Design Like Apple. Seven Principles For Creating Insanely Great Products, Services, and Experiences

The authors of the international bestseller Business Model Generation explain how to create value propositions customers can’t resist Value Proposition Design helps you tackle the core challenge of every business – creating compelling products and services customers want to buy. This highly practical book, paired with its online companion, will teach you the processes and tools you need to create products that sell. Using the same stunning visual format as the authors’ global bestseller, Business Model Generation, this sequel explains how to use the “Value Proposition Canvas” to design, test, create, and manage products and services customers actually want. Value Proposition Design is for anyone who has been frustrated by new product meetings based on hunches and intuitions; it’s for anyone who has watched an expensive new product launch fail in the market. The book will help you understand the patterns of great value propositions, get closer to customers, and avoid wasting time with ideas that won’t work. You’ll learn the simple process of designing and testing value propositions, that perfectly match customers’ needs and desires. In addition the book gives you exclusive access to an online companion on Strategyzer.com. You will be able to assess your work, learn from peers, and download pdfs, checklists, and more. Value Proposition Design is an essential companion to the ”Business Model Canvas” from Business Model Generation, a tool embraced globally by startups and large corporations such as MasterCard, 3M, Coca Cola, GE, Fujitsu, LEGO, Colgate-Palmolive, and many more. Value Proposition Design gives you a proven methodology for success, with value propositions that sell, embedded in profitable business models."

In a world of fierce global competition and rapid technological change, traditional strategies for gaining market share and achieving efficiencies no longer yield the returns they once did. How can companies drive consumer preference and secure sustainable growth in this digital, social, and mobile age? The answer is through functional integration. Some of the world's most highly valued companies—including Amazon, Apple and Google—have harnessed this new business model to build highly interactive ecosystems of interrelated products and digital services, gaining new levels of customer engagement. Functional integration offers forward-looking brands a unique competitive edge by using transformative digital technologies to deliver high-value customer experiences, generate repeat business, and unlock lucrative new business-to-business revenue streams. Connected By Design is the first book to show business leaders and marketers exactly how to use functional integration to achieve transformative growth within any type of company. Based on R/GA's pioneering work with firms at the forefront of functional integration, Barry Wacksman and Chris Stutzman identify seven principles companies must follow in order to create and deliver new value for customers and capture new revenues. Connected By Design explains how functional integration drove the transformation of market-leading companies as diverse as Nike, General Motors, McCormick & Co., and Activision to establish authentic brand relationships with their customers, enter new categories, and develop new sources of income. With Connected by Design, any company can leverage technological disruption to redefine its mission and foster greater brand loyalty and engagement.

As the United States? wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue, increasing numbers of students who experienced combat will enroll in colleges and universities. There is mounting evidence that these veterans will require support unique to their needs beyond the processing of financial aid paperwork from the Veterans Administration. Obviously, combat frequently inflicts injuries, both physical and mental, that will require attention, but veterans are a unique population in other ways as well. Soldiers experience extraordinary bonding in wartime, and colleges can provide opportunities for that fellowship to be a source of support and connection. Female veterans will bring a new, nontraditional perspective to campus, and student service organizations should pay careful attention. There is also a significant group of students who leave for service and return?under the best of circumstances, they need accommodation to succeed. Institutions of higher education traditionally have responded to the needs of special student populations by developing programs and offering services. This volume contains information about programmatic initiatives that can help create a welcoming environment for veterans, one that encourages serious, creative involvement. The authors bring broad experience and deliberate consideration to bear on questions that are only becoming more important to the entire spectrum of American colleges and universities. This is the 126th volume of the Jossey-Bass higher education quarterly report series New Directions for Student Services, an indispensable resource for vice presidents of student affairs, deans of students, student counselors, and other student services professionals. Each issue of New Directions for Student Services offers guidelines and programs for aiding students in their total development: emotional, social, physical, and intellectual.

Brand New’s revolutionary innovation process is a proven road map you can put to work immediately to create successful new products, services, and business models. Written by leading innovation practitioners, and the coauthor of the bestseller Customers for Life, the authors of this tightly focused, highly entertaining book have nailed the issue perfectly when it comes to successfully introducing anything new. Research shows people like new products and services. Indeed they go out of their way to try to find them. Yet companies are truly terrible at providing new products and services that meet these customers’ needs. Why are companies so bad at giving customers what they want? Because they lack a simple proven process that makes sure innovation occurs efficiently time after time. No one knows this better than Mike Maddock and his team at Maddock Douglas, the Agency of Innovation,™ which has worked closely with more than a quarter of Fortune 100. To solve the innovation paradox, Maddock explains the process his team has used to help the world’s best companies and shows you how to Find needs and opportunity in the marketplace Come up with significant market insights Create compelling communication (using the actual words your customers use) to convince people to try your new creation What has worked for some of the world’s most successful companies, when it comes to innovation, will work for you. Start putting the lessons of Brand New to work for you…before the competition does.

Become an effective adult educator by approaching teaching systematically As the author describes at the beginning of Creating Courses for Adults, «The big idea of this book is that education for adults has to be designed.» Whether in basic skills training, English language classes, professional development workshops, personal interest courses, or formal degree programs, good teaching tends to conceal all the planning and decisions which had to be made in order to present participants with a seamless and coherent process for learning. The author posits that nobody is a completely intuitive teacher and that everybody has to make a series of choices as they put courses together. The decisions they make are important and far-reaching, and deserve to be considered carefully. Starting with the three core factors which must be taken into account when creating courses, Creating Courses for Adults walks readers through a manageable process for addressing the key decisions which must be made in order to design effective learning. Instructor factors are what the teacher brings to the teaching and learning process, such as experience and preferences. Learner factors are the influences that students bring with them, including their past experiences and expectations for the class. Context factors include the educational setting, whether in-person or online, as well as the subject matter. Readers of Creating Courses for Adults will learn a systematic approach to lesson and course design based on research into the ways adults learn and the best ways to reach them, along with pointers and tips for teaching adults in any setting.

Praise for THE GREAT FORMULA «This book reminds me of Isaac Newton's discovery of gravity-a stunningly simple idea that changed the course of history. I've seen The Great Formula create millionaires with surprising speed. It's an exact recipe to turn a marginal business into a successful one.» —David Garfinkel, author, Customers on Demand «Mark Joyner has once again succeeded at coming up with an entertaining and educational marketing masterpiece.» —Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian, infopreneur and heart surgeon «With all the fancy buzzwords used to describe how to achieve success, here is a commonsense formula that cuts through the chatter and goes straight to the heart of what really works. This is truly a new perspective.» —Joseph Sugarman, Chairman, BluBlocker Corporation «Save yourself a couple hundred thousand dollars on that degree. Clear out your bookcase. The MBA curriculum for this generation is The Irresistible Offer and The Great Formula.» —Lou D'Alo, PowerUp! Coaching and Consulting

The Professional's Guide to Financial Services Marketing is directed to any financial services professional–from individual representatives to executives of large financial services companies–who is looking for better ways to create the relevant marketplace differentiation and competitive advantage needed to increase productivity and profitability. The purpose of this book is not to provide a how-to manual, but rather to offer practical information, examples, and thought-provoking tips that provide ideas and insights that will enable financial services professionals to improve their own marketing approaches and achieve ambitious marketing goals. With examples drawn from basic marketing approaches and successful consumer marketing, this book provides a fresh perspective on a variety of marketing issues that can make a significant difference to corporate success.

It’s easy to design, build, and post a Web page with Google Page Creator or CoffeeCup HTML Editor, but a friendly guide still comes in handy. Creating Web Pages For Dummies®, 9th Edition introduces you to Web design software and online page-building tools, and walks you through the process in record time. Like its previous editions, this book gives you the skinny on getting Web pages up and running with the least amount of hassle. But not just ho-hum Web pages! Yours will look fantastic and be easy to build, and you’ll even get a trial version of CoffeeCup HTML Editor and visual design tools on the bonus CD. You’ll learn to: Get a simple page designed and online by the end of Chapter 3 Optimize photos, video, and audio for the Web and get them onto your page Register for a Google account and use the versatile Google Page Creator Build pages using basic HTML or CoffeeCup HTML Editor Identify and apply elements of design, avoid common errors, and create pages that get noticed Maintain control by creating and editing pages in HTML with a text editor Understand how image file size affects your pages, how to upload photos to Flickr, and how to add sound and video files to your Web pages Develop your pages into a site with CoffeeCup HTML Editor and Visual Editor You’ll even find out more about blogging and Blogger.com. The trial software on the CD is for Windows, but the instructions for building great Web pages work on any system! Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Your guide to becoming an explanation specialist. You've done the hard work. Your product or service works beautifully – but something is missing. People just don't see the big idea – and it's keeping you from being successful. Your idea has an explanation problem. The Art of Explanation is for business people, educators and influencers who want to improve their explanation skills and start solving explanation problems. Author Lee LeFever is the founder of Common Craft, a company known around the world for making complex ideas easy to understand through short animated videos. He is your guide to helping audiences fall in love with your ideas, products or services through better explanations in any medium. You will learn to: Plan: Learn explanation basics, what causes them to fail and how to diagnose explanation problems. Package: Using simple elements, create an explanation strategy that builds confidence and motivates your audience. Present: Produce remarkable explanations with visuals and media. The Art of Explanation is your invitation to become an explanation specialist and see why explanation is now a fundamental skill for professionals.

Everything you need to know to design a profitable business plan Whether you're starting a new business or you’ve been trading for a while, Creating a Business Plan For Dummies covers everything you need to know. Figure out whether your business idea is likely to work, how to identify your strategic advantage, and what you can do to gain an edge on the competition. Discover why a business plan doesn't have to be a thrity-page document that takes days to write, but can be a simple process that you do in stages as you work through your business concept. Learn how to prepare an elevator pitch, create a start-up budget, and create realistic sales projections. Discover how to predict and manage expenses, and assemble a financial forecast that enables you to calculate your break-even. Look at the risk involved in this business and experiment with different scenarios to see if you’re on the right track. Explains how to create a one-page business plan in just a few hours Takes a simple step-by-step approach, focusing on budgets, financials, and everyday practicalities Offers focused guidance on managing cashflow, designing marketing plans, and establishing a long-term vision for your business Includes access to downloadable templates and worksheets, as well as helpful online audio and video components Written by Veechi Curtis, bestselling author and business consultant A good business plan is the first step to success for any new business, and getting it right can mean the difference between big profits and big trouble. Creating a Business Plan For Dummies gives you the detailed advice you need to design a great business plan that will guide your business from concept to reality.