In this provocative and insightful book, highly regarded marketing research expert Lawrence Gibson argues that the multi-billion-dollar marketing research industry has largely failed. Not Just Numbers shows you exactly why it's failed – too much focus on gathering and analyzing data – and how it must change. Gibson asserts that businesses need a different way of looking at marketing research, both more scientific and more practical. Marketing research needs to take a stronger role in helping to solve marketing problems and capitalize on marketing opportunities and not merely be a source of data. The logical steps required to solve marketing problems and realize opportunities are simply and clearly explained in the book. Cases from the author's experience show you how this problem-solving approach has worked in real-world situations and demonstrate the dramatic sales and financial gains you can achieve when marketing research is properly designed and used. The book also provides you practical guidance to enhance your problem-solving and political skills to help corporate leaders identify more profitable actions and make more profitable decisions.

When eight-year-old Irene is removed from her First Nations family to live in a residential school she is confused, frightened, and terribly homesick. She tries to remember who she is and where she came from, despite the efforts of the nuns who are in charge at the school and who tell her that she is not to use her own name but instead use the number they have assigned to her. When she goes home for summer holidays, Irene's parents decide never to send her and her brothers away again. But where will they hide? And what will happen when her parents disobey the law? Based on the life of co-author Jenny Kay Dupuis’ grandmother, I Am Not a Number is a hugely necessary book that brings a terrible part of Canada’s history to light in a way that children can learn from and relate to.

"Vaclav Smil is my favorite author… Numbers Don't Lie takes everything that makes his writing great and boils it down into an easy-to-read format. I unabashedly recommend this book to anyone who loves learning."--Bill Gates, GatesNotes From the author of How the World Really Works, an essential guide to understanding how numbers reveal the true state of our world--exploring a wide range of topics including energy, the environment, technology, transportation, and food production. Vaclav Smil's mission is to make facts matter. An environmental scientist, policy analyst, and a hugely prolific author, he is Bill Gates' go-to guy for making sense of our world. In Numbers Don't Lie, Smil answers questions such as: What's worse for the environment--your car or your phone? How much do the world's cows weigh (and what does it matter)? And what makes people happy? From data about our societies and populations, through measures of the fuels and foods that energize them, to the impact of transportation and inventions of our modern world--and how all of this affects the planet itself--in Numbers Don't Lie, Vaclav Smil takes us on a fact-finding adventure, using surprising statistics and illuminating graphs to challenge conventional thinking. Packed with fascinating information and memorable examples, Numbers Don't Lie reveals how the US is leading a rising worldwide trend in chicken consumption, that vaccination yields the best return on investment, and why electric cars aren't as great as we think (yet). Urgent and essential, with a mix of science, history, and wit--all in bite-sized chapters on a broad range of topics--Numbers Don't Lie inspires readers to interrogate what they take to be true.

Learn how to detect any corporate sleight of hand—and gain the upper hand with smart investing Investing expert John Del Vecchio and “Motley Fool” Tom Jacobs offer a compelling arguement that the secret to stock-market success today isn’t finding the next Google or eBay, but avoiding the next AIG or Enron. To that end, they offer simple, clear techniques for detecting when and how legitimate companies make their numbers look better than they are. What's Behind the Numbers? offers seven rules for finding companies playing with—rather than by—the numbers and explains how to avoid losing money by determining exactly when a stock is about to head south. John Del Vecchio, CFA, serves as a Principal of Ranger Alternative Management and principal of Parabolix Research, Inc. Tom Jacobs is lead advisor for the Motley Fool Special Ops, a stock service where he manages a special situations and opportunistic portfolio. He is cofounder of Complete Growth Investor LLC.

The world certainly suffers no shortage of accounting texts. The many out there help readers prepare, audit, interpret and explain corporate financial statements. What has been missing is a book offering context and discussion for divisive issues such as taxes, debt, options, and earnings volatility. King addresses the why of accounting instead of the how, providing practitioners and students with a highly readable history of U.S. corporate accounting. More Than a Numbers Game: A Brief History of Accounting was inspired by Arthur Levitt's landmark 1998 speech delivered at New York University. The Securities and Exchange Commission chairman described the too-little challenged custom of earnings management and presaged the breakdown in the US corporate accounting three years later. Somehow, over a one-hundred year period, accounting morphed from a tool used by American railroad managers to communicate with absent British investors into an enabler of corporate fraud. How this happened makes for a good business story. This book is not another description of accounting scandals. Instead it offers a history of ideas. Each chapter covers a controversial topic that emerged over the past century. Historical background and discussion of people involved give relevance to concepts discussed. The author shows how economics, finance, law and business customs contributed to accounting's development. Ideas presented come from a career spent working with accounting information.

Simple Numbers can guide you to increased business profitability Take the mystery out of small business finance with this no-frills guide to understanding the numbers that will guide your business out of any financial black hole. Author Greg Crabtree, a successful accountant, small business advisor, and popular presenter, shows you how to use your firm's key financial indicators as a basis for smart business decisions as you grow your firm from startup to $5 million (and, more ) in annual revenue. Jargon free, and presented in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step format, with plenty of real-world examples, Crabtree's down-to-earth discussion highlights the most common financial errors committed by small businesses, and how to avoid them. You'll be fascinated to learn: Why your numbers are lying to you (and why you are the cause ) How labor productivity is the key to profitability and simplifying human resource decisions Why the amount of tax you pay is your #1 key performance indicator Take advantage of Crabtree's years of experience teaching clients how to build successful businesses by ''seeing beyond numbers'' with this step-by-step guide to increasing your businesses profitability.

THE STORIES BEHIND OUR ICONIC NUMBERS Rogerson's Book of Numbers is based on a numerical array of virtues, spiritual attributes, gods, devils, sacred cities, powers, calendars, heroes, saints, icons, and cultural symbols. It provides a dazzling mass of information for those intrigued by the many roles numbers play in folklore and popular culture, in music and poetry, and in the many religions, cultures, and belief systems of our world. The stories unfold from millions to zero: from the number of the beast (666) to the seven deadly sins; from the twelve signs of the zodiac to the four suits of a deck of cards. Along the way, author Barnaby Rogerson will show you why Genghis Khan built a city of 108 towers, how Dante forged his Divine Comedy on the number eleven, and why thirteen is so unlucky in the West whereas fourteen is the number to avoid in China.