• Book Review – Vectorworks Essentials Tutorial Manual 7th edition

    Jonathan Pickup’s “Vectorworks Essentials Tutorial Manual”, now in its 7th edition and updated for version 2015 of the application, is a deceivingly simple manual. It’s simple in that it will walk you (whether you are a new user or a seasoned user who has never had any formal training the application) through…

  • Vectorworks Architect Tutorial Manual – Sixth Edition

    Vectorworks Architect Tutorial Manual – Sixth Edition Book review by Neil Barman (http://www.barmansmart.ca/) Until recently, prints of plans, sections, elevations and the like have been only goal when using CAD software. Plain and simple, this is because projects get built from printed sheets. Used very basically, Vectorworks can create these…

  • Book Review – The Tipping Point

    The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of…

  • Book Review – Vectorworks Essentials Tutorial Manual – Sixth Edition

    Review by Neil Barman (http://www.barmansmart.ca/) Jonathan Pickup’s “Vectorworks Essentials Tutorial Manual”, now in its 6th edition, is a deceivingly simple manual. It’s simple in that it will walk you (whether you are a new user or a seasoned user who has never had any formal training in the application) through…

  • Book Review – Freakononics

    Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? How much do parents really matter? These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He studies the riddles…

  • Book Review – Free: The Future of a Radical Price

    In his groundbreaking new book, The Long Tail author Chris Anderson explains why new technologies, particularly the Internet, have caused production and distribution costs in many sectors to plummet to an extent unthinkable even a decade ago. He shows how the flexibility provided by the online world allows producers to trade ever…

  • Book Review – Blink

    Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant -in the blink of an eye- that actually aren’t as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept? Why do some people follow…

  • Book Review – Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture

    There are a range of shops around the world that focus on providing cheap products. The challenge is that everybody wants a bargain, but does that come at some other cost? For example, where I live there is a store whose slogan is “everyone gets a bargain.” But there is…

  • Book Review – Things a Little Bird Told Me

    This is the story about Biz Stone and what he learned at Twitter. Biz Stone was one of the inventors of Twitter and he helped grow Twitter from nothing to a billion dollar brand. Along the way he learned many valuable lessons: plain hard work is important, but it is…

  • Book Review – Inbound Marketing

    Instead of bulk emails or called calling, what about using Inbound Marketing to get potential customers to contact you? I have read this book several times and it is really helping me to understand social media for marketing. Traditional “outbound” marketing methods like cold-calling, email blasts, advertising and direct mail…