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Home and contents  Click here for our opinions and editorials  Features on design, identity, branding, marketing, management, world affairs  News from Adweek, Reuters, Time and other sources  Check out training courses, train books and magazines  Your turn 
Welcome
CAP Online
, one of the earliest business webzines, introduces its training and resource centre. You can enquire about courses, purchase magazines and books, all from your computer.
 

Magazines
Offered through the newsstand service of CAP's sister magazine, Lucire. Shipping within US only.

Fast Company Fast Company
Fast Company—the handbook of the business revolution—is Rolling Stone meets the Harvard Business Review. Each hip, groundbreaking issue covers the latest business news and trends, leading-edge entrepreneurs, and of course, the fastest companies in business today. If you're looking for more than a conservative business magazine, read Fast Company.

Harvard Business ReviewHarvard Business Review
Harvard Business Review is the journal of management thought and practice, written by authorities in business and business education. This bi-monthly publication offers discussion and debate on agenda-setting issues of both national and international significance while challenging the conventional wisdom of management practice.

Entrepreneur Entrepreneur
Entrepreneur is the small business authority. It is written to help entrepreneurs and small-business owners manage and grow their business.

The Economist The Economist
The Economist is the weekly news and business publication written expressly for top business decision-makers and opinion leaders who need an international outlook in an increasingly global market-place. Each weekly issue explores the links between domestic and international issues, business, finance, current affairs, science, technology, and the arts—and provides a refreshingly objective perspective on it all.

Forbes Forbes
When people get serious about business they read Forbes. The magazine offers in-depth coverage that examines the personalities and issues that shape the business world today and explores the trends of tomorrow.

Executive Leadership Business Week
Packed with the latest developments in business, with a topical issue in each number, Business Week has become a more indispensable title than ever before. The magazine is designed for the busy businessperson with a "snippets" approach to analyses. Yet the articles are based on deeply researched items, making Business Week consistent and authoritative.—CAP staff

Issue Fortune
More market-based, Fortune—the magazine behind the annual Fortune 500 and 1000 listings—has stayed at the forefront of reporting. The stories are more deeply researched, though the criticism—at least in this company—is that it is more the establishment and traditional investing, despite a liberal stance which might suggest otherwise.—CAP staff

Issue The American Prospect
Policy and culture are covered in this progressive monthly. Some leading names are among its authors and its pieces are always thought-provoking. In many respects, it is more action-oriented than its British counterpart, Prospect, another title that is regularly enjoyed here amongst our executives.—CAP staff

The Atlantic Monthly The Atlantic Monthly
A favourite of JY&A. Winner of more National Magazine Awards than any other monthly magazine, The Atlantic Monthly places you at the leading edge of contemporary issues—plus the very best in fiction, travel, food and humour.

Books
Reviewed by JY&A Consulting staff

CAP OnlineBeyond Branding: How the New Values of Transparency and Integrity Are Changing the World of Brands, edited by Nicholas Ind
£25; or pre-order from the official site
One of the most important books written about branding, Beyond Branding has authors reading much like a who’s who of branding—Malcolm Allan, Simon Anholt, Julie Anixter, John Caswell, Thomas Gad, Sicco van Gelder, Tim Kitchin, Chris Macrae, Denzil Meyers, Alan Mitchell, John Moore, Ian Ryder and Jack Yan—and led by seasoned branding consultant and author Nicholas Ind.
   The authors propose that branding could be used as a tool for good, approaching economic democracy from a different angle. It could be, for instance, a tool that would reveal the truth about organizations. Thirteen chapters in Beyond Branding include topics on authenticity, transparency and sustainability�but not delivered to make the book a trendy, mid-2000s purchase. Its aim is to identify these issues and give readers a choice.
   The authors argue that individual freedoms are paramount to determining the success of brands and businesses. In a free-market system, consumers have the opportunity of rejecting misbehaving brands. Branding allows them to be easily identi{ed. Pre-order it from Amazon.co.uk.

CAP Online Brand New Justice: the Upside of Global Branding, by Simon Anholt
$34·99, £24·99
Branding has taken its share of knocks over the last three years, but a few of us have retained faith in the profession as a tool that can aid humankind, rather than create bigger gaps between rich and poor nations. Brand New Justice is the best book of its techniques written to date. For those cynical after No Logo, believing that marketing is about 'adding worthless gloss to worthless products', Brand New Justice provokes thought. Anholt believes his work to be realpolitik, but there are still ideals behind it, with which almost all right-thinking people would agree. It is this combination�idealism mixed with reality, all delivered with lucid, intelligible English�that makes it one of the most powerful branding books written.—JY

Read the full review here.

What If? Insights into Brand Trends and the Birth of New Target Sectors, by Jean-Jacques Evrard and Brice Auckenthaler (translated by Olivier and Susan Carion)
The English-language edition of Evrard and Auckenthaler does not disappoint and I had no hesitation in recommending it and lending it out to close friends who wanted to do some outside-the-box thinking. What If? is an eye- and a mind-opener.
   The two brand experts not only write about branding, but the future trends that might emerge. But this is no mere book on futurology. The authors give colourful examples, many of which are based on emerging trends happening now. They are extrapolated further, prompting the reader to ask, ‘What if?’ It’s done marvellously well and of all the books on this page, most lavishly presented.
   The closing pages are the most breathtaking in content terms, because Evrard and Auckenthaler leap 25 years into the future and paint optimistic scenarios that they say they will revisit in the next edition of the book in May 2027. This is the stuff that the Gerry Anderson world is built on and which we don’t see enough of. Given the authors’ backgrounds, you can bet on them considerably more than Cmdr Straker’s car.
   Visit the official site at www.passion4brands.com for more information about the book.

CAP OnlineBusiness without Borders, by Donald A. De Palma
$20·97 (save $8·98); UK £18 (save £4·50)
While it's not a book about the internet, Dr De Palma is one of the first authors to integrate successfully its possibilities in a strategic marketing fashion. Global marketing, the author surmises, is not about being a huge multinational corporation with billions locked up in plant and retail outlets, but about being any size of firm that accommodates the fact that the planet is no longer about disparate local markets. Any firm�though admittedly Business without Borders is better embraced by the marketing director of a company with 50 employees and upward�can succeed at global marketing, leveraging their brands and aligning their strategies to the post-dot-com era.
   It is a strategic guide but there are plenty of how-tos on getting an organization to market globally. De Palma generously breaks down the steps in 10 chapters, beginning with the general and moving "chronologically": in other words, a reader can literally go through Business without Borders chapter by chapter and implement the new strategy, even alongside the existing marketing and branding philosophies.

Read the full review here.

Detective MarketingDetective Marketing, by Stefan Engeseth
$12·55
Detective Marketing is not unlike another famous marketing book, Jay Conrad Levinson's Guerrilla Marketing. Levinson, who has been published in CAP many times since 1999, empowered readers.
   The concept behind detective marketing is about removing the boundaries of formal business training, to seek out one's inner senses, breaking barriers and being one with consumers. The first two points do resemble many coaching ideas although Engeseth ably communicates them in his book in applying them to business.
   The "one" concept, which Engeseth capitalizes, is the most important development. He gives examples of Ikea allowing customization and personalization.
   Getting ideas from customers for research and development is not a new notion, but Engeseth makes it a great deal more human and accessible. He relies more on front-line retail staff for intelligence-gathering rather than the strategic inputs of R&D managers in business journals.
   The book can neatly be summed by three words: 'Heart or convention?' Maybe even 'Truth or hypocrisy?' Engeseth gets us trusting ourselves and gives credit to our audiences and consumers, who are far cleverer and deserving of empowerment than we traditionally give them. It will be interesting to see the communities that are built as "one" makes its way into the English-speaking business world, just as the Nordic school of marketing thought did before it.

Read the full review with an interview with Stefan Engeseth here.

The Force of FinanceThe Force of Finance: the Triumph of the Capital Markets, by Reuven Brenner
$19�57 (save $8�38) UK £17·99
In a frank fashion, Brenner traces the roots of democracy and globalization, and while the latter has been covered better elsewhere (Mittelman's The Globalization Syndrome, for instance), his style is more accessible. Singaporean investments into Indonesia have benefited both countries, not because of capitalism, but because mobility and the transfer of talent allows citizens to be fulfilled in their endeavours, creating a global class. This can be done because both the traveller and the host country have a mutual duty.
   The best chapters are where Brenner analyses {nancial principles�and courageously and rightly debunks much of the outright lies governments and reserve banks tell about economies. When economies do not work, government's first instinct is to mask the trouble through rhetoric. There is institutionalization, including in education (and specifically, the education of economics), that prevents progress but solidifies power bases which may have become irrelevant; innovation can be helped instead by capital that comes from diverse sources. In saying this, Brenner puts a historical context on even more recent happenings such as the dot-com boom. And provides a basis for the return of the word agelaste, originating from the Greek and meaning someone with no sense of humour. There are many out there preventing modern progress.
   Brenner exposes the truth, making The Force of Finance a must-read for anyone who wishes to cut through them. As a service to the reader, Brenner goes beyond this central topic, providing useful pointers on policy and potential avenues for countries to follow in the future. Those comments make for good reading in any discipline, which can undoubtedly draw parallels to many of the things that Brenner discusses.—JY

Kelly: The Divine Right of CapitalThe Divine Right of Capital: Dethroning the Corporate Aristocracy, by Marjorie Kelly
$17·47 (save $7·48)
There’s practically no one more knowledgeable than business ethics on this planet than Marjorie Kelly. Writing this book based on her experience with what’s wrong in commerce, Kelly shows how the current system is as invalid to the real world as the notion of kings being superior beings to mere everyday people. Now we know, we can do something about it.—JY

Jack Yan's current favourites are at his personal site here.

 

 

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