“According to Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, ‘infectious greed’ is to blame for the scandals engulfing firms like Enron, WorldCom, and Global Crossing… In fact, the opposite is true. Fraud undercuts a company’s value — as the market is amply demonstrating. What money-making requires is honesty and integrity. And the ‘greedier’ a businessman is, the more committed he must be to scrupulous practices.”

“Are you wondering whether you can make it on your own as a consultant? The answer is ‘yes.’ The start-up road is rocky, and you may have to complement your business knowledge by reading or re-reading ‘Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends And Influence People’ a couple of times, but most consulting businesses do well if they survive the start-up period.”

“In addition to being a starter of famous and failed companies, an icon of the dot-boom era and probably a creative genius, Bill Gross is an extraordinarily fast talker. This trait is hard to miss in an hour-long conversation with the founder of Idealab, the firm credited with popularizing the incubator as a model for launching startup companies.”

“Are you wondering whether you can make it on your own as a consultant? The answer is ‘yes.’ The start-up road is rocky, and you may have to complement your business knowledge by reading or re-reading ‘Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends And Influence People’ a couple of times, but most consulting businesses do well if they survive the start-up period.”

“There was a time, for instance, when companies put their most valued employees in palatial offices, with potted plants in the corner, and secretaries out front, guarding access. Those offices were suburbs — gated communities, in fact — and many companies came to realize that if their best employees were isolated in suburbs they would be deprived of public acquaintanceship, the foundations of public trust, and cross-connections with the necessary people. In the eighties and early nineties, the fashion in corporate America was to follow what designers called ‘universal planning’ — rows of identical cubicles, which resembled nothing so much as a Levittown. Today, universal planning has fallen out of favor, for the same reason that the postwar suburbs like Levittown did: to thrive, an office space must have a diversity of uses — it must have the workplace equivalent of houses and apartments and shops and industry.”

“Can you give an effective presentation? A good presentation goes beyond knowing your subject matter inside and out. Of course it’s important to fully understand your topic of discussion — but if you cannot successfully convey that information to another person, then what does it matter? How successful are your presentations?”

“Long publicity shy, Wal-Mart opens its doors for an exclusive CIO interview with CIO Kevin Turner, who shares the secrets behind Wal-Mart’s global growth, what’s happened since Sept. 11 and which technologies the retailer is eyeing for the future.”