Across the realms of multimedia production, information design, web development, and usability, certain truisms are apparent. Like an Art of War for design, this slim volume contains guidance, inspiration, and reassurance for all those who labor with the user in mind. If you work on the web, in print, or in film or video, this book can help. If you know someone working on the creative arena, this makes a great gift. Funny, too.

An unforgettable collection of fairy tales for grownups—from the Booker Prize-winning author of Possession. • “A delight.... provoking and alarming, richly yet tautly rendered.... [She] has the sheer narrative skill to raise the hairs on the back of your neck and make your pulse race.” —The New York Times Book Review Like Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm, Isak Dinesen and Angela Carter, A. S. Byatt knows that fairy tales are for adults. And in this ravishing collection she breathes new life into the form. Little Black Book of Stories offers shivers along with magical thrills. Leaves rustle underfoot in a dark wood: two middle-aged women, childhood friends reunited by chance, venture into a dark forest where once, many years before, they saw–or thought they saw–something unspeakable. Another woman, recently bereaved, finds herself slowly but surely turning into stone. A coolly rational ob-gyn has his world pushed off-axis by a waiflike art student with her own ideas about the uses of the body. Spellbinding, witty, lovely, terrifying, the Little Black Book of Stories is Byatt at the height of her craft.

Your go-to-guide to delivering effective and transformative change that lasts All too often, change efforts fail to deliver on their promise. However it is possible to turn an organization around quickly to create a new future — one where people think and behave differently and deliver extraordinary results together. Whether you are the chairman, a board director or an aspiring senior executive, The Little Black Book of Change provides a practical, concise and insightful guide to understanding your organization and inventing something extraordinary. It is not about ‘run of the mill' change programmes. It is about delivering extraordinary results — something that is not at all predictable. It will be your insight into creating significant shifts in the way people think and behave which can be applied in any area you wish; from improving service levels to cost reductions, innovation or increasing market share. Demystifies organisational transformation in 7 practical steps Based on real business case studies Grounded and accessible, rather than purely from theoretical models or processes The authors have 25 years' experience of implementing and facilitating transformations change Visit http://www.littleblackbookofchange.com/

Innovation may be the hottest discipline around today, in business circles and beyond. And for good reason. Innovation transforms companies and markets. It is the key to solving vexing social problems. And it makes or breaks professional careers. For all the enthusiasm the topic inspires, however, the practice of innovation remains stubbornly impenetrable. No longer. In this book the author draws on stories from his research and field work with companies like Procter & Gamble to demystify innovation. He presents a simple definition of innovation, breaks down the essential differences between types of innovation, and illuminates innovation's vital role in organizational success and personal growth. This unique hybrid of professional memoir and business guidebook also provides a powerful 28-day program for mastering innovation's key steps: (1) Finding insight, (2) Generating ideas, (3) Building businesses, and (4) Strengthening innovation prowess in workforces and organizations. Using several illustrative case studies and vignettes from a range of companies around the globe, this playbook teaches people how to turn themselves or their companies into true innovation powerhouses.

Reflections of a “revolutionary whore” and champion of sexual freedom and prostitutes' rights. They have to come back to us, because we know every detail of their orgasms, their little caprices, their little weaknesses and strengths. We know all of them. I mean, where do you expect them to go? They'll be disappointed anywhere else. Except for with us, because we know them like the back of our hand. As soon as they get in the door, it's like we'd made them ourselves. We know all the right things to say, all the gestures, there're no surprises. —from The Little Black Book of Grisélidis Réal The Little Black Book of Grisélidis Réal is the portrait of a true humanist who made a career out of compassion. Hailed as a virtuoso writer and a “revolutionary whore,” Grisélidis Réal (1929–2005) chanced into prostitution at thirty-one after an upper-class upbringing in Switzerland. Serving clients from all walks of life, Réal applied the anarcho-Marxist dictum “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” to her profession, charging sliding-scale fees determined by her client's incomes and complexity of their sexual tastes. Réal went on to become a militant champion of sexual freedom and prostitutes' rights. She has described prostitution as “an art, and a humanist science,” noting that “the only authentic prostitution is that mastered by great technical artists...who practice this form of native craft with intelligence, respect, imagination, heart...” This volume includes lengthy dialogues from 1979–1981 with Réal conducted by journalist and author Jean-Luc Henning, in which she eloquently discusses the theoretical implications of sex-positive whoring and relates her experiences both inside and outside the profession: from her lengthy love affair with the “Berber” to such “psychological” and “special” clients as the “moldy rhinoceros.” The “Little Black Book” that rounds out this book is drawn from the logs in which Réal kept track of her many clients, from “Pedro, hilarious fat Spaniard, devoted, simple, honest, fat peasant face, 70F” to “Pierre 8 (from Basel), blue eyes, fifties, slightly balding, cultivated, sweet-violent...licks my finger after I remove it from his anus...100–400F.” It is a journal that not only chronicles Réal's working life, but offers a clinically direct, investigative sociological analysis of the sexual subcultures of her time.

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Provides much of the information needed to organize a reliability program at a company or in a plant that does not currently have one. Features a simple description of a number of reliability subjects and techniques in a mannerthat readers can easily understand. Describes the data that must be collected and the analysis that should be done at each phase during the lifecycle of a physical asset. Starts the user down the path of collecting data, mapping failures to causes and implementing the elements of a comprehensive reliability program in an order that best serves his needs. Devotes a chapter to pattern recognition and identification of the relationships between identified patterns and failures. Provides real-life examples. Contains examples of documents and spreadsheets needed to apply recommendations at the readers own plants and shops. The Little Black Book of Reliability Management provides the reader with a fresh but comprehensive perspective on the subject of reliability management. It challenges the reader to consider "what he has a right to expect" based on his current reliability programs. And it describes the programs and discipline needed if the reader desires the "right to expect" a higher level of reliability performance. This unique resource is perfect for individuals working in plants and in other organizations that are dependent on the reliability of complex physical assets. Introduction What do you have a right to expect? Patterns and RelationshipsLearning about a Defect Malfunction Reporting DiagnosticsTroubleshooting - Digression Concerning Facts Failure Analysis "Bucketing" Information Analysis Creating a Comprehensive Reliability Program General Comments on Reliability Methods Conclusion Appendix 1: Typical Malfunction Reporting and Defect Analysis System Appendix 2: References for Further Reading