The first complete look at one of America's legendary business leaders This groundbreaking biography by Kevin Maney, acclaimed technology columnist for USA Today, offers fresh insight and new information on one of the twentieth century's greatest business figures. Over the course of forty-two years, Thomas J. Watson took a failing business called The Computer-Tabulating-Recording Company and transformed it into IBM, the world's first and most famous high-tech company. The Maverick and His Machine is the first modern biography of this business titan. Maney secured exclusive access to hundreds of boxes of Watson's long-forgotten papers, and he has produced the only complete picture of Watson the man and Watson the legendary business leader. These uncovered documents reveal new information about how Watson bet the company in the 1920s on tabulating machines-the forerunners to computers-and how he daringly beat the Great Depression of the 1930s. The documents also lead to new insights concerning the controversy that has followed Watson: his suppos ed coll usion with Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. Maney paints a vivid portrait of Watson, uncovers his motivations, and offers needed context on his mammoth role in the course of modern business history. Jim Collins, author of the bestsellers Good to Great and Built to Last, writes in the Foreword to Maney's book: "Leaders like Watson are like forces of nature-almost terrifying in their release of energy and unpredictable volatility, but underneath they still adhere to certain patterns and principles. The patterns and principles might be hard to see amidst the melee, but they are there nonetheless. It takes a gifted person of insight to highlight those patterns, and that is exactly what Kevin Maney does in this book." The Maverick and His Machine also includes never-before-published photos of Watson from IBM's archives, showing Watson in greater detail than any book ever has before. Essential reading for every businessperson, tech junkie, and IBM follower, the book is also full of the kind of personal detail and reconstructed events that make it a page-turning story for general readers. The Maverick and the Machine is poised to be one of the most important business biographies in years. Kevin Maney is a nationally syndicated, award-winning technology columnist at USA Today, where he has been since 1985. He is a cover story writer whose story about IBM's bet-the-company move gained him national recognition. He was voted best technology columnist by the business journalism publication TJFR. Marketing Computers magazine has four times named him one of the most influential technology columnists. He is the author of Wiley's MEGAMEDIA SHAKEOUT: The Inside Story of the Leaders and the Losers in the Exploding Communications Industry, which was a Business Week Bestseller. Residence: Clifton, VA . "Watson was clearly a genius with a thousand helpers, yet he managed to build an institution that could transcend the genius."-from the Foreword by Jim Collins "Like all great biographers, Kevin Maney gives us an engaging story . . .his fascinating and definitive book about IBM's founder is replete with amazing revelations and character lessons that resonate today."-Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School, bestselling author of Evolve! and When Giants Learn to Dance

How productivity culture and technology became emblematic of the American economic system in pre- and postwar Germany. The concept of productivity originated in a statistical measure of output per worker or per work-hour, calculated by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. A broader productivity culture emerged in 1920s America, as Henry Ford and others linked methods of mass production and consumption to high wages and low prices. These ideas were studied eagerly by a Germany in search of economic recovery after World War I, and, decades later, the Marshall Plan promoted productivity in its efforts to help post–World War II Europe rebuild. In Productivity Machines, Corinna Schlombs examines the transatlantic history of productivity technology and culture in the two decades before and after World War II. She argues for the interpretive flexibility of productivity: different groups viewed productivity differently at different times. Although it began as an objective measure, productivity came to be emblematic of the American economic system; post-World War II West Germany, however, adapted these ideas to its own political and economic values. Schlombs explains that West German unionists cast a doubtful eye on productivity's embrace of plant-level collective bargaining; unions fought for codetermination—the right to participate in corporate decisions. After describing German responses to US productivity, Schlombs offers an in-depth look at labor relations in one American company in Germany—that icon of corporate America, IBM. Finally, Schlombs considers the emergence of computer technology—seen by some as a new symbol of productivity but by others as the means to automate workers out of their jobs.

The Life and Times of Walter Reuther: An Unfinished Liberal Legacy recounts the events and social movements that have shaped modern America and examines Reuther’s involvement in them. For over thirty years, Walter Reuther and his United Automobile Workers union were in the vanguard of voices advancing liberal economic and social policies that raised the standard of living for many Americans, extended the protection of the law, and provided a measure of security for the aged, infirm, disabled, and unemployed. In the narrative, Reuther serves as the lens through which a period of labor advances, civil rights struggle, and hot and cold wars are viewed from a liberal perspective. The book follows Walter and Victor Reuther on their European adventure to their ancestral homeland during the rise of Hitler and into the Gorky autoworks factory in Soviet Russia. The pair returned home to the labor battles in Flint and Dearborn that established a UAW presence in the factories and brought Walter Reuther to the bargaining table to negotiate the agreements that served as the treaty between labor and management for over two decades. Reuther’s story includes assassination attempts, confrontations with Senator Goldwater and Nikita Khrushchev, and a presence on the world stage and on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial when Martin Luther King recounted his dream. In the later chapters, the book looks beyond the life of the man and the events of his time and seeks to advance a liberal legacy that recently has been relentlessly attacked and too timidly defended.

A former IBM employee offers an authoritative history of the successes and failures of one of the most influential American companies of the last century. For decades, IBM shaped the way the world did business. IBM products were in every large organization, and IBM corporate culture established a management style that was imitated by companies around the globe. It was “Big Blue”—an icon. And yet over the years, IBM has gone through both failure and success, surviving flatlining revenue and forced reinvention. The company almost went out of business in the early 1990s, then came back strong with new business strategies and an emphasis on artificial intelligence. In this authoritative, monumental history, James Cortada tells the story of one of the most influential American companies of the last century. A historian who worked at IBM for many years, Cortada examines IBM throughout the decades, offering insights on the company’s: • Technology Breakthroughs • Business Culture • Global expansion • Regulatory and Legal Issues • CEOs The secret to IBM’s unequalled longevity in the information technology market, Cortada shows, is its capacity to adapt to changing circumstances and technologies.

Includes an excerpt from Rustled, by B.J. Daniels.

Covers MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air Step-by-step instructions with callouts to MacBook photos that show you exactly what to do. Help when you run into hardware or operating system problems or limitations. Tips and Notes to help you get the most from your MacBook. Full-color, step-by-step tasks walk you through getting and keeping your MacBook working just the way you want. Tasks include: • Managing, arranging, and tagging your files • Staying on top of important events with Notification Center • Creating and navigating virtual workspaces in Mission Control • Opening and organizing apps with Launchpad • Connecting to and accessing network resources • Activating and using iCloud services • Communicating online with email, instant messaging, and video • Keeping appointments with Calendar and Reminders • Planning trips and checking traffic with Maps • Being social with Facebook and Twitter integration • Downloading and enjoying music, movies, and more • Buying, reading, and annotating iBooks • Getting the latest and greatest software from the App Store and other sources • Challenging your friends to games with Game Center • Protecting and securing your system and data • Expanding your system with peripheral devices • Troubleshooting common system problems

How many of our business leaders truly embody the change needed in the world of work and beyond? Not nearly enough. This book shows you how to reclaim your power to make a difference, by unleashing your inner maverick. Organizations are where the world's most innovative and impactful talents lie; we have the ingenuity, the technology and the resources to change the world for the better. Discover how to awaken the maverick mindset in you; one that will question, debate and enhance. Mavericks are the key to answering some of the world' most pressing challenges; they don't settle for anything less, and neither should you. Mavericks shows you how being a maverick isn't about shooting from the hip and rocking the boat for the sake of it, it's about demanding better of yourself and your organization for the wider good. In Mavericks, business consultants, London Business School faculty members and authors David Lewis and Jules Goddard guide you through the five characteristics that you can develop to become a maverick leader. From passionate belief, an undeterred attitude, being resourceful, being directional and finally experimenting, these characteristics are the blueprint for you to grow into an iconic and positive change maker. The focus is not on what becoming a leader can do for you, but on what you can do to make the world a better place.

It's a white Christmas in Rust Creek Falls--and USA TODAY bestselling author Victoria Pade weaves the perfect holiday romance between a single dad and the soon-to-be-mom he just can't resist! RUST CREEK RAMBLINGS Rejoice, ye merry Mavericks! As Christmas approaches, we here at The Rust Creek Falls Rambler thought we'd reward our devoted followers with a blind item guaranteed to put a little extra jingle in your stockings. Which rugged Rust Creek Traub has been spotted canoodling with a very pregnant lady of the Crawford kind? Astute readers will guess we're talking about divorced rancher Dallas Traub, who rescued expectant shopkeeper Nina Crawford from a snowy car wreck a few weeks back. Can these holiday honeys survive feuding families, three boisterous boys and a little bundle of joy intent on an early arrival? Only Santa knows for sure. . .and he might just be bringing the gift of love down the chimney this year!

Stop the presses! Can you believe there's about to be another wedding in Rust Creek Falls? Yes, local cowboy Jesse Crawford is tying the knot with Maggie Roarke, that Hollywood lawyer who's been flitting in and out of town for the past several months. Rumor has it their hasty nuptials might have something to do with Maggie's brand-new baby bump ... We're all for one big happy family, but we're a little puzzled by this pairing. Maggie and Jesse couldn't be more different if they tried-- are they really ready to saddle up for the long haul?