BizThoughts

I'm more of a bimmer fanatic myself - a BMW fan. Even got a soft spot for convertibles. (Yea, I know what that says about me. heh.)

So it's a bit unusual for me to be doing a paid review for TheCarConnection.com's Mitsubishi Lancer reviews. But I'm also a very thorough researcher. It took me over two months to cull over countless reviews and assess assorted cars before I found one that I liked. That means TCC's reviews would have been something I would have bookmarked in my research.

I don't think I actually read any of their articles in my BMW search though, but that's probably because they didn't show up in any search results. I'm sure they want to change that. Hence this paid review.

If you're in the market for a Mitsubishi Lancer, you'll definitely want to do your homework. Buying a car is a major purchase. Any major purchase should be preceded with careful research.

To their credit, TCC does a pretty good job of reviewing the Lancer. Their review starts with a one-page summary called the Bottom Line. In it, the editor (who is cited by name so you know it's not some faceless bot) includes his Likes, Dislikes, and Buying Tips. The summary itself is pretty helpful, with good info about the car, its features, and its class. A comparison with similar cars is there too. It concludes with a one-sentence statement - the true Bottom Line - such as: "The 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer is a basic but sporty sedan with some tech features not often offered in this class."

Then there's a Full Review with a five-part section including Styling, Performance, Comfort & Quality, Safety, and Features - each of which is rated 1 out of 10. This rating is factored into an overall rating which appears on every page. Quotes are included and pulled out of other expert reviews, such as Cars.com, Motor Trend, Car and Driver, Edmunds, and Kelley Blue Book. I believe the rating comes from TCC's staff of editors, who read all of the reviews out there and aggregates them into a cohesive article. That's a pretty nifty idea if you don't have the time to read alot.

Complimenting this content are other helpful bits of info, such as a Photo Gallery, a 360 View, Trims and Specs, Related News, Other Expert Reviews, Consumer Opinions, Free Price Quotes, and related cars in which you might also be interested.

The Photo Gallery seems to have an odd discrepancy. At the bottom of the Overview page are a set of colorful photos, yet the link in the left-hand column points to a set of generic-looking images supplied by eVox Productions. The same set of images are in both redundant links, but I guess the editor realized that readers would prefer the more colorful pictures over the eVox pictures (and rightly so). This gallery is done in AJAX and scrolls through all the images automatically.

The 360 View is pretty cool too. It's an embedded Flash player - also from eVox - and rotates the car around. Neat. I'm kind of glad it's not a clunky Quicktime player.

The Trim and Specs are helpful. I spent a lot of time comparing the various trims of my car. Although no editorial content is provided in this section, the specs are helpful. It even lists the MSRP and fuel economy for each.

Related News pulls from other TCC articles. Other Expert Reviews links to outside car review sites. And Consumer Opinions also links to user reviews from other sites. The Free Price Quotes - probably another source of revenue (though how much they're actually making, I don't know; it's a tough market) - allow you to enter in your contact info so a nearby dealer can call or email you.

The related cars section is cool. TCC lists similar cars that it figures you may also want to check out. That's a nice feature.

In proper social media marketing fashion, buttons to share this overview on del.icio.us, Digg.com, Yahoo! Buzz, StumbleUpon, Facebook, and more, are all included.

Sounds pretty damn thorough, huh? It sure looks it. Although they aren't doing any actual tests on the cars themselves, they're aggregating info from around the web, much like Yahoo! (YHOO) Autos and MSN (MSFT) Autos actually. Yahoo! Autos doesn't have an editorial staff that aggregates various articles though, but they do have a way to get email alerts every time a new review is published on the web. MSN Autos does one-up TCC though. They include safety and reliability info, which I did use in my research. (Note: as of this post, MSN Autos doesn't have any reliability data for the 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer. Oh well.)

Other than that, there really isn't much I can criticize in TCC's review. It's pretty damn thorough and aggregates much of what is out there. The user interface is nice too; it's usable, readable, and easy to navigate.

A Palo-Alto-based VC-funded start-up called The Car Advisory Network, now called High Gear Media, purchased TCC in 2007 and gave it a huge redesign earlier this year. They look nothing like they did back in January 2008. And interestingly enough, a bunch of Yahoo! execs work there now. Hmmm. That's some mighty brainage. I'll have to keep an eye on them to see where they take this site… Nice job, guys.

With gas prices getting higher than Cheech & Chong, everyone's trying to do what they can to save up. That led me to this latest ReviewMe advertiser: Corporate Reimbursement Services (CRS).

The Newton, MA based management consulting firm has a vehicle reimbursement program that some businesses might find useful, especially those whose employees frequently travel between states (such as delivery companies, moving companies, salespeople, etc).

Calculating the costs of driving doesn't just include gas and tolls. There are also insurance premiums, property/excise taxes, and license/registration fees. If your business just operates in one state, keeping track of all these factors may be manageable, though perhaps a headache. But what if you operate nationally? What if you have an army of transport trucks across ten or twenty states?

Solving that problem is what CRS aims to do. They claim that they can calculate these "geographic cost variances," as they call them, and offer a "fair, accurate and defensible reimbursement rate for each individual driver."

Sounds like a pretty useful service. And even better, its program is set up in accordance with the IRS so that your employees can be reimbursed tax-free. That's a nice perk.

In addition, CRS' program also includes:

• Mileage reports and trends - so you can revise your routes to improve efficiencies
• DMV record checks - to help make sure your drivers are legally compliant
• Online reports - so you can check all of your records and stats online
• Driver safety training - high-risk drivers can be given online training (though I'm not sure how practical that really would be)
• Reduced risk & liability exposure - businesses are 100% liable if employees with company vehicles get into accidents; CRS' in-house Risk Management Team can provide guidance on this (though hopefully not with ineffectual online training)

I don't mean to sound like a brochure for these guys. I've never used them before, so all I can do is summarize what they claim on their website. How much are their services? I don't know. They could be expensive. They're at least doing well enough to afford some SEO on the keywords: "vehicle reimbursement program". That much I can say.

I can also add that Mike Antich of Automotive Fleet wrote an article entitled, "Reimbursement is Unfair to Employees" that attacks companies for failing to fully and fairly reimburse mobile employees.

I have yet to hear of a company that reimburses at a rate that fully compensates drivers for the actual cost of operating a vehicle, especially in this era of escalating fuel prices. In addition, the cost of gas, insurance, license/registration fees, and vehicle maintenance vary substantially by region. If the reimbursement doesn’t cover actual expenses, a driver, in essence, ends up with a pay reduction.

CRS' program appears to satisfy the shortfalls of the other programs to which Antich is referring. Back when I was a traveling consultant, I used to be reimbursed for gas, but nothing else - no fees or insurance reimbursements. So I can certainly see Antich's point.

So if CRS' program is what it's cracked up to be, it could be worth a test drive. Or, at the very least, ask your current employee benefits provider if they have a vehicle reimbursement program of their own.

I can has book review!

Erm, ahem. I mean, I have a book review of the upcoming new lolcats book, "I Can Has Cheezburger?: A LOLcat Colleckshun" by Professor Happycat and the fine folks at ICanHasCheezburger.com.

ICHC cofounders Eric Nakagawa and Kari Unebasami selected 200 of their favorite lolcat pictures (or, in lolspeak, pikshures) for this visual potpourri of cuteness. They include a few classics, some I haven't seen before, and explanations of common lolspeak, such as: Monorail Cat, Nom Nom Nom, Invisible, Ceiling Cat, and Halp. Seriously, just open to any page and hilarity will ensue.

(BTW, I considered writing this entire review in lolspeak. But after two sentences, I thankfully gave up.)

If you're a lolfan, you're going to love the portability of getting your lolfill whenever you want to, especially when your intertubes are down and you can't get online. Leave it at your desk for inspiration or an occasional chuckle. Flip through it when you're bored or need a lolcheer. Or buy it for a friend; it makes a great lolgift!

Unfortunately, the book is tiny (only 6×6 inches) with a paperback cover and full-bleed photos. That means it's not a fantastic coffee-table book - it's way too small. And sometimes, to fully see a caption, you have to bend the pages back and crease the spine. That sucks for someone as anal about books as I am.

There's probably a good reason for this size though. Printing web images onto paper is awful because paper requires a higher resolution than the web. If you've ever tried printing an image from the web, you've probably noticed that it's fuzzy and pixelated. A higher resolution image wouldn't have that problem. I'm guessing that's what ICHC encountered when deciding upon the size of the book.

'Tis quite a shame. This could have made a fantastic coffee-table book.

But that's hardly a reason not to check it out - especially if you're a true lolfan. The greek cred of owning this alone is worth the $10 for it (and only $8 on Amazon as of this post). You'll have to pre-order it though. The book doesn't come out officially until October 7, 2008. In the meantime, you'll have to get your lolfill on the internets.

UPDATE 9/12/2008: For more lolinfo on the book, check out http://www.lulzftw.com or @lulzftw on Twitter!

There was a time when I had six maxed-out credit cards. Frightening, huh? It was during the dot-com days, when I thought I'd make millions like everyone else - then be able to pay back those cards easily. Alas, that was not to be, leaving me with six maxed-out credit cards.

After that, I put myself on a very strict, very rigorous debt payment plan. And in three to four years, I worked it all off. I paid off all of my credit cards. Now, I pay out each balance full every month; no more carrying balances over!

While setting up my plan, I had looked into debt consolidation programs. Ultimately, I didn't do that, but I know at least one friend who did.

If you're not someone who's anal about record keeping and paying your bills, then a debt consolidation program could help you. The advantages include having one easy location to pay all your bills. The disadvantages include having to put up collateral, such as your home, and potentially paying more in the long run if you stretch out this new loan for a very long period of time. They are generally helpful if you have a lot of credit card debt though, since the consolidated loan they offer can have a lower interest rate than any of your credit cards.

But: beware of predatory lenders, who typically approach desperate customers and deceptively convince them to agree to unfair - and even abusive - loan terms.

One such program, Debt Free 24, just applied for a paid review. Since I've looked into debt consolidation programs before, I figured I'd give these guys a once-over too.

Visual Design

Being a website review, I of course can't help but look at its visual design - its layout, its use of text, its usability. I do this because it's really important. All too often, I'll hear a random user back out of a site because it "doesn't look safe" or "looks like it could be a scam." What they're really saying is, "this visual design sucks."

Debt Free 24's design doesn't totally suck. But it doesn't look as professional as I'd want a financial services firm to look. And since the debt consolidation industry is fraught with scam artists, it's easy to point at a poorly-done design and guess that they're a scam. (Of course, a slick design doesn't mean a firm isn't a scam.)

There's lots of text. Way more than the average reader will want to read. It's probably for SEO purposes though. What really bothers me about it is that it's all full-justified - meaning the words are lined up at both the left and right sides of the paragraph.

Notice how the words from my paragraphs are lined up on the left, but aren't lined up neatly on the right? That, in typesetting-speak, is known as ragged-right. Generally, it's easier to read paragraphs on computer screens that are ragged-right than full-justified. Only in print does full-justification look nice. The designer probably thought, "Hey, let's align this text with full-justification, 'cuz newspapers and books do it!" without any knowledge of computer usability. 'Tis the mark of an amateur designer.

To the designer's credit, there is a clear call-to-action and clear navigation. I know how to sign up for a debt consolidation program. That's way more important than the alignment of the text. Kudos! Users ought to be funneling into the sales flow nicely.

The Service

To sign up for this service, you need to fill out an online form with information such as:

• How much credit card debt do you have?
• Current payment status on your credit cards?
• Other unsecured debt?
• How much secured debt do you have?

After supplying that, along with your contact info (address, email, and phone number), you're told that:

By submitting your request, you are granting permission for up to $product.maxNumberOfSales of our Premier Partners to contact you either by phone or email even if you are on the Do Not Call Registry.

Wait, how many Premier Partners? $product.maxNumberOfSales? Oops, looks like someone's code is peeking out!

Once you get past the unsecured (http, not https) form submission and buggy code, one of their Debt Repayment Representatives will contact you to set up a debt consolidation program. After interviewing you about your financial situation, the representative will contact all of your outstanding creditors (credit card companies, loan companies, mortgage companies, etc) to negotiate a potentially lower interest rate for you. Then Debt Free 24 will combine your debt, so you only have to pay one creditor - Debt Free 24 - and not hassle with multiple bills.

They don't indicate whether they offer secured loans (where you have to offer up collateral) or unsecured loans (where it's determined by your credit rating), however.

Articles

Under the section, "News Updates," Debt Free 24 has a number of articles about debt management and personal finance. The articles don't look terribly helpful, so I suspect they serve SEO purposes. Unfortunately for them, they haven't done much in-page search engine optimization. These articles could be helping them a lot more than they are right now.

My Suggestions

1. Hire a professional web designer and give the site an overhaul. Make it look more professional , usable, and trustworthy. Although the current design isn't the worst I've seen - it's probably even doing it's job well-enough for their target audience - it could be a lot better. Is the ROI of redesigning the site worth the extra sales conversions? Well, since I'm going to recommend rewriting some of the code, they might as well update the design too.
2. Hire an SEO-knowledgeable web developer to rewrite the code to be more SEO-friendly. From page titles to URLs to headings, there's lots of basic SEO stuff they could do. Hell, a simple pass through Website Grader could help wonderfully. Also, make sure this developer doesn't leave any open bugs on any key pages, such as the sign-up form.
3. Consider re-writing the copy a bit. Or at least, shorten it. I'd love to see more information on the About Us page, for instance. If it's owned by one guy in a basement somewhere, he probably doesn't want to reveal that - because if it's true, no one's going to want to use his site. But a vague About Us page doesn't fill me with warm fuzzy trustworthiness either.

Good luck, Debt Free 24!

It's amazing how many different ways there are to make money, isn't it? One is in buying and selling virtual goods, a growing industry.

The idea around the virtual goods market is that you can purchase something that exists within a virtual world. Like a Habbo avatar or Gaia clothing or even Second Life real estate. What crazy times we live in, huh?

Within the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) world, there is World of Warcraft (WoW), the king of all MMORPGs. And lots of enterprising people have decided to build online markets to sell & buy WoW accounts. One such service is even purchasing paid reviews like this one.

So onto the review. Their site, called BuyMMOAccounts.com, isn't exactly what I'd call professional-looking. Kind of 1980s, if you ask me. The value proposition is simple enough: you can buy and sell your WoW account, though they certainly push buying an account as opposed to selling one. Let's pick it apart, shall we?

Text

I see lots of annoying marketese. That's bad. Many users are turned off by what appears to be a pushy or sketchy sales pitch. The frequent use of bolding, text color changes, and text size changes all reek of this.

There's also way too much text. Most readers aren't going to read any of this. The use of gratuitous text has SEO benefits, though. There's lots of keyword-rich paragraphs here. I can't knock them for that. Unfortunately, it looks like someone with Microsoft FrontPage marked this page up and believed that every other paragraph needs to scream for attention, making none of the paragraphs very readable or enticing.

Usability

I don't see a clear focal point. Sure, my eye is attracted to all the elves, gnomes, and orcs scattered everywhere. But there is no clear call to action. I have to hunt around to find out how I can buy a WoW account. That's bad. Don't make me work to pay you.

After a bit of searching, I can see the Buy Horde Accounts and Buy Alliance Accounts links in the left column. Ah. So there they are.

Now how do you sell an account? By happening to see the link buried in a paragraph below the fold in the middle of the page somewhere (or on the graphical link in the left column). I can understand that. They're trying to minimize sales and emphasize sales. And perhaps, with the keywords they're targeting, they're not trying to increase their supply of accounts. Perhaps they already have a vast supply being created by players overseas and just want to profit by selling them. Fair enuff.

But at least make the buying process easier. That's why users are on the site, right?

One last nitpick. The homepage has a line of text that looks like a link, but isn't. The line: "When purchasing an account from us you can be assured that" is blue and underlined. But it's not a link. Bad bad bad.

Trust and Security

The site isn't shy about it's 100% guarantee, though it's delivery doesn't fill me with trust. I'm hit with more marketese that looks more like the site is trying to scam me than reassure me. I'm sure that's not their intent, but that's what's happening.

To their benefit, there is a live chat option and a couple of toll-free phone numbers. That's cool. If their users don't want to deal with a sketchy-looking site, they can deal with a live person. However, do people who use virtual worlds want that kind of hassle? Wouldn't they prefer virtual help over real live help? I don't know; just a guess. I also wonder how much these support options cost BuyMMOAccounts.com. A well-designed site could actually cut down on these support costs.

They also list credentials from VeriSign, McAfee, and RatePoint. I'm not sure how much security that actually means, but the average user may not question it as much as I am.

My Suggestions

Okay, enough of the harsh criticism. I ripped into these guys good. Now it's time to play nice. Here's what I'd suggest, listed in order of importance:

1. Hire a professional web designer and give the site an overhaul. Make it look more professional, usable, and trustworthy. A good designer will know how to drive more sales and reduce support costs. A good design can do all that.
2. Hire a writer to rewrite the content. It's possible to keep it keyword-rich without appearing like untrustworthy marketese. This will aid in SEO and drive more sales & conversions.
3. Hire a professional web developer to rewrite the HTML & CSS to use web standard code (which is more SEO-friendly), add a sitemap.xml file, a robots.txt file, and all those other SEO goodies.

Suggestions #1 and #2 are more important because they'll increase sales. It looks like BuyMMOAccounts.com already ranks pretty high in search engines, especially for the keywords they purchased in this review. With these suggestions, I believe they'd be able to convert more visitors into buyers, thus increasing their overall revenues.

Good luck, BuyMMOAccounts.com!

It's time to pay the bills. And in more ways than one. First, with my ReviewMe account; this post is another paid review. Second, with something called foreign exchange markets (also known as foreign currency markets, forex markets, or FX markets).

My interest in the forex market was piqued when CNBC's 2008 Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge allowed currency trading in their contest, though I haven't traded any currencies with my own money yet.

Typical Forex Traders

Within a forex market, national currencies are traded, as opposed to stocks & bonds. Typical traders are governments, large banks, multinational corporations, financial institutions, and currency speculators. Perhaps the most famous currency speculator is George Soros, one of the richest people in the world. He is known as "the man who broke the Bank of England" because he sold short more than $10 billion UK pounds, making a profit of $1.1 billion USD when the UK withdraw the pound out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. Yowza.

Characteristics of the Forex Market

The currency trading you'd be doing probably won't come close to bankrupting a country, but you could make a tidy profit if you're smart. Forex markets are believed by some to operate on almost perfect competition, though there is some market manipulation by central banks. These markets are also known for high trading volumes, high liquidity (hey, you're trading with cold hard cash after all), long trading hours, global reach, and low profit margins compared with other markets of fixed income. Wait, low profit margins? Yea. Most forex traders make their money not from high price fluctuations, but from their high trading volumes.

Forex Currency Pairs

Another characteristic of forex markets: you trade on currency pairs. That means you buy and sell currencies against one another. You can buy USD and sell EUR, for instance. Each pairing is seen as an individual product, expressed in XXX/YYY format - like USD/EUR. The first currency listed - XXX - is called the "base currency" and is the stronger currency at the creation of the pair. The second currency listed - YYY - is called the "counter currency" and is the weaker one.

Forex Levels of Access

The forex market also differs from the stock market with its different levels of access and privilege. At the very top are the largest investment banking firms who, with their enormous trading volumes, are able to command a more advantageous "spread." A spread is the price difference between the bid and ask prices; the smaller the difference, the better the spread. Retail forex traders like you and me could never approach those kinds of volumes, so we'd never get access to those spreads. That hasn't stopped countless retail forex investors from jumping into the market, however. So if you want to trade in the forex market, you'd need to go through a retail forex broker.

Retail Forex Brokers

Where can you find a good retail forex broker, you ask? To be honest, I don't know. I'm hoping one of you readers will know and can offer some suggestions. There were two comparison charts I found: one from FXstreet and another from GoForex. What I can point you to is the impetus of this review: Fab Forex. Fab Forex is an online guide to forex currency trading. They offer a collection of articles on forex trading and the forex market.

Forex Market Information

If you want to delve into forex trading, read up. There is a ton of forex information online, on Fab Forex and elsewhere. But avoid anything that promises quick money & easy returns (as always). As with any other investment market, scams and frauds run rampant.

So my advice: read up & do your homework. And, potentially, make lots of money! Good luck!

Speaking of marketing for men, I just finished the book Branded Male by Mark Tungate. This was another free book sent to me for review. I enjoyed this book way more than the last one too.

The Pros

Mark Tungate is a British journalist and author based in Paris. His style is entertaining and witty, making this book a pleasure to read. I breezed through it quickly.

The chapters are organized to reflect a day in the life of a typical modern male in the UK, though some of this behaviors can be seen in US men as well. They follow him as he:

• Grooms himself upon waking (cleaning, shaving, etc)
• Selects his clothes for the day
• Thinks about dieting
• Furnishes his home
• Drives his car
• Travels for work
• Reads magazines & newspapers
• Uses electronics
• Stays in a hotel
• Watches TV
• Works out at the gym
• Drinks alcohol
• Eats dinner
• And, of course, has sex

As you can see, this covers just about every common activity a typical modern man has to do, short of personal hobbies & interests.

After each chapter frames the day in the life vignette, Tungate goes into the market research behind each behavior and quotes from numerous sources. Loads of anecdotal evidence is provided with each. Then a short & succinct summary, called a Branding Toolkit, is provided that nicely closes each chapter.

If you're a marketer for any kind of product or service aimed at men, you'll find this book interesting and chock full of useful tidbits, like juicy raisins in bland oat bran. For me, who hasn't had to do marketing for men before, I learned a lot from Branded Male. I especially liked the brief history lesson of men's fashion and how the modern-day suit came to be—apparently a "dandy" by the name of George "Beau" Brummell set the template for what is now the business suit.

The Cons

I found the numerous quoted sources a bit tiresome after a while. There are sections in the book where every other chapter is a quote from another source. While I appreciate the exhaustive research he's done, the quotes became distracting after a while.

This isn't a complaint at all, but US readers will notice that Tungate uses lots of UK spellings and phrases throughout the book. Lots of "colour" instead of "color", "looking smart" instead of "looking handsome" (or maybe, "looking sharp"), and "11.30" o'clock time notation instead of "11:30" o'clock time notation. Not a surprise at all, since he's a British journalist.

I really didn't have any complaints about this book. Fun read, useful information, good organization… I think I may actually check out some of Tungate's other books too, if they're as good as this one.

You know what's cool about having a blog? Other than it being a exhibitionistic platform for vanity, public self-inflection, and personal branding, I mean.

It also means getting free stuff! A PR firm recently sent me the book Family Wars: Classic Conflicts in Family Business and How to Deal with Them by Grant Gordon & Nigel Nicholson, in the hopes that I'd mention it. So in the interest of full disclosure, let me get that out of the way first.

The Pros

Coincidentally, I've always thought it would be cool to have a family-run business. Not like a "operate from the back room of the Bada Bing" type family business. More like a business legacy that I can pass down to my children and children's children.

Having such a business can be fraught with backstabbing, cheating, lying, and betraying, so say the authors. In their book, they list countless case studies, from IBM & Ford to the Mondavi & Gallo wineries. There's also the rivalry of Adidas & Puma and the in-fighting at the LA Times, U-Haul, Gucchi, Guiness, Redstone, and many many more. Each example goes into detail about their family dynamics and individual personalities, making each sound more like a soap opera than a business case study.

The book is organized like a sandwich. The first chapter starts out with their psychological theories on family conflicts. Then there are six meaty chapters of back-to-back case studies. The last chapter follows up with a conclusion and reiteration of their theories.

My main takeaways from this book are:

• Learn how to be a good parent.
• Make sure you raise emotionally and socially intelligent children.
• Make sure you teach your children how to do the same for their children, and their children's children.
• And for goodness sake, don't spoil your kids!

There's actually a lot more to it than that. The authors prescribe a few formulas for dealing with various scenarios in the last chapter. These include pratical tips such as, "develop career plans for family members", "clarify roles of all working family members", and "agree to a policy for objective third-party oversight of the leadership selection process by independent directors, trustees and/or close advisors." That looks to be some very sound advice to me.

The Cons

For better or worse, contemporary authors of business & psychology books seem to have fallen into a particular writing style formula. Books like Freakonomics, The Tipping Point, The World is Flat, How Doctors Think, and Emotional Intelligence all do it. And for the mass market, I think it works. The formula is this:

Start each chapter with an anecdote. Make it fun and dramatic. Engage the reader with a real story about real people. Then go into the analysis, theory, and data of your point. In other words, start the chapter sounding like a story from a piece of fiction, then go into the relatively drier prose of your non-fiction.

Gordon & Nicholson don't follow that approach, making their book a slower read than its contemporary peers. So if you like that particular writing style, you're going to find Family Wars tougher to digest.

Perhaps it's the academic background of Nicholson (a professor of organizational behavior at London Business School), but I found the prose quite verbose as well. I would love to give the authors a copy of On Writing Well if I could. Hell, I wish I could give every writer in academia a copy of that book.

The analysis at the end of each case study seems a bit sparse too. To their credit, they unearthed an amazing amount of personal information about these companies. From all of that hard work, I expected a deeper analysis of each company and family. Sadly, this wasn't the case.

Still, the book is worth it just for the detailed case studies alone. Not only are they an entertaining read (especially if you like soap operas), but they'll give you insight into family-run businesses too.