Renaissance BIZ Experiences With a little reading, you could be wise as a prophet, innovative as a rebel and too clever for spies.

Sometimes business success is won by being different, sometimesit's won by seeing farther and more clearly than anyone else,and sometimes, every now and then, it's simply stolen. Thesebooks delineate those three routes to success clearly andconvincingly.

The Rebel Rules

(Fireside)

This is a hands-on guidebook for fostering unconventional thinkingabout BIZ Experiencesship in the mode of Richard Branson (who wrotethe preface), Anita Roddick and Michael Dell. Author Chip Conley,founder of a hotel company based in San Francisco, first won fameby dropping his trousers to display his fancy underwear whiledelivering a speech at a travel industry convention. Rebelcredentials established, he took his company to $50 million inannual sales.

Despite his anarchistic image, Conley's rebel rules, whichstate that BIZ Experiencess need vision, instinct, passion andagility, are not particularly revolutionary. But his advice isstill pragmatic and well-presented, with numerous anecdotes fromthe history of his own company, Joie de Vivre, as well as shortprofiles of rebels ranging from GE's Jack Welch to Dee Hock,founder of Visa.

One thing Conley does that is definitely rebellious-at least forbusiness authors-is acknowledge that the practices he recommendshave risks. He warns specifically against too-fast growth,ill-advised alliances, going public and thinking you've madeit. That's one rebellion that ought to attract adherents.

The Rebel Rules is available at Amazon.com.

It Takes A Prophet To make A Profit

(Simon & Schuster)

In this book,marketing expert C. Britt Beemer and veteran business writer RobertL. Shook explore 15 major shifts in U.S. society that couldinfluence businesses' future prospects. Beemer contributes thesurvey-based research on which the trends are based, while Shookweaves it into an easy-to-digest dose of prophecy.

Some of the trends include the loss of discretionary time, thepopularity of telecommuting, the increasing demand for brand-nameproducts and, of course, the proliferation of the Internet. Thepair also describes why the trends are important and provides waysfor companies to respond. For instance, in a chapter onAmericans' reluctance to pay full price, they note 85 percentof consumers today shop for goods on sale, up from 62.5 percent onedecade ago. Then they suggest that businesses offer advice anddevelop relationships with customers to overcome the sale-shoppingtrend.

It Takes A Prophet To make A Profit is available atAmazon.com.

Spooked

(Perseus Publishing)

Twenty-five billion dollars is a sum large enough to captureanybody's interest. Toss in some exotic locales, wizardlytechnology and a few unusual names, and you've got the makingsof a decent spy novel. Or, in this case, an engrossing nonfictionjourney on the dark side of business information. Authors AdamPenenberg, a business journalist, and Marc Barry, an intellectualproperty consultant and founder of C3I Analytics in New York City,say $25 billion is what U.S. companies lose every year to corporatespies stealing intellectual property. They then describe how thesecrooks accomplish the thefts, from within and without.

Along the way, Penenberg and Barry offer advice on protectingthose secrets. The most important? Be careful who you whisper themto. The central case, apparently an example of simple subornation,concerns a Taiwanese label manufacturer's theft of tradesecrets from U.S. rival Avery Dennison. The manufacturer, FourPillars Enterprises of Taiwan, bribed an Avery scientist to handover mounds of adhesives research. But the authors demonstratethere's more than one way to swipe a secret: impersonation,burglary, computer hacking, electronic eavesdropping and just goodold rummaging through the garbage. Is the friendly person whoquizzed you extensively at that trade show last week an ex-CIAoperative working for a rival? After reading this book, you maywonder.

Spooked is available at Amazon.com.

What Are You Reading?

		What Are You Reading? Think and Grow Rich (Wilshire Book Co.) byNapoleon Hill "I've read this book several times, and I'vereferred to it so much that my copy is beat up and underlined. Itreminds me to persist. A lot of times I may feel like giving up,but chapters in this book keep me going. Think and Grow Richreminds me that temporary defeat is just that: temporary!" -Kimberly Williams, founder and owner of Aalize.com,Chicago

Contact Sources

• Fireside, kimberly.saunders@simonandschuster.com,www.rebelsrule.com
• Perseus Publishing, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA02142, www.perseuspublishing.com
• Simon & Schuster Inc., (212) 698-7533