Most leadership books recycle old leadership theories by using different anecdotes to illustrate the same points as previous books. Not so with this book. I would say this is among 5 or so leadership books (that I've read) that is truly groundbreaking. It reminds me a little bit of another pathbreaking book--Howard Gardner's Leading Minds. Anyone who enjoyed that book will certainly love this one. Policy making is not my strong suit, but I feel much more informed about the subject after reading this book. Schon and Rein show how past ways of handling policy controversies are insufficient and that a new way (frame reflection) is necessary to end policy stalemates and pendulum swings in policy. I can't recommend this book enough. It is not an easy book to read though: it will take some time to digest all the ideas in this small tome. But its well worth it. Two thumbs up for this book!

This is an important book. Schon and Rein give a crystal clear explanation of why intractable policy controversies occur, and review the theory base underlying the three most common means of dealing with them: 1) "rational" policy analysis, 2)power politics, and 3)mediated negotiation. They show how each of these depends on assumptions of microeconomics, which do not hold when people hold different "basic values."

The dominant tradition of policy choice, based on the rational actor model hopes to treat disputes as instrumental problems that can be solved through the application of a value-neutral policy science. The political perspective is a pluralist model in which policy making is seen as a political game of multiple rational actors, each with his own interests, freedoms, and powers. Consensual dispute resolution through joint gains is the theme of mediated negotiation.

A large and important class of policy disputes has proven resistant to each of these 3 main traditions. Once the reader can understand why this is so, the authors propose a new 4th way of making sense of intractable policy controversies, which focuses on getting at the underlying structures of belief, perceptiion, and appreciation, which they call "frames."

The idea is that once actors in the dispute can get a better understanding of their underlying assumptions, and frames, they can begin to shift their often tacit and untested ways of seeing the world and the issue. This can lead to better understanding of the arguments each side is making, and a reasoned approach to what "data" is relevant to the situation.

Several case studies are included in the book, which illustrate how this new approach can work.

For anyone struggling to do better on a seemingly unsolvable conflict, this book will help.

Paul Monus bp Chemicals, Lima Ohio

This is a book of papers prepared for publications after a workshop on drop-surface interactions, whether a cold drop on a hot surface or a water drop onto a layer of water; this book studies the various phenomena that can occur when a drop of a given fluid impacts either a solid or liquid material.

It is written by experts in the field including Andrea Prosperetti, Martin Rein, Martin Lesser, Hasan Oguz and S.T. Thoroddsen. All have studied various phenomena of drop interactions: Prosperetti-sound emission on drop impact with liquids, Rein-general drop impact phenomena, Lesser-compressible impact, Oguz-numerical algorithms to solve the Navier-Stokes equations and Thoroddsen-further studies of layer impact. Some papers are in great detail such as Lesser's which is the longest of those involved and others are short notes on new studies.

My interest lies in the numerical approaches for the solutions of the fluid dynamical equations of drop impact. In this regard the later papers especially those of Prosperetti and Oguz, especially, deal with new material clearing up much of the confusion in the plethora of numerical techniques available nowadays.

Note that this book is not a text and is not written in this way, do not expect any such format since all are papers. In other words if you want a general introduction then a couple of papers will concern you but most are very deep analyses of the various phenomena involved, the full research of which is voluminous to say the least. My own PhD review covers most of these areas and itself feels like a book.

The weakest area is still the numerical approaches which because of the various physical scales involve and the presence opf strong discontinuities provides a very challenging mathematical problem indeed, a good deal of which has not been satisfactorily resolved.

A book worth getting for a researcher in the field or a PhD student.

This book is a fundamental to the Celebrity Industry!!!
All Celebrities should know about that book.
Nonetheless I have tried to trace the references of the book and I could not.
There some interesting studies conduct by Northwestern University. I have tried to call them and read them but I end up in dead end.
Moreover there are some referwences that supposed to be direct interviews to a celebrity that I would like to read and this is no possible at all.
Last but not least the book binding is terrible and it is follinng apart after the first month...
I might be using it often????
Anyway I recommed this book to anyone interested in the Celebrity industry!!!

I always wanted to know how some celebs are still around and others aren't. Everyone still talks about Marilyn! And James Dean, and he made, what, 3 movies? So, I thought Rein could answer my questions. He did, but I found Michael Levine's Guerrilla PR: Wired better. Mike covers the how-tos. Irv just does the overall stuff. Still fun to know for Jeopardy, but *how?!* That's what Irv didn't do as well, the down-and-dirty details.

"High Visibility" sheds light in to the sometimes opaque world of publicists and celebrity marketing. Case studies from many different people from all walks of life (atheletes to porn stars)who sought to be in the lime-light are examined throught this book. Why are certain personalities still being sought after since 20 years while others fade away from our memories after only one week? There are many answers but not detailed enough.

I found the most interesting part to be "The Technique of Transformation". Here the authors discuss and show different examples of how a "dying star" made a comeback by redefining their personality and what they represent. Some people are forced to change after a scandle or a peak in performance and must exploit the media in order to thrust their client back on center stage. How the publicist propaganda machine works to take advantage of both print and visual media is explained but I feel it should have been much more detailed. They stopped right when it was becoming very interesting. Then again, maybe this was part of the marketing plan to create more demand for the "High Visibility II".... just joking.

It is a book that all marketing people should read as almost all of the concepts from marketing personalities can be transfered to all products in any industry.