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If you want to contribute to this site, buy your next books, music CDs, or videos after following this link to Amazon.com. Thanks - Mike)

EDITORS: Most of my columns are published in Computer User or on the Computer User Online site. Computer User has first right for 8 weeks from publication. After that, I would be happy to discuss secondary use with you. Just drop me a line, and we'll work something out!

If the particulars of an article or essay seem stale, but you like the general idea, ask for a rewrite. I'm easy that way.

A Free Gift For You

Get your signed copy of
The NEW Why Teams Don't Work
by Mike & Harvey Robbins
from Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Just click on the book cover!
A fully revised second edition of this award-winning classic
by Harvey Robbins and Michael Finley
Paperback
"The American business approach to workplace teams is filled with powerful subtleties and is also quite different from the Japanese. The phrase, "How come all this quality stuff don't work," nicely sums up the challenge making teams work in America. Authors Robbins and Finley present practical solutions to the problems with and misconceptions about teams that will be valuable to any organization inclined to assign teams to work on legitimate operational issues. Pragmatic team tips covered here include team decision-making, communication skills with teams, reward and recognition ideas, the importance of effective team leadership, and the fundamental factor of organizational culture that could help or hinder team success. The authors swap narration of chapters, enlivening this useful handbook on how to make the commitment to teams a success. Serves well any manager's interest in maximizing productivity and quality improvement with teams. Recommended for all quality professionals." -- Quality World
Winner, Financial Times/Booz Allen & Hamilton Global Business Book Award, Best Management Book - The Americas, 1995

Table of contents and sample chapters of this book...
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"Finley examines the issues of 'computer mania' with clarity, comedy, and comradeship, making us feel that normalcy is within reach. I highly recommend this book to every compulsive computer user -- and to anyone who knows one." -- Steve Deyo
Michael Finley
Paperback
Table of contents and sample chapters of this book...
Why Change Doesn't Work:
Why Initiatives Go Wrong and How to Try Again and Succeed
Harvey Robbins, Michael Finley
Hardcover
Just click on the book cover to order your signed copy for only $12.95.

"This is the first treatise on change we've seen that is actually entertaining. The authors cover human and organizational barriers to change and change theories, and then take a tour of management theory that's guaranteed to upset every reader at one point or another." -- HR ONLINE Table of contents and sample chapters of this book...

Why not bookmark Mike's stories for your weekly enjoyment?

"Lots of us find it a very helpful, human, sometimes humorous, always interesting, often surprising column that has no peer on the freelance market, And, yes, you can use that as a testimonial if it helps."
-- Bill Dowd, Albany Times Union

"No one talks about the ups and downs of technology like Michael Finley. See his columns online at www.mfinley.com. -- James S. Derk, Evansville (IN) Courier
"Editors want everything to fall into a neat little box, and your stuff doesn't do that. You don't write merely about technology, you write about what technology means to us and how it has changed us. I like it." -- John Boxmeyer, St. Paul
I have subscribed to your mailing list for quite a long time. It is always one of my great enjoyments to read your essays.
Hilda Leung, Hong Kong
I LIKE your work. There's a tone - or something - that is very subtle. Like you see the edges of both the object (or the subject you're writing about) and its shadow. Or else your view is just slightly off-register from what most people are so obviously seeing. I don't know. They're just - different.
An Op-Ed Page Editor
Michael, a few months ago I ran across something you wrote about Alvin Toffler. Since that time, I have subscribed to Future Shoes and look forward to reading it each time. I just wanted to say that your writing style is refreshing and your ability to pull green rabbits out of hats and write about them, is unparalleled. Thank you for that.
Monica L. M.