The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott

Recommend: Yes

Star Rating (1 through 5): 3+

Genre: Business/Marketing

There is no doubt about it that within the last 5 or 6 years corporate marketing/public relations strategies that are not adapting to the newest internet technologies are going to be left behind. But old mindsets are hard to change and even companies that have adopted some of the new cyberspace tools are having a hard time understanding the needs and behaviors of the new consumer/buyer/customer. In The New Rules of Marketing and PR, David Meerman Scott walks the reader through the traditional attitudes of marketing and PR activities and shares with readers an updated viewpoint on marketing and PR due to the shift in our present web-enabled communications environment.

The book spends a great deal of time validating the need for a change in attitude towards marketing and PR because of the way that consumers now get their information, which is shifting heavily towards internet and social media outlets. The New Rules of Marketing and PR shares several examples of how outdated traditional marketing and PR methods are becoming very costly and inefficient. The book also shares several examples of companies that have broken away from traditional marketing and PR to achieve positive results using new improved methods related to internet and social media. more…

The Opposing Sides of Change

William Faulkner, a long-time resident of Oxford, Mississippi, did not attend any literary school. His work, A Rose for Emily, explored the history and legend of the south while delving into the sensitive insight on the human character. It deals with how Emily, the main character, refused to accept change. In it, he captured the spirit of his time and conveyed the past, and the present as it relates to the rejection of change and the rejection of progress.

Set in the post civil war of the late 1800s and the early 1900s, A Rose for Emily presents the two opposing sides of change: the townspeople who accepted it and Emily who refused it. Her father influenced her attitude toward any transformations; while their house; the manservant, Tobe; Colonel Sartoris; and her lover, Homer, symbolized the past. Emily was raised very traditionally; her father was a very old-fashioned man who did not believe in the equality of men and women. Even in the changing world of equality, he taught Emily that a woman’s place is just in the background. Her adoration for him was made obvious by her keeping of his “crayon portrait,” and his influence on her is best portrayed at his death, a death that took her 3 days to recognize. On his death, Emily refused to accept that something has changed-her father is gone.

This refusal to accept change is also seen in her keeping of the manservant, Tobe. Even after all the transformations that the post-war had ushered, a war fought mainly to end slavery, Emily declined to give Tobe his freedom. She had kept him until the day she died: when “[s]he died…[t]he negro walked right through the house and out the back and was not seen again.” Emily was set in her ways and nothing, not even the ambivalence of the people towards her, transformed that. She was pitied, disdained, scrutinized, and there were those who were glad when she had fallen: “she had become humanized,” they said. Emily did not budge: she remained the reclusive, mysterious, eccentric, who rejected change. more…

At the Tax Experts we prefer this series of books from Tax Cafe written for the British Tax Payer because they explain the very technical subject of UK Taxation in Layman’s terms and in a thorough manner. The excellent use of examples throughout each tax guide clarifies even the most challenging technical aspects of tax and the jargon that is used to describe that tax legislation. Each book in this series is re-written annually in April after the annual UK Government Budget announcement, making them entirely accurate to date reading.

This particular book checks out how a British Tax Payer can avoid all UK tax by becoming non-resident for Tax Purposes in a given year. The simple rule is to be in the country for not in excess of 90 days each tax year to achieve the non-resident status. However, it’s not as simple as that! The author of the article was non-resident at the time of writing this article to make the most of his UK non-domicile tax status. He found this book and Lee Hadnums other two books, Tax Saving Tactics for Non-Doms and The World’s Best Tax Havens extremely useful in this particular piece of tax planning.

This book will be of great interest to those British Tax Payers who would like to become non-resident to pay zero UK income tax and zero UK capital gains tax. This is common practise in the UK for those selling a property portfolio in preparation for their retirement to a warmer climate. The guide will also be of interest to Foreign Nationals known as Non-domiciles (Non-doms) who would like to benefit from their valuable UK tax status to pay little or no tax on their foreign income and anyone interested in tax planning with offshore companies and offshore trusts. Lee Hadnum’s other guide The World’s Best Tax Havens should be viewed side by side with this guide to assist in tax planning with offshore companies, trusts and foundations. Others who will find this guide invaluable will be those working abroad in foreign employment or contractors who still reside in the UK. more…

We first meet Nick Hawthorne in a Darwin bar. As a stripper offers contorted perspectives on what Australia has to offer, our hero from Maine meets a fellow countryman from Detroit intent on doing to Asia what America does to most places. (Personal opinions, eh?) Nick has some of those. He has a personal approach to life, but feels he gets little out of it, despite having achieved the status of being the first person principal character of Douglas Kennedy’s novel The Dead Heart.

Nick is a journalist who has only ever had bit jobs. They interested him bit, earned him a bit, stimulated somewhat less. Then he found a map of Australia and became so obsessed with the continent’s emptiness that he sold up and left the US to discover the unknown, to visit the unvisited. He is less than impressed with Darwin. It’s not a good start. But a VW camper van bought from a Jesus freak promises a great escape along the road to Broome. Not round the corner…

A hitcher called Angie provides welcome diversion from the repetition of the road. She seems easy-going, not to mention easy, and a little threatening. She is travelling for the first time, but exudes confidence. Nick, however, retains control. Or so he thinks…

Until he finds himself in Wollanup. It’s a town whose recent tragic history has removed it from the map. Nick has arrived at nowhere, the dead heart of a land. He is now unknown, has sex and beer on tap and an awful diet. A horror story haunted by powdered eggs…

Until Krystal starts to cook… His mechanical skills come into play. The rebuilt camper van is destroyed again. Its renewed mobility is a threat. more…