The odds of being hit by lightning each year are only about 1 in 750,000 in the U.S. And yet this rare phenomenon has inspired both fear and fascination for thousands of years. In this groundbreaking, brilliantly researched book, journalist John S. Friedman probes lightning’s scientific, spiritual, and cultural roots. Blending vibrant history with riveting first-hand accounts of those who have clashed with lightning and lived to tell about it, Out of the Blue charts an ext...

Managing Sustainability: First Steps to First Class provides a compelling case, real-world examples, and the tools to follow a proven strategy for aligning sustainability efforts with existing organizational priorities.This strategy has taken companies from initial conception to the top of the sustainability rankings. Using examples from leading companies, readers will understand how to build—programs that drive results and enhance reputation.Benef...

Digital media offer many of the same characteristics – immediacy, transparency and interactivity – that make one-to-one the most effective form of communication. And yet many organizations do not fully embrace them. They simultaneously underestimate and fear the power of digital communications. And yet these tools, when used strategically, can be an effective part of your communications plan.PR 2.0 will help you:understand how the increasing emphasis on transparency drive...

Marketing has changed forever—this is what comes nextMarketing 4.0: Moving from Traditional to Digital is the much-needed handbook for next-generation marketing. Written by the world's leading marketing authorities, this book helps you navigate the increasingly connected world and changing consumer landscape to reach more customers, more effectively. Today's customers have less time and attention to devote to your brand—and they are surrounded by alternati...

With a new preface by the author • As featured in the upcoming motion picture Everest, starring Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, John Hawkes, Robin Wright, Emily Watson, Keira Knightley, Sam Worthington, and Jake Gyllenhaal“I can tell you that some force within me rejected death at the last moment and then guided me, blind and stumbling—quite literally a dead man walking—into camp and the shaky start of my return to life.”In 1996 Beck Weathers a...

Are you at risk of being trapped in an uncompetitive business?Chances are the strategies that worked well for you even a few years ago no longer deliver the results you need. Dramatic changes in business have unearthed a major gap between traditional approaches to strategy and the way the real world works now.In short, strategy is stuck. Most leaders are using frameworks that were designed for a different era of business and based on a single domin...

Entrepreneur and bestselling author of The Lean Startup, Eric Ries reveals how entrepreneurial principles can be used by businesses of all kinds, ranging from established companies to early-stage startups, to grow revenues, drive innovation, and transform themselves into truly modern organizations, poised to take advantage of the enormous opportunities of the twenty-first century.In The Lean Startup, Eric Ries laid out the practices of successful ...

What's your worst nightmare?Is it that ghost lurking next door? The cabal conspiring to rule the world? Those monsters slithering under your bed? The extraterrestrial visitors lurking among us?Paranormal researcher extraordinaire Brad Steiger, an author of thousands of books and articles on the mysterious and unknown, gathers his favorite and scariest stories of the unexplained in this compilation. Have you ever awakened with a start, hoping it was just a d...

An essential guide for leaders who want to use social media to be "open" while maintaining control"Be Open, Be Transparent, Be Authentic" are the current leadership mantras-but companies often push back. Business is premised on the concept of control and yet the new world order demands openness-leaders do not know how to be open and be in control. This must-have resource will help the modern leader understand how to lead in the new open world-where blogging, twittering, fa...

Winner of the 2007 Banff Mountain Festival Book Awards Grand Prize (The Phyllis & Don Munday Award): "A riveting account of a long-ago mountaineering disaster."—TimeIn 1967, seven young men, members of a twelve-man expedition led by twenty-four-year-old Joe Wilcox, were stranded on Alaska's Mount McKinley in a vicious arctic storm. All seven perished on what remains the most tragic expedition in American climbing history. Revisiting the event in the tradition of Norman Mac...

A practical introduction to the necessity of competitive intelligence for smarter business decisions-from a leading CI expert and speakerIn Competitive Intelligence Advantage, Seena Sharp, founder of one of the first Competitive Intelligence firms in the US, provides her expert analysis on the issues and benefits of CI for today's businesses. CI is critical for making smarter business decisions and reducing risks when formulating strategies, leading to more profits and few...

Archeologist and former Earth Military Force officer Luke Parillo finds thousand-year-old wreckage all the time. But this ancient ship came from hundreds of years in the future