In a world that's difficult to make sense of, and a season that's so often overtaken by consumerism, here you'll find heart-stirring illustrations and thought-provoking meditations designed to show you the raw, powerfully sacred story of Christmas in a new light. Has the joy of the holiday season become painfully dissonant with the hard edges of life? Do you feel weary from the way Christmas has become a polished, predictable brand? You aren't alone. For too many of us, Christmas has lost its wonder. What if we stopped treating the Christmas story as something that happened a long time ago and started believing that it's a story that's still happening today? From celebrated artist and storyteller Scott Erickson comes Honest Advent, 25 days of illustrations and meditations that will help you rekindle the wonder of this season. Honest Advent creates a space for you to encounter the Incarnate Christ in unexpected places: like a pregnancy announcement in an era of political unrest and empirical bloodshed, the morning sickness of a Middle Eastern teenager, and the shocking biology of birth that goes far beyond the sanitized brand of Christmas as we know it today. Within the pages of Honest Advent, Erickson teaches us the valuable lessons he's learned about: Finding hope and light in the darkest winters What it means to embrace the unexpected How God uses everyday vulnerability to help us understand ourselves, and our faith, better Through powerful benedictions, prayers, and questions for honest reflection, you'll discover how the wonder of God-with-Us is still happening today: in your unexpected change of plans, your unaccomplished dreams, your overcrowded lodging, and your humble stories of new beginnings. Praise for Honest Advent: "Scott Erickson's beautifully crafted book helped me see God-with-Us with fresh eyes. Honest Advent is no shallow seasonal gift book; it's an invitation to explore the divine flourishes of everyday human vulnerabilities. A transformative read, regardless of the time of year." --Jonathan Merritt, author of Learning to Speak God from Scratch "Beautiful. Evocative. A wake-up call to the mystery of life." --John Mark Comer, author of The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

New Methods of Market Research and Analysis prepares readers for the new reality posed by big data and marketing analytics. While connecting to traditional research approaches such as surveys and focus groups, this book shows how new technologies and new analytical capabilities are rapidly changing the way marketers obtain and process their information. In particular, the prevalence of big data systems always monitoring key performance indicators, trends toward more research using observation or observation and communication together, new technologies such as mobile, apps, geo-locators, and others, as well as the deep analytics allowed by cheap data processing and storage are all covered and placed in context. Scott Erickson goes beyond the buzzwords to provide relevant explanations of the meaning and impact of both big data and analytics, placing them in context with traditional marketing research. His engaging subject matter focuses on the practical aspects of big data concepts, precisely defining and illustrating key concepts and providing illuminating real world examples. This approachable style enables marketers to understand what data scientists are doing with big data systems and analytics, giving them a taste of the capabilities of contemporary statistical software and its practical applications. This book can be used as a supplement to a traditional marketing research text or on its own. It will serve as a key reference for graduate students and advanced undergraduates in marketing research, marketing analytics, or business intelligence courses as well as marketing professionals looking to stay up to date with current trends and have them explained in a context they understand.

In the New Economy, intelligence will be essential for firms to gain competitive advantage-not just information or knowledge. Competitive intelligence, or the strategic gathering of knowledge about competitors, climate, trends, new products, has a long and successful history of generating competitive advantage. In this book, Rothberg and Erickson demonstrate how corporations can combine their competitive intelligence gathering with their internal knowledge management gathering into one dynamic system. Using real-world cases from the corporate world, the authors show how the strategic use of this combined system generates measurable competitive advantage. Topics covered include how be develop your strategy for sharing and gathering knowledge across the value chain, sustainable product development and innovation, manufacturing improvement, CRM and marketing, and developing a corporate-wide global knowledge strategy.
*The first book to show how competitive intelligence practices can add value to knowledge management systems
*Written for practitioners, the book is filled with real examples from the corporate world
*Demonstrates how corporations can use internal and external information gathering strategically to gain competitive advantage

In the New Economy, intelligence will be essential for firms to gain competitive advantage-not just information or knowledge. Competitive intelligence, or the strategic gathering of knowledge about competitors, climate, trends, new products, has a long and successful history of generating competitive advantage. In this book, Rothberg and Erickson demonstrate how corporations can combine their competitive intelligence gathering with their internal knowledge management gathering into one dynamic system. Using real-world cases from the corporate world, the authors show how the strategic use of this combined system generates measurable competitive advantage. Topics covered include how be develop your strategy for sharing and gathering knowledge across the value chain, sustainable product development and innovation, manufacturing improvement, CRM and marketing, and developing a corporate-wide global knowledge strategy.

Say Yes gives you the mental and spiritual practices you need to enjoy your life again--and bring greater fullness than you could imagine before. "My life doesn't look anything like I wanted it to. How do I even keep going?" When the dreams for our life die, our vision of who we hoped to become often dies too. That's when The Voice of Giving Up appears. Visual artist and spiritual director Scott Erickson has had long midnight conversations with The Voice of Giving Up, and he knows how anxiety and depression make The Voice especially loud. But he's discovered that our darkest moments are sometimes doorways to a deeper, more joy-filled journey of recovering who we are, why we're here, and why the future bursts with possibilities if we are willing to say yes to life's brightest gifts. In Say Yes, Scott helps you learn how to reawaken your deepest desires, disempower your greatest fears, and identify the destructive narratives holding you back. Combined with Scott's beautiful, thought-provoking illustrations, this is a profound exploration of beginning again after: Disappointment at how life is turning out Suspecting we are not prepared or smart enough Losing hope that change is possible and that pain can have a purpose Take the first step to gain the gentle yet powerful tools you need, and say yes to what lies ahead today.

The short story: This is a collection of humor writing in a variety of styles and formats. The long story: Scott Erickson has been a devoted fan of comedy from a young age, watching Bugs Bunny cartoons on Sunday morning and old Marx Brothers movies late at night. He was a huge fan of MAD magazine. He listened to comedy albums by George Carlin and Bill Cosby. He loved the early essay collections by Woody Allen. Later came Monty Python, which opened the door to the fascinating history of British comedy from the 1950's radio program The Goon Show through the 1960's satire boom. Etc., etc., etc... One day he had an idea. He thought to himself: "Since I love comedy so much, maybe I should try writing comedy." Of course, such an idea brought up a substantial question: What kind of comedy? Thus was born the zine entitled Reality Ranch as a forum for experiments in various types of humor writing. After 6 years, he was surprised to discover that much of what he wrote didn't make him cringe. And it was enough to collect into book form. Others have read his writing and joined him in not cringing. Two of the pieces included in this collection were winning entries in the Mona Schreiber Prize for Humorous Fiction and Nonfiction. One of the pieces was included in the book Laugh Your Shorts Off, a compilation of contest winners from the website Humor and Life in Particular.

Is the systematic destruction of life on earth making you sad? Here's the book that will turn your frown upside-down Amy Johnson-Martinez is a bright 14-year-old girl who spontaneously decides to camp in a local wetland to stop its destruction. But she wants to do much more. She wants to save the whole earth Amy is convinced there must be a way to get to the root of all our environmental problems. It's definitely going to take a lot more than switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs Amy's unique combination of youthful innocence and a sharp mind allow her to make discoveries that have eluded others. She discovers that a few simple yet fundamental changes will create a sustainable society. With the world on the brink of environmental collapse, Amy discovers that powerful forces are willing to use all their power to fight Amy's proposals. Will Amy defeat the opposition and convince the country to make the bold leap to sustainability before it's too late?