Research interest in the service sector has boomed in recent years as deindustrialisation became entrenched. Instead of being regarded as merely supplementary to traditional industry and manufacturing, services have generated progressively rising levels of growth in developed economies while at the same time coming to be recognised as major drivers of innovation. Among the factors which have helped service companies notch up swifter growth rates than all other sectors are the outsourcing of such services by other sectors, including the development of information and communication technologies, and changes to the regulatory, legal and market frameworks as well as globalisation and internationalisation. The result is a cluster of highly innovative firms which can loosely be grouped under the heading of Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS). Knowledge Intensive Business Services and Regional Competitiveness charts the development of these firms and explores their success through four mutually linked parts: KIBS and industrial dynamics; KIBS and their context; KIBS and their contribution to regional competitiveness and economic development; and finally, KIBS and public policy. This book is suitable for researchers and policy makers interested in the rise of these influential actors and their influence on regional competitiveness.

In this strategy-packed guide, top e-business consultant Scott Fox reveals the powerful but simple methods for striking it rich on the Net. Exclusive interviews with dozens of "mom and pop" entrepreneurs prove how easy it is to get started and build a million-dollar enterprise. Readers get:

- an inspiring guide to e-business opportunities, including "instant e-businesses" that require no start-up capital or technical training

- proven strategies for making money from home and turning hobbies into businesses

- low-cost web marketing and product tips

- legal and financial advice

- detailed vendor recommendations

- years of expertise and experience in one easy-to-use book

"Internet Riches" also offers an innovative action plan for brainstorming new business ideas, and fun exercises to help readers determine the best moves for their particular situations. Filled with practical pointers and motivational interviews, it's the most powerful guide ever to finding financial freedom online "Buy the book and get a free membership in Scott Fox's Internet business coaching and training Forum at ClickMillionaires.com. Ask questions, develop your business ideas and online marketing strategies, meet fellow entrepreneurs, and get personalized help from Scott Fox and his team--all free with purchase."

In 1998, when Amazon.com began to recruit employees, they gave temp agencies a simple directive: send us your freaks. Mike Daisey -- slacker, onetime aesthetics major -- fit the bill. His subsequent ascension, over the course of twenty-one dog years, from lowly temp to customer service representative to business development hustler is the stuff of both dreams and nightmares. Here, with lunatic precision, Daisey describes lightless cube farms in which book orders were scrawled on Post-its while technicians struggled to bring computers back online, as well as fourteen-hour days fueled by caffeine, fanaticism, and illicit day-trading from office desks made out of doors.

You'll meet Warren, the cowboy of customer service, capable of verbally hog-tying even the most abusive customer; Amazon employee #5, a computer gamer who spends at least six hours a day locked in his office killing goblins but is worth a cool $300 million; and Jean-Michele, Daisey's girlfriend and sparring partner, who tries to keep him grounded, even as dot-com mania seduces them both.

Punctuated by Daisey's hysterically honest fictional missives to CEO Jeff Bezos, 21 Dog Years is an epic story of greed, self-deception, and heartbreak -- a wickedly funny anthem to an era of bounteous stock options and boundless insanity.

Insurance intermediaries can help consumers to economize on information and transaction costs in insurance markets. This book analyzes conduct and performance in the market for insurance information services by applying search theoretical and industrial organization approaches. Based on a sample of 927 insurance intermediaries, coverage empirically studies the factors that affect the quality of the information services provided by them.

Raised in a small town in Georgia with no money or connections, Pat Mitchell challenged expectations to become one of media's most admired leaders-the first woman president of PBS and CNN productions, an award-winning film and TV producer, and the co-founder and curator of TEDWomen.

For those looking to become a highly-paid speaker who makes a difference, Expert Speaker reveals how to take the stage by being an expert, not the expert. The fastest way to build authority, get one's name out to the public, and attract premium clients is by public speaking. The truth is, not just any speech will win stages and attract the right clients. In Expert Speaker, ExpertSpeaker.com founder Majeed Mogharreban draws from his ten years of experience as a professional speaker to help readers build their brands, grow their business, and amplify their message in a way that makes a difference. Expert Speaker teaches those who are serious about public speaking what to say to get booked, how to give a speech that builds authority, how to negotiate their speaker fee, and so much more. Majeed walks readers through every aspect of public speaking so they too can amplify their message and take control over the big stage of their career.

The Brand NEW Book from Bernard Marr, bestselling author behind Business Trends in Practice - Winner of Business Book of the Year 2022. Future-proof yourself and develop critical skills for the digital future The working world has changed dramatically in the last twenty years and it's going to continue to transform at an even faster pace. How can the average professional stay afloat in an ocean of constant change and technological revolution? In Future Skills: The 20 Skills and Competencies Everyone Needs to Succeed in a Digital World bestselling author and futurist Bernard Marr delivers an engaging and insightful discussion of how you can prepare yourself for the digital future of work. You'll learn which skills will be in the highest demand, why they'll command a premium price, and how to develop them. You'll also find: Strategies for improving human-centered skills, like teamwork and collaboration Straightforward explanations of digital skills, like data literacy and cyber-threat awareness Ways to make yourself an indispensable component of future firms, and practical tips for continuous improvement A can't-miss book for every working professional seeking not just to survive - but to thrive - in the coming years, Future Skills belongs in the libraries of company leaders, managers, human resources professionals, educators, and anyone else with an interest in the future of work and how humanity fits within it.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed and extended post-proceedings of the Joint ERCIM/CoLogNet International Workshop on Constraint Solving and Constraint Logic Programming, CSCLP 2005. The 12 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The papers are organized in topical sections on global constraints, search and heuristics, language and implementation issues, and modeling.

In 2003, consumption of IT goods worldwide was $1.5 trillion. Asia represented twenty percent of this total. Even more telling, Asia produced about forty percent of these goods. The continued rise of Asian IT innovation will pose a challenge to the eminence of traditional IT centers, notably Silicon Valley. Making IT examines the causes as well as the major consequences of the dramatic rise of Asia in this industry. The book systematically analyzes each country's policies and results, on both a national level and, more importantly, in the innovation regions that have developed in each country: Japan's excellence in technology and manufacturing skills; Bangalore, India's late start and sudden explosion; Taiwan's Hsinchu Science-based Park's entrepreneurship and steady growth; Korea's Teheren Valley's impressive development of large companies; Singapore's initial reliance on multinational firms and its more recent switch to a home-developed strategy; and China's Zhongguancun Science Park's encouragement of investment from foreign firms while also promoting a domestic IT industry. The book outlines the difficulties in the IT industry, including Japan's tendency to keep out most foreign firms and China's poor protection of intellectual property. Developed by the team that brought readers The Silicon Valley Edge, Making IT analyzes why this region has an advantage in this industry, the similarities and differences in the countries' strategies, why companies have clustered in specific localities, and most important, what will be changing in the coming years. Making IT should leave no doubt that the United States and other countries competing in the global economy will face enormous challenges-and opportunities-responding to the rise of an innovative Asia.

Hollywood and Silicon Valley have long been uncomfortable bedfellows. Out of fear of pirating and lost profits, entertainment companies have historically resisted technological changes. Conversely, high-tech companies, more concerned with technological progress, have largely ignored the needs of the entertainment industry. Nevertheless, those products that we now take for granted, such as DVDs, MP3 players, and the Internet, are all due to the synergy of technology and entertainment. The switch to digital and web formats for entertainment represents huge potential market opportunities for both Hollywood and Silicon Valley. It has opened up new possibilities for entertainment and expanded the way content is created, distributed and consumed. Consider the phenomenon of YouTube and its wildly popular user-created content, or the ability to download movies and TV shows from sites such as iTunes and watch them on your iPod or computer, anytime and anywhere. The dual forces of consumer demand and rapidly changing content distribution are combining in new ways to create changes that will strike at the very foundations of the entertainment and technology industries. Depending upon how entertainment and technology companies respond, these changes can help them prosper or put them out of business. Media companies will have to become more like technology companies; and technology companies will need to change too. Because content creation, distribution and consumption are ever more tightly linked, Hollywood will need to understand what's happening in Silicon Valley and vice versa; changes in one industry will reverberate through the other. Some companies such as AOL and Time Warner have tried and failed (at least so far) to harness these forces, while a few companies such as Disney, Intel, and Google have recently taken the initial steps. But many more companies wait, afraid to change but knowing they cannot conduct business as usual. With an insider's knowledge, researcher and consultant, Philip Meza insightfully clarifies what managers and investors in media and technology companies will need to do in order to successfully navigate today's tricky environment. Coming Attractions? Hollywood, High Tech, and the Future of Entertainment discusses the history of the key forces driving the relationship between entertainment and technology today and into the future.

Networks are fastest-growing components in most industries. Network industries include the Internet, e-mail, telephony, computer hardware and software, music and video players, and service operations in businesses overseas, banking, law, and airlines. Oz Shy conveys the essential features of how strategic interactions among firms are affected by network activity, and how social interaction influences consumers' choices of products and services. Oz Shy is on the faculty of economics at the University of Haifa, in Haifa, Israel. His previous book is Industrial Organization: Theory and Applications (MIT Press, 1996).

Networks are fastest-growing components in most industries. Network industries include the Internet, e-mail, telephony, computer hardware and software, music and video players, and service operations in businesses overseas, banking, law, and airlines. Oz Shy conveys the essential features of how strategic interactions among firms are affected by network activity, and how social interaction influences consumers' choices of products and services. Oz Shy is on the faculty of economics at the University of Haifa, in Haifa, Israel. His previous book is Industrial Organization: Theory and Applications (MIT Press, 1996).

The Best Story Wins provides fresh perspectives on the principles of Pixar-style storytelling, adapted by one of the studio's top creatives to meet the needs of entrepreneurs, marketers, and business-minded storytellers of all stripes. Pixar movies have transfixed viewers around the world and stirred a hunger in creative and corporate realms to adopt new and more impactful ways of telling stories. Former Pixar and The Simpsons Animator and Story Artist Matthew Luhn translates his two and half decades of storytelling techniques and concepts to the CEOs, advertisers, marketers, and creatives in the business world and beyond. A combination of Luhn's personal stories and storytelling insights, The Best Story Wins retells the "Hero's Journey" story building methods through the lens of the Pixar films to help business minds embrace the power of storytelling for themselves!

One of the chief concerns regarding the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies is that they are owned and monopolised by advanced capitalist countries. Both between countries and within countries we find ‘the digital divide’. Most of humanity, having little or no access to widespread means of communication and access to information via the internet, will not benefit from the 4IR.

The promotion and adoption of these technologies without a plan to address this will lead to a more unequal world. The talk about people changing careers or learning new skills in the face of technologically driven job losses does not consider the differential skills and potentialities among people. Importantly, countries are told to do everything in their power not to be left behind by the 4IR. They are told that they must adopt these technologies come what may, without properly assessing country-specific and class-specific implications, threats and needs.

Is there any guarantee that agreeing to and adoption of the Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies by, say, African countries, will not have the same result – leaving them exploited and dominated by those who wield and own the new technologies?

In 2003, consumption of IT goods worldwide was $1.5 trillion. Asia represented twenty percent of this total. Even more telling, Asia produced about forty percent of these goods. The continued rise of Asian IT innovation will pose a challenge to the eminence of traditional IT centers, notably Silicon Valley. Making IT examines the causes as well as the major consequences of the dramatic rise of Asia in this industry. The book systematically analyzes each country's policies and results, on both a national level and, more importantly, in the innovation regions that have developed in each country: Japan's excellence in technology and manufacturing skills; Bangalore, India's late start and sudden explosion; Taiwan's Hsinchu Science-based Park's entrepreneurship and steady growth; Korea's Teheren Valley's impressive development of large companies; Singapore's initial reliance on multinational firms and its more recent switch to a home-developed strategy; and China's Zhongguancun Science Park's encouragement of investment from foreign firms while also promoting a domestic IT industry. The book outlines the difficulties in the IT industry, including Japan's tendency to keep out most foreign firms and China's poor protection of intellectual property. Developed by the team that brought readers The Silicon Valley Edge, Making IT analyzes why this region has an advantage in this industry, the similarities and differences in the countries' strategies, why companies have clustered in specific localities, and most important, what will be changing in the coming years. Making IT should leave no doubt that the United States and other countries competing in the global economy will face enormous challenges-and opportunities-responding to the rise of an innovative Asia.

Technological advances and innovative perspectives constantly evolve the notion of what makes up a digital library. Archives and the Digital Library provides an insightful snapshot of the current state of archiving in the digital realm. Respected experts in library and information science present the latest research results and illuminating case studies to provide a comprehensive glimpse at the theory, technological advances, and unique approaches to digital information management as it now stands. The book focuses on digitally reformatted surrogates of non-digital textual and graphic materials from archival collections, exploring the roles archivists can play in broadening the scope of digitization efforts through creatively developing policies, procedures, and tools to effectively manage digital content.
Many of the important advances in digitization of materials have little to do with the efforts of archivists. Archives and the Digital Library concentrates specifically on the developments in the world of archives and the digitization of the unique content of information resources archivists deal with on a constant basis. This resource reviews the current issues and challenges, effective user assessment techniques, various digital resources projects, collaboration strategies, and helpful best practices. The book is extensively referenced and includes helpful illustrative figures.
Topics in Archives and the Digital Library include:

• a case study of LSTA-grant funded California Local History Digital Resources Project
  
• expanding the scope of traditional archival digitations projects beyond the limits of a single institution
  
• a case study of the California Cultures Project
  
• the top ten themes in usability issues
  
• case studies of usability studies, focus groups, interviews, ethnographic studies, and web log analysis
  
• developing a reciprocal partnership with a digital library
  
• the technical challenges in harvesting and managing Web archives
  
• metadata strategies to provide descriptive, technical, and preservation related information about archived Web sites
  
• long-term preservation of digital materials
  
• building a trusted digital repository
  
• collaboration in developing and supporting the technical and organizational infrastructure for sustainability in both academic and state government
  
• the Archivists' Toolkit software application
  

The world’s tech giants are at the centre of controversies over fake news, free speech and hate speech on platforms where influence is bought and sold. Yet, at the outset, almost everyone thought the internet would be a positive, democratic force, a space where knowledge could be freely shared to enable everyone to make better-informed decisions. How did it all go so wrong?

Noam Cohen reports on the tech libertarians of Silicon Valley, from the self-proclaimed geniuses Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman and Mark Zuckerberg to the early pioneers at Stanford University, who have not only made the internet what it is today but reshaped society in the process. It is the story of how the greed, bias and prejudice of one neighbourhood is fracturing the Western world.

This unique guide to Plone covers everything from installing Plone (on Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux) to writing code for the system. As part of the Apress library of Python programming and content management tools, "The Definitive Guide to Plone" is authored by a member of Plone's core development team, Andy McKay.

He emphasizes the customization of Plone and shows how to fully integrate Plone into an existing website and application. If you want to adopt Plone for some or all of its features, pick up this invaluable reference and start learning right away!

"Martin Fransman is a pioneer in analyzing the development of high-tech industries. This study of broadband internet, put together by Fransman and a group of informed coauthors, examines the different paths taken by Korea, Japan, the United States, and several countries in Western Europe. It is a fascinating and illuminating story."
--Richard R. Nelson,
Professor Emeritus, Columbia University
"Global Broadband Battles is a fascinating and detailed account of the reasons why Japan and Korea have risen to world leadership in broadband communication, while the U.S. and Europe have been lagging. Fransman's book forcefully presents important policy lessons for companies and governments: competition should be fostered, the entry of new firms should be supported, and a regulatory regime allowing new competitors to be innovative should be encouraged."--Franco Malerba, Director of Centre for Research on Innovation and Internationalization, Bocconi University, Italy

Medical imaging and medical image analysisare rapidly developing. While m- ical imaging has already become a standard of modern medical care, medical image analysis is still mostly performed visually and qualitatively. The ev- increasing volume of acquired data makes it impossible to utilize them in full. Equally important, the visual approaches to medical image analysis are known to su?er from a lack of reproducibility. A signi?cant researche?ort is devoted to developing algorithms for processing the wealth of data available and extracting the relevant information in a computerized and quantitative fashion. Medical imaging and image analysis are interdisciplinary areas combining electrical, computer, and biomedical engineering; computer science; mathem- ics; physics; statistics; biology; medicine; and other ?elds. Medical imaging and computer vision, interestingly enough, have developed and continue developing somewhat independently. Nevertheless, bringing them together promises to b- e't both of these ?elds. We were enthusiastic when the organizers of the 2004 European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV) allowed us to organize a satellite workshop devoted to medical image analysis.

Truth is often stranger than fiction, especially when it comes to the workplace. In "Cube Farm, "author, Bill Blunden, recounts his three years in Minnesota, performing research and development for Lawson Software. Riddled with intrigue, duplicity and collusion, this story offers a trench-level view of a company in the throes of internal rivalry, and suffering from a string of failed projects.

If you have ever suffered at the hands of an incompetent manager, or toiled in a dysfunctional environment, then this hilarious account will appeal to you. "Cube Farm "provides "lessons learned" sections, at the end of each chapter, which delve into the basics in corporate self defense. Table of Contents THE IVY LEAGUE ADVANTAGE BLAZING A TRAIL TO MINNESOTA FIRST IMPRESSIONS THE ILLUMINATI VANISHING ACT THE KING'S NEW CLOTHES THE GREAT ESCAPE IT'S THE NATURE OF THE BEAST A FIXED FIGHT THE Y2K TIME BOMB!

Hailed as the Thomas Edison and Henry Ford of Silicon Valley, Robert Noyce was a brilliant inventor, a leading entrepreneur, and a daring risk taker who piloted his own jets and skied mountains accessible only by helicopter. Now, in The Man Behind the Microchip, Leslie Berlin captures not only this colorful individual but also the vibrant interplay of technology, business, money, politics, and culture that defines Silicon Valley. Here is the life of a giant of the high-tech industry, the co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel who co-invented the integrated circuit, the electronic heart of every modern computer, automobile, cellular telephone, advanced weapon, and video game. With access to never-before-seen documents, Berlin paints a fascinating portrait of Noyce: he was an ambitious and intensely competitive multimillionaire who exuded a "just folks" sort of charm, a Midwestern preacher's son who rejected organized religion but would counsel his employees to "go off and do something wonderful," a man who never looked back and sometimes paid a price for it. In addition, this vivid narrative sheds light on Noyce's friends and associates, including some of the best-known managers, venture capitalists, and creative minds in Silicon Valley. Berlin draws upon interviews with dozens of key players in modern American business-including Andy Grove, Steve Jobs, Gordon Moore, and Warren Buffett; their recollections of Noyce give readers a privileged, first-hand look inside the dynamic world of high-tech entrepreneurship. A modern American success story, The Man Behind the Microchip illuminates the triumphs and setbacks of one of the most important inventors and entrepreneurs of our time.

Constraint programming is the fruit of several decades of research carried out in mathematical logic, automated deduction, operations research and arti?cial intelligence. The tools and programming languages arising from this research ?eldhaveenjoyedrealsuccessintheindustrialworldastheycontributetosolving hard combinatorial problems in diverse domains such as production planning, communication networks, robotics and bioinformatics. This volume contains the extended and reviewed versions of a selection of papers presented at the Joint ERCIM/CoLogNET International Workshop on Constraint Solving and Constraint Logic Programming (CSCLP2003), which was held from June 30 to July 2, 2003. The venue chosen for the seventh edition of this annual workshop was the Computer and Automation Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA SZTAKI) in Budapest, Hungary. This institute is one of the 20 members of the Working Group on Constraints of the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM). For many participants this workshop provided the ?rst opportunity to visit their ERCIM partner in Budapest. CoLogNET is the European-funded network of excellence dedicated to s- porting and enhancing cooperation and research on all areas of computational logic, and continues the work done previously by the Compulog Net. In part- ular, the aim of the logic and constraint logic programming area of CoLogNET is to foster and support all research activities related to logic programming and constraint logic programming. The editors would like to take the opportunity and thank all the authors who submitted papers to this volume, as well as the reviewers for their helpful work.

Have you noticed that some people in infosec simply have more success than others, however they may define success? Some people are simply more listened too, more prominent, make more of a difference, have more flexibility with work, more freedom, choices of the best projects, and yes, make more money. They are not just lucky. They make their luck. The most successful are not necessarily the most technical, although technical or "geek" skills are essential. They are an absolute must, and we naturally build technical skills through experience. They are essential, but not for Rock Star level success. The most successful, the Infosec Rock Stars, have a slew of other equally valuable skills, ones most people never develop nor even understand. They include skills such as self direction, communication, business understanding, leadership, time management, project management, influence, negotiation, results orientation, and lots more . . . Infosec Rock Star will start you on your journey of mastering these skills and the journey of moving toward Rock Star status and all its benefits. Maybe you think you can't be a Rock Star, but everyone can MOVE towards it and reap the benefits of vastly increased success. Remember, "Geek" will only get you so far . . .

Today, Microsoft commands the high ground of the information superhighway by owning the operating systems and basic applications programs that run on the world's 170 million computers. Beyond the unquestioned genius and vision of Bill Gates, what accounts for Microsofts astounding success?

Drawing on almost two years of on-site observation at Microsoft headquarters, eminent scientists Michael A. Cusumano and Richard W. Selby reveal many of Microsoft's innermost secrets. This inside report, based on forty in-depth interviews by authors who had access to confidential documents and project data, outlines the seven complementary strategies that characterize exactly how Microsoft competes and operates, including the "Brain Trust" of talented employees and exceptional management; "bang for the buck" competitive strategies and clear organizational goals that produce self-critiquing, learning, and improving; a flexible, incremental approach to product development; and a relentless pursuit of future markets.

Cusumano and Selby's masterful analysis successfully uncovers the distinctive way in which Microsoft has combined all of the elements necessary to get to the top of an enormously important industry -- and stay there.