Center of Gravity is a love poem to the power of music in our lives, that spans three decades of American musical history, as composing team Nate Royce and Gregory Solomon grow, desire, succeed, grieve and love the same woman. They conquer Tin Pan Alley, struggle through the Great Depression, celebrate birth, mourn the dead and ride the leaps of radio, records, stereophonic sound, 8-tracks and cassettes. Along the way, they encounter Irving Berlin, whose piano has a lever to change keys, Duke Ellington, facing his entire band paralyzed with stage fright, Count Basie, succumbing to swindling contracts and the Sex Pistols, who have a knack for swindling record labels. Through the culture-shaping transitions of music, Nate's son, Ben Royce, follows in the footsteps of his father and Gregory during the critical years when jazz evolved, big bands faded and rock n' roll emerged, experiencing the tragic rise and fall of Rock pioneer Alan Freed from the inside. Ben's love for one woman, a savvy redhead named Rickie Taylor, embodies the great love once shared by both his father and Gregory. It is through love and loss, both past and present, that all three men finally confront Nate Royce's most crippling issue: determining how much to risk in life, balanced against what to settle for.

"'42 Rules of Product Management (2nd Edition)'" is a collection of product management wisdom from forty experts from around the world. The goal of this book is to expose you to the wisdom and knowledge from a group of the world's leading product management experts. Among the contributors, there are leading authors, professors, CEOs and vice presidents, bloggers, consultants, trainers, and even a few salespeople and engineers. In total, there are over five centuries of collected wisdom represented here.

The contributors each share one rule they think is critical to succeed in product management based on their hands-on product management and product marketing experience with companies such as Apple, eBay, Intuit, SAP, and Yahoo .

Packed with pearls of product management wisdom, this book has something for everyone. You will learn: How to focus on market needs, not just individual requests How to clarify your product positioning before your next big decision How to align your product strategy with company strategy -- and then sell it Why agility is the key to product management success Why great execution trumps a great product idea Best of all, it was written with the busy product manager in mind. Each rule is kept to two pages and designed to stand-on its own. The rules can be read in any order. In less than five minutes a day, you can learn from forty of the best product managers in the world. Whether you are a seasoned and experienced product manager or are just starting out, the "'42 Rules of Product Management (2nd Edition)'" will help you lead with greater effectiveness and influence.

Organizations are constantly struggling with complex development projects and are in search for a few, straightforward, and easy to learn methods to help deal with their problems. For this reason, more and more software companies are rapidly turning to Agile development to cope with fast changing markets, unknown or changing product requirements, borderless competition, and to solve complex problems. Yet little has been written to guide product managers through the transition in working with Agile teams and the numerous benefits that it affords.

"'Agile Excellence for Product Managers'" is a plain speaking guide on how to work with Agile development teams to achieve phenomenal product success. It covers the why and how of agile development (including Scrum, XP, and Lean, ) the role of product management, release planning, release management, road mapping, creating and prioritizing a product backlog, documentation, product launches, organizational implications and more. It is a must read for product managers making the switch to Agile development as well as product owners and project managers looking for better ways to organize and lead in their companies.