Here are the first new DVDs for the month of June:
Identity Thief
Mental
The Num8ers Station
Side Effects
This Is 40
Warm Bodies
Rolling
Switch : Discover the Future of Energy
You may browse the entire DVD collection via the library catalog.
Woodford, Michael. Exposure : inside the Olympus scandal : how I went from CEO to whistleblower. Portfolio/Penguin, 2012.
In 1991, W. Edwards Deming was a distinguished speaker at Fuqua. Students packed into Geneen Auditorium to see the tall and frail 90-year-old man, who was credited for engineering the “Japanese economic miracle” with his theories on statistical process control. Japanese products were highly valued for their design, quality and reliability, and companies like Sony, Canon and Panasonic had already overpowered the U.S. electronics industry. Honda and Toyota were taking market share from GM and Ford, once considered impossible. At universities, MBA courses covered Japanese management techniques, such as lean production and continuous improvement (kaizen), as well as Japanese business culture, including a long-term strategic orientation, agreement by consensus and lifelong employment for employees. But soon after Deming’s visit, the Japanese economy entered a deep recession that lasted 20 years. In 2011, China replaced Japan as the world’s second largest economy.
This is the environment that Michael Woodford faces in 2011 when he is named CEO of Olympus Corporation, a Tokyo based company that manufactures imaging and medical devices that use cameras, such as endoscopes. In Exposure, Woodford tells the story about what happened to him and to this once revered Japanese company after he is named president, one of the first Westerners in history to lead one of Japan’s iconic corporations. For Woodford, a 30 year employee and head of Olympus’s European operations, this assignment is the pinnacle of his career.
Months after his appointment, Woodford receives a tip about questionable mergers and acquisitions that cost millions of dollars. As he tries to investigate the losses, he discovers a cover-up involving the firm’s chairman, other key executives and members of the board. Eventually he uncovers evidence of an accounting fraud totaling $1.7 billion, but instead of supporting their president, the board of directors forces him out. At a special board meeting, the directors uniformly vote for his dismissal to avoid exposing their losses. After Woodford hears rumors of Japanese mob ties to the fraud, he flees the country, fearful for his life. He contacts the Financial Times and blows the whistle on his own company.
The well-told story is highly recommended to anyone interested in international business, corporate governance, Japanese culture or business ethics. As a memoir, Woodford writes with candor about the scandal and about confronting Olympus’s chairman and board of directors. His escape from Tokyo is filled with tension. As a book on business culture, Woodford illustrates key differences between Japanese and Western businesses. The close relationships among the leaders of Japanese companies, as well as the relationships between Japanese companies, the banks that finance them and the media, create an insular environment that is resistant to change. And regarding business ethics, by the end of the book, the author’s commitment to integrity, while admirable, is also personally costly.
© Reviewer: Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.
Frost & Sullivan will be moving to a new web site host; and will experience significant down time over the Memorial Day weekend (May 25 – May 27).
Here is the text of their email to local Frost.com client administrators.
To provide better service to our customers and users of frost.com, we have decided to relocate our website hosting, planned for this weekend, May 25th – 27th. No action is required on your part.
Please note that Frost.com will be unavailable for the entire weekend, starting early Saturday morning through Monday morning, May 27th.
We apologize in advance for any inconvenience caused during this move but hope this will provide better service for all of our frost.com users.
Here are the last of the new May DVDs:
Broken City
Dragon
Luv
Hemingway & Gellhorn
Ice Age: the Meltdown
Mama
The Oranges
Pawn
You may browse the entire DVD collection via the library catalog.
Here are the first of the new May DVDs:
A Monster in Paris
Scandal
Not Fade Away
Silver Linings Playbook
The Details
Django Unchained
Gangster Squad
The Guilt Trip
The Impossible
Jack Reacher
Promised Land
Safe Haven
You may browse the entire DVD collection via the library catalog.
Holiday, Ryan. Trust me, I’m lying : the tactics and confessions of a media manipulator. Portfolio, 2012.
In late March, a red billboard appeared on Battleground Avenue in Greensboro, NC. Claiming to be from a scorned woman who caught her husband with another woman, the billboard slowed down traffic on one of Greensboro’s major thoroughfares. The story was picked up and replayed by local and national TV news. Some people immediately suspected that the billboard was actually a marketing trick, perhaps to get the name Nikon (or the unnamed American Express) in front of the public — on TV, radio and newspapers, as well as on blogs, Twitter and Facebook – all for the cost of a small town billboard.
(Click to view a larger image of the billboard)
Author Ryan Holiday would agree with those who find the billboard suspect. He often uses marketing tricks to sell products. His day job is marketing director for American Apparel, but he also orchestrates deceptions to sell products for other clients. He creates and shapes news for them. In his new book Trust Me, I’m Lying, Holiday explains how marketers use deceptive tactics like fake billboards to manufacture news that draws attention to the products and services that he represents. News is then filtered up, from small blogs to larger sites to national media.
Holiday’s book describes what goes on behind the scenes in the worlds of blogging, PR, and online news and he reveals the methods used to manipulate bloggers and reporters. Bloggers in turn sensationalize stories because the headlines that get the most clicks generate the most money. He reveals bloggers who create artificial content, fabricating outrageous stories out of nowhere or distorting a video until it is completely a lie. He gives several examples, including Andrew Breitbart’s news clip about Shirley Sherrod.
In the end, Holiday offers no easy solutions. When the incentive is pageviews, bloggers will lie, distort and attack. Holiday hopes that his book will encourage the public to pay for news that is trustworthy. He calls on traditional news agencies to work harder to report the truth and to verify their stories. He also calls for stronger libel and defamation laws. Recommended.
© Reviewer: Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.
Through the years there are titles, ranging from Getting to Yes to Predictably Irrational to 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which our readers return to time and again. Now with our new Kindle Project, we’ve made these titles available as a takeaway library. These classics, available April 25th, are sure to be popular with our traveling patrons. Make sure to check yours out now and enjoy the classics with the Ford Library.
It is time to sing Goodbye, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu to our graduating students and to wish them much success wherever life takes them. Students bring energy and excitement to our life at the university, and so it is with mixed feelings that we say Goodbye. As a farewell gift to our students, here are short reviews of two new books that focus on getting the most out of life.
Fox, Elaine. Rainy brain, sunny brain : how to retrain your brain to overcome pessimism and achieve a more positive outlook. Basic Books, 2012.
This tour of recent research in brain science concludes that optimists generally have better health and wellbeing; are more emotionally resilient; and experience greater success in life. While a typical self-help book attributes optimism to a positive mindset, brain scientist Elaine Fox explains that optimists’ better lives result from something more than attitude. Those with sunny brains are primed to undertake beneficial actions to achieve the things they want. Optimists stay focused on their goals in spite of setbacks. More than having the right mindset, optimistic people are fully engaged in life.
Fox explains that is possible to train your brain to be more optimistic. Human brains are flexible and can be reshaped throughout life through changes in cognition. People who are fearful and anxious can learn to regulate their emotions by reinterpreting distressing thoughts. Fear can be also controlled through techniques using language or focused attention. Fox shows that to thrive, people need to experience positive emotions in their lives every day. People who get the most out of life have at least 3 positive emotions for every negative. These positive experiences include compassion, contentment, gratitude, hope, joy and love.
Tan, Chade-Meng. Search inside yourself : The unexpected path to achieving success, happiness (and world peace). HarperOne, 2012.
In Search Inside Yourself, Chade-Meng Tan briefly cites many of the same brain studies discussed in Elaine Fox’s Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain. Tan’s book is the more pragmatic of the two, with numerous exercises and examples designed to develop inner strengths that contribute to the reader’s sense of well being and happiness. Tan explains that enhancing our ability to pay attention can improve how we respond to our emotions, and he begins by training readers in mindful attention. After readers have deepened the calmness and clarity of the mind, Fox then trains readers to recognize their physical reactions to emotions. These skills are foundational to the emotional intelligence that leads to successful work, meaningful relationships and true happiness.
Chade-Meng Tan is one of Google’s earliest engineers, responsible for the team that monitored Google’s search quality. His current job description at Google is to “enlighten minds, open hearts, create world peace.” He first designed Search Inside Yourself for a course he teaches at Google to enhance productivity and creativity, to make work more meaningful and to experience fulfillment in life.
Both of these books are well worth reading. Recommended.
© Reviewer: Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.
Here are a few older DVDs worth checking out:
The Fuqua Book Exchange is taking place now through May 15th. Donate your gently-used books to other students, staff, faculty and the library. Fiction is accepted for this event. It is bring a book, take a book. Free!
Drop off your book donations at the Ford Circulation Desk. Books for exchange will be housed in a special book shelf in the Career section at the back of the library. Any unclaimed or leftover at the end of the event will be donated to Better World Books http://www.betterworldbooks.com (CFO, Paul Sansone, Fuqua Alumnus, 1992) or the Durham Public Library.
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