Cheapest Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents

Obviously, I'm not the only one who thinks Carter's book is terrific, and the reviews below mention some of the best qualities of Raising Happiness. But I'd like to add one more point. Carter encourages perfectionists to break the habit. Her descriptions of the dangers of a faultless life are compelling, but she also takes the next step by admitting her own parental shortcomings. I may not have a PhD on the topic, but Carter's transparency gives me hope that I'll be able to increase the happiness quotient in my house even if... strike that! ... increase the happiness quotient in my house BECAUSE we will never approach perfection. (Told you I am still recovering!)Get more detail about Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents.

Shop For Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time

The book is actually three different themes artfully weaved together, informing and reinforcing one another.

Keith Ferrazzi's own journey from a small steel town in Pennsylvania to the executive suites of Starwood Hotels & Davos World Economic forum is inspirational.

The book details specific advice and practical strategies for establishing and keeping connected with your network. He elaborates actionable advice for finding mentors, managing gatekeepers, building your brand, pinging and following up.

While all these tips from an artful practitioner are valuable, he delves into a more profound theme as we progress into the book. He espouses a way of life built on symbiotic social relationships and social karma - a way of life build around generosity, social arbitrage by helping connect those in need with those who can help, and not keeping a score. He perceptively identifies the emergence of a connected age and a new way to create and reach markets through social networks.Get more detail about Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time.

Discount How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of "Intangibles" in Business

Once in a while you come across a book that contains a single sentence that is worth its list price. This is such a book, and its definition of measurement is such a sentence.

I have the honor and privilege of leading seminars and classes for senior software design engineers in test at Microsoft. When I ask for a definition of measurement I have yet to hear anybody offer the one that's at the center of How to Measure Anything, and I have yet to see a single person not smile when I share the definition Douglas offers in his book.

Invariably, the smiles grow to grins when I suggest that by seeing tests as sets of observations that reduce uncertainty, and by incorporating the other mathematical tool Douglas explains in the book, Bayesian inference, testers are now capable of seeing the effect a single test result has on the joint probability distribution of uncertainty for the entire test run.

From this new foundation we are able to incorporate the work of other researchers to produce a measure of the relative value of individual tests selecting those that most reduce the overall uncertainty that the product is fit for service. This ability to measure relative value, then, enables testers to add ever more effective tests to the suite so we can measure the incremental change in overall uncertainty. What are the odds that the end result of this simple definition of measurement armed with Bayesian inference would be so profound? For in a word, we can now model and measure, not merely the software itself, but the judgment of the tester, as well. Management loves it, the development team loves it, and the tester loves it.

If only Douglas had written this book ten years ago...
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