The Microsoft Edge

Behind the scenes at Microsoft, some of the nation's most savvy and successful managers are at work every day. How can their innovative perspectives and daily practices help guide your own journey on the road to success? Microsoft veteran Julie Bick reveals these insider strategies, in this book packed with on-the-job insights and practical techniques. Here are the lessons and secrets that can give you the edge in any industry.

How did the team at Microsoft pioneer, build, and shepheard the company through exponential growth in a constantly changing market? What are the qualities, the habits, the quirks that keep them moving ahead? And how can you apply what they've discovered to your own career?

From vice presidents to front-line managers, Bick interviews Microsofties to learn how they:

• Launch new products and get the most out of not-so-new products
• Design websites and do business on the Internet
• Work with service agencies, dealers, coworkers, and the press
• Hire the best people they can and keep them happy

The Microsoft Edge is an entertaining read for seasoned managers. It's a smart business tool kit for the new kid on the block. Apply these tips, stories, and answers to managerial conundrums, to your career in any business. Take it to your next plane ride!

• Introduction
1. People: Hiring the Best and Keeping Them
• Hiring the Best
• New Employee Success Factors
• Hire the Person for Three Jobs, Not One
• Retaining the Stars
• When Making Changes, A Little Human Goes a Long Way
• Five Ways to Make Sure Your Employees Will Look for Another Job
• Don't Wait until They Threaten to Leave (to Find Out What They Need to Stay)
• Be As Religious about Retention As You Are about Recruiting
• Turn Everyday Assignments into Employee Compensation
• Settlers vs. Pioneers
• Let the Pioneers Go a Little Wild
• Settlers Need to Innovate without Putting the Business in Jeopardy
• At Some Point, a Pioneering Project Turns into a Settler Business
• Competitors Can Teach You Interesting Things, and Not Just about Products
• Make Your Own Map of the Stars
• Employee Surveys
• Junior Boardroom: Training the Next Level
• Setting Up a Sales Force to Succeed
• Organizing Everything Around Customers
• Data Analysis: Examining the Market, Setting Goals
• Creating Global Initiatives that Everyone Owns
• Setting Up Compensation to Meet Corporate Goals
2. Doing Business on the Web
• Don't Abandon Your Web Site When It Is "Complete"
• Make It Sticky
• Walk through Your Web Site
• Get in Front of a Bad Experience
• Constant Product Improvements
• Use Your Customer Contacts
• Free Samples on the Web
• Your Web Site: Space for Quiet Reading or Place to Get Things Done?
• Building Your Community
• There Is No Manufacturing… or Is There?
• Advertising: No Time to Be Cute
• Communicating with Netiquette
3. New Products
• What a Dumb Idea? You Might Not Be the Right Person to Make That Statement
• Change the Center of Gravity
• Right Target and the Right Time
• Integration Day
• A Core Business Will Be Jealously Guarded
• Teaming Up with a Competitor to Enter a New Market
• Keeping it simple Takes a Lot of Thought — the Message Is the Message
• To Ship or Not to Ship
4. Not-So-New Products
• Momentum Releases and Other Tricks to Keep Your Products in the News
• Press Buddies
• Rapid Response Teams
• Momentum Press Releases
• Ride Someone's Coattails to Get the Most Out of a Small Budget
• Create a Shadow Competition
• Who Is Your Competitor?
• Your Worst Critics Can Turn into Your Biggest Advocates
• A Defense So Strong It Becomes an Offense
• Just Because Customers Didn't Ask for It, Doesn't Mean They Don't Want It
• Don't Fix It, Feature It
• Shut Down and Salvage
5. The Partners You May Not Think of As Partners (Coworkers, Service Agencies, Dealers, the Press)
• Getting the Most Out of Your hired Agencies
• Informative, Inspiring Input to Generate Creative Compelling Output
• Involve the Agency Early
• The Ad Team should Create the Ad
• One Agency Doesn't Fit All
• The Right-Flavored Carrot Along with the Properly Sharpened Stick
• In a New Job, Start with What You Already Know
• Absent Partners: Be Nice, Even When They're Not in the Room
• Think You've Really Screwed Up?
• Managing through People's Filters
• Starting with a Graceful Exit
• If Something's Eating Up Your Time, Make Sure Your Boss Agrees on the Menu
• Let Your Boss Say No (to Other People)
• Keep the Pricing Simple so Your Distributors Can Concentrate on Selling the Product

Don't let the title scare you away. It is an interesting book that uses the MS name to sell itself.

Granted, it is heavily focused on the Marketing/Sales aspects.