You can't throw a logo-stamped pen without hitting someone's business book today. Every emerging leader and high-performer needs one to demonstrate their credibility, reach a bigger audience, and connect with the media, but let's face it, you're are busy. And you probably don't know how to write a book. Even worse, many people don't consider themselves to be creative.So how can you write a business book fast without the stress and hassle of DIY? It's simple when you use Cori Wamsley's SPARK Method! In The SPARK Method: How to Write a Book for Your Business Fast, Cori details every step of the writing process, from planning through writing through figuring out the title and cover. She makes a nebulous process incredibly easy for anyone to implement. Even if you have tons of ideas. Even if you lack direction. Even if you don't even know what an ISBN is . . . The SPARK Method can help you get through the writing process so you, too, can finally have a book to represent you, your ideas, your brand, and your story. Bonus downloads from Cori's website enrich the process, giving added value to this fantastic book. Buy this book, and get started on one amazing evergreen marketing tool that will help you make a bigger impact than ever before!

Kristine Barnett’s son Jacob has an IQ higher than Einstein’s, a photographic memory, and he taught himself calculus in two weeks. At nine he started working on an original theory in astrophysics that experts believe may someday put him in line for a Nobel Prize, and at age twelve he became a paid researcher in quantum physics. But the story of Kristine’s journey with Jake is all the more remarkable because his extraordinary mind was almost lost to autism. At age two, when Jake was diagnosed, Kristine was told he might never be able to tie his own shoes. The Spark is a remarkable memoir of mother and son. Surrounded by “experts” at home and in special ed who tried to focus on Jake’s most basic skills and curtail his distracting interests—moving shadows on the wall, stars, plaid patterns on sofa fabric—Jake made no progress, withdrew more and more into his own world, and eventually stopped talking completely. Kristine knew in her heart that she had to make a change. Against the advice of her husband, Michael, and the developmental specialists, Kristine followed her instincts, pulled Jake out of special ed, and began preparing him for mainstream kindergarten on her own. Relying on the insights she developed at the daycare center she runs out of the garage in her home, Kristine resolved to follow Jacob’s “spark”—his passionate interests. Why concentrate on what he couldn’t do? Why not focus on what he could? This basic philosophy, along with her belief in the power of ordinary childhood experiences (softball, picnics, s’mores around the campfire) and the importance of play, helped Kristine overcome huge odds. The Barnetts were not wealthy people, and in addition to financial hardship, Kristine herself faced serious health issues. But through hard work and determination on behalf of Jake and his two younger brothers, as well as an undying faith in their community, friends, and family, Kristine and Michael prevailed. The results were beyond anything anyone could have imagined. Dramatic, inspiring, and transformative, The Spark is about the power of love and courage in the face of overwhelming obstacles, and the dazzling possibilities that can occur when we learn how to tap the true potential that lies within every child, and in all of us. Praise for The Spark “[An] amazing memoir . . . compulsive reading.”—The Washington Post “The Spark is about the transformative power of unconditional love. If you have a child who’s ‘different’—and who doesn’t?—you won’t be able to put it down.”—Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind “Love, illness, faith, tragedy and triumph—it’s all here. . . . Jake Barnett’s story contains wisdom for every parent.”—Newsday “This eloquent memoir about an extraordinary boy and a resilient and remarkable mother will be of interest to every parent and/or educator hoping to nurture a child’s authentic ‘spark.’”—Publishers Weekly “Compelling . . . Jake is unusual, but so is his superhuman mom.”—Booklist “The Spark describes in glowing terms the profound intensity with which a mother can love her child.”—Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon and Far from the Tree “Every parent and teacher should read this fabulous book!”—Temple Grandin, author of Thinking in Pictures and co-author of The Autistic Brain

Learn how to use, deploy, and maintain Apache Spark with this comprehensive guide, written by the creators of the open-source cluster-computing framework. With an emphasis on improvements and new features in Spark 2.0, authors Bill Chambers and Matei Zaharia break down Spark topics into distinct sections, each with unique goals. Youâ??ll explore the basic operations and common functions of Sparkâ??s structured APIs, as well as Structured Streaming, a new high-level API for building end-to-end streaming applications. Developers and system administrators will learn the fundamentals of monitoring, tuning, and debugging Spark, and explore machine learning techniques and scenarios for employing MLlib, Sparkâ??s scalable machine-learning library. Get a gentle overview of big data and Spark Learn about DataFrames, SQL, and Datasetsâ??Sparkâ??s core APIsâ??through worked examples Dive into Sparkâ??s low-level APIs, RDDs, and execution of SQL and DataFrames Understand how Spark runs on a cluster Debug, monitor, and tune Spark clusters and applications Learn the power of Structured Streaming, Sparkâ??s stream-processing engine Learn how you can apply MLlib to a variety of problems, including classification or recommendation

Professor Peyton Wilde has an enviable life teaching sociology at an idyllic liberal arts college--yet she is troubled by a sense of fading inspiration. One day an invitation arrives. Peyton has been selected to attend a luxurious all-expense-paid seminar in Iceland, where participants, billed as some of the greatest thinkers in the world, will be charged with answering one perplexing question. Meeting her diverse teammates--two neuroscientists, a philosopher, a dance teacher, a collage artist, and a farmer--Peyton wonders what she could ever have to contribute. The ensuing journey of discovery will transform the characters' work, their biases, and themselves. This suspenseful novel shows that the answers you seek can be found in the most unlikely places. It can be read for pleasure, is a great choice for book clubs, and can be used as unique and inspiring reading in qualitative research and other courses in education, sociology, social work, psychology, and communication.

The extraordinary memoir of a mother's love, commitment and nurturing, which allowed her son, originally diagnosed with severe autism, to flourish into a universally recognized genius--and how any parent can help their child find their spark. Today, at 13, Jacob is a paid researcher in quantum physics, working on extending Einstein's theory of relativity. Diagnosed at 1 with severe autism, at 3 he was assigned to life-skills classes and his parents were told to adjust their expectations. The goal: tying his own shoes at 16. Kristine's belief in the power of hope and the dazzling possibilities that can occur when we keep our minds open and learn to fuel a child's true potential changed everything.

Data is bigger, arrives faster, and comes in a variety of formats—and it all needs to be processed at scale for analytics or machine learning. But how can you process such varied workloads efficiently? Enter Apache Spark. Updated to include Spark 3.0, this second edition shows data engineers and data scientists why structure and unification in Spark matters. Specifically, this book explains how to perform simple and complex data analytics and employ machine learning algorithms. Through step-by-step walk-throughs, code snippets, and notebooks, you’ll be able to: Learn Python, SQL, Scala, or Java high-level Structured APIs Understand Spark operations and SQL Engine Inspect, tune, and debug Spark operations with Spark configurations and Spark UI Connect to data sources: JSON, Parquet, CSV, Avro, ORC, Hive, S3, or Kafka Perform analytics on batch and streaming data using Structured Streaming Build reliable data pipelines with open source Delta Lake and Spark Develop machine learning pipelines with MLlib and productionize models using MLflow