers in the business world face this two-fold problem daily, constantly seeking the attention of their customers and employees while managing their own limited supply. Declaring that "understanding and managing attention is now the single most important determinant of business success," the authors examine what attention is, how it can be measured, how it's being technologically constructed and protected, and where and how attention is being most effectively exploited.

Predictably, nowhere are these economics more important than in the realm of e-commerce. In the chapter entitled "Eyeballs and Cyber Malls," the authors discuss the strategies needed to gain and maintain attention "stickiness." The book contains numerous suggestions on how leaders can manage their own attention and that of their employees more effectively (and how to avoid and treat info-stress), but always with an eye on the ultimate goal: affecting the type and amount of attention your customers give you. Already, more money is often spent on attracting attention to a product than spent on the product itself (we're reminded of The Blair Witch Project, which cost a mere $350,000 to make and $11 million to market). And as our information environment gets increasingly saturated, holding a person's attention becomes an ever more difficult proposition; as the authors suggest, actually paying for someone to receive your information is a realistic prospect in the not-too-distant future. Indeed, the book's final chapter is devoted to what the authors predict will affect attention in the future, and how attention can and will be acquired, monitored, and distributed.

The Attention Economy is peppered with anecdotal pull-outs and "overheard" comments; though intriguing in as random factoids and zippy, little quotes, this sideline information doesn't always tie in with the authors' points and often seems distracting. The book is well written, though, and the authors, both of whom work at the Accenture Institute for Strategic Change, take an informed and well-balanced look at what is perhaps our society's most priceless, ephemeral commodity. --S. Ketchum

Book Description

Thought provoking
-Time Magazine

Welcome to the attention economy, in which the new scarcest resource isn't ideas or talent, but attention itself. This groundbreaking book argues that today's businesses are headed for disaster-unless they overcome the dangerously high attention deficits that threaten to cripple today's workplace. Learn to manage this critical yet finite resource, or fail!

"A worthy message"
-Publishers Weekly

AUTHORBIO: Thomas H. Davenport is the Director of the Accenture Institute for Strategic Change and author of Process Innovation and Working Knowledge, Harvard Business School Press. John C. Beck is an Associate Partner and Senior Research Fellow at the Accenture Institute for Strategic Change.

Download Description

In today's information-flooded world, the scarcest resource is not ideas or even talent: it's attention. In this groundbreaking book, Thomas Davenport and John Beck argue that unless companies learn to effectively capture, manage, and keep it--both internally and out in the marketplace--they'll fall hopelessly behind. In The Attention Economy, the authors also outline four perspectives on managing attention in all areas of business: 1) measuring attention, 2) understanding the psychobiology of attention, 3) using attention technologies to structure and protect attention, and 4) adapting lessons from traditional attention industries like advertising. Drawing from exclusive global research, the authors show how a few pioneering organizations are turning attention management into a potent competitive advantage and recommend what attention-deprived companies should do to avoid losing employees, customers, and market share. A landmark work on the twenty-first century's new critical competency, this book is for every manager who wants to learn how to earn and spend the new currency of business.

Customer Reviews:

The Attention Asset: Giving, Getting, Growing, and Keeping, It.......2006-12-31

This is a fine book! It is clear and creative writing on a novel concept and promising area - The Attention Economy.

On page 20 the book defines attention as a "focused mental engagement on a particular item of information. Items come into our awareness, we attend to a particular item, and then we decide whether to act" (original italics). From this definition it follows that The Attention Economy is a system for managing the attention asset. And why manage attention? Because attention is an economic (scarce) resource. Like Joan Robinson is believed to have put it, "Scarce resources command a positive price." In this case the price of attention is attention, or as the authors suggest: to get attention one has to give attention. In other words, scarcity compels (rational) choices, and on the margin of decisions choices have opportunity costs as well as benefits. To say that attention is a "focused mental engagement" is to say that producing attention requires lowering the opportunity cost of producing attention by specializing on the basis of a comparative advantage. Standard economics.

The book argues that the study of attention is important because business success depends on attention and attention management, just as it does other resources. While the options theory of asset pricing seems to apply to the attention asset as well, a key difference is that the attention asset is a perishable intangible. Information designed to get attention often perishes into gluts that may lead to "organizational attention deficit disorder" and on to bankruptcy, suggesting a need for attention management.

Chapters 3, 4, and 5 are nuggets of gold both analytically and in terms of descriptive content. Chapter 3 deals with the measurement of attention - pay attention to pages 40-47. Chapter 4, on "the psychobiology of attention", outlines general hierarchical schemes for understanding human needs relevant to giving, getting, growing, and keeping the attention resource. Chapter 5 is particularly about how a business can get people (its employees, customers, and competitors) to pay attention to its attention. Among many examples: It can use attention technologies such as customizing solutions; it can avoid shoving its attention onto others; and it can use its people to keep the attention it already gets.

The sixth chapter of the book gives examples of industries where one would find the attention resource in practical uses. These include: advertising, movies, TV, and publishing. A defining characteristic of attention in these industries is "stickiness", i.e., paying and keeping attention (see p. 115ff).

The next five chapters stress e-commerce, leadership, strategies, changes of organizational structure, and information and knowledge management, all in the attention economy. The last chapter looks to the future, especially to the challenges and prospects the attention economy presents.

This is a good book, and the first five chapters are especially good. Some of the last chapters sound more like the revolutions we heard so much about during the dotcom era. The revolutionaries then told us to completely forget the "old economy", and singularly embrace the "new economy". Such predictions turned out to be hoity-toity, mainly because revolutions rarely succeed; they are generally too destructive even for their own good. Many revolutions have failed because, whereas people dislike the effects of change, they hate the disruptions of revolutions. Having said all that, I would still recommend The Attention Economy as fine work and good reading.

Amavilah, Author
Modeling Determinants of Income in Embedded Economies
ISBN: 1600210465

Reads like a magazine.......2006-04-04

The book reads like a magazine with a lot of anecdotes, which is a direct credit to its authors who are trying to make a textbook readable and capture the attention of mgmt audience with the baby face on its cover. Perhaps this has given the impression that it's not a serious book. But it is.

As we get deluged with more information each day, each piece of information is fighting for our attention. An example would be the recent reverse trend by companies to have precise "smartbomb" placement of ads targeted at specific audience rather than pay-per-click ads in websites. The attention on Attention Management would increase in the next decade ahead. Already, organisations are talking about employee engagement instead of staff satisfaction to measure productivity and workplace morale.

Good read for management, marketeers, KM, OD and comms practitioners. Don's miss the AttentionScape in the book :)

The fundamentals for measuring engagement.......2006-02-28

The authors of this book see every business engine fueled by attention, defined as the focused mental engagement on a particular item of information. As the authors point out, during the industrial revolution, manpower drove the economy; in the information age, knowledge was power, in this business era, attention is the rare resource that powers companies. Companies need to recognize the value of attention, and lean how to direct it and manage it. The authors understand the broad spectrum of attention and have grouped them into "six units of attention currency." The six units are paired into opposites: Aversive-Attractive, Captive-Voluntary, Back-of-mind-Front-of-mind.

It deserves your attention.......2006-02-19

If only I could buy some time... Surely you must have felt this way. However, this book would convince you that you should have rather said: if I could buy some more attention... Overall, I found the book to be quite thought provoking. Here's why:

As the name of the book suggests we deal here with economy, and the study of economy essentially is about the management of scarce resources. In the more traditional economic perspective this scarce resource is money. However, the authors define an economy where the scarcity is attention. They explicitly disconnect attention management from time management.

The concept they introduce seem quite intuitive -- we have experienced it in marketing activities for a long-long time. Chapter 6 deals with lessons from the attention industries: advertising, movies, television, and publishing.

Thinking about anything we produce (in my world it would be computer software) as something that must compete for the scarce resource of attention surely opens up interesting avenues of thought. From a software perspective we need to develop soiftware that helps us manage our attention. At least 3 of the chapters deals with "stuff that should make information technology people think". Chapter 5 introduces attention technologies from 3 perspectives: attention-getting, attention-structuring and attention-protecting. Chapter 7 deals with e-commerce and attention, while Chapter 11 deals with Managing Information, Knowledge and Attention. It has the very apt chapter title "You've got (lots and lots of) mail".

Overall I found the book to be written in a very readable fashion. I first loaned it from somebodies desk which I was visiting and managed to read it in 3 evenings end-to-end. I found the thoughts in it ever so stimulating that I just had to buy a copy which I did.

If you like your thoughts to be provoked by looking at stuff in a new or different way, then this book will not let you down.

A book on attention; written for short attention span readers.......2006-01-15

There are several key themes in this book, but of course the prevailing idea is that of our "attention" based economy and the challenges of getting clear messages through the overload of information. With more and more information available everyday, the pressing matter for businesses and organizations is the ability to attract and keep your attention.

The book is written in the multi-visual short burst style of a magazine, as opposed to a more in depth prose. Some reviewers have commented negatively on this, and while I would agree it renders the material a bit lighter than it could be, it also uses the context of the subject matter ironically well in presenting the information in a way it can be absorbed quickly and in disconnected settings.

The highlights for me included the section on the different types of attention; captive, voluntary, aversive, and so on, describing each type and giving examples of how to alter and adopt your message to reach through the pitfalls of each style. The sections on customer stickiness are well traveled but fitting to this subject dialog.

Also discussed were several elements of organizational structure, design, leadership and how these foster or hinder the kind of attention the business needs from its people to get the desired results. Anyone faced with the challenge of trying to gain buy in for a cross group, or cross cultural, implementation of an organizational process knows the value of the message and the ability to gain the attention and focus of the recipients is the key to the success or failure of the change.

I would have liked to see more in depth study and examples on best practices and methodologies used to overcome the information saturation present in most businesses. The ability to create and deliver clarity and purpose, and stay on message long enough to gain the change needed is a key leadership component that is often overlooked. The author's examples of Jack Welch were right on, as he is likely one of the best ever at getting messages, and most importantly attention, through a large and diverse organization.

Overall, the book is a great overview of an important subject for businesses now and in the future where this becomes even more difficult, it is always interesting and readable, and therefore worthwhile.

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