A practical, proven system for finding, applying for, and winning grants for your small business This year alone, there is at least $350 million worth of grant money available for small businesses. But plenty of small businesses will miss out on that money because they either don't know it's there or don't know how to get it. Written by a consultant who helps individuals, local governments, and nonprofits find and receive grant money, Find Grant Funding Now! provides proven, step-by-step guidance on applying for and win the grant money they need to succeed. Utilizing the simple five-step process that the author successfully uses for her own clients, this is virtually the only book on the market dedicated to helping small businesses get grants. It features a wealth of valuable resources and even a customized Grant Readiness Assessment Tool that helps entrepreneurs and small business owners make sure they're fully prepared before they file the paperwork. Includes a proven and effective Five-Step Prosperity Process for finding and landing grants Features sample forms, checklists, budgets, merit reviews, 30- and 60-day grant project management plans, and more Written by the founder of a full-service funding firm that helps entrepreneurs, communities, universities, trade associations, and cooperatives obtain grant funds from governments and foundations If you need cash to start or expand your small business, Find Grant Funding Now! offers a practical system that gets real results.
Learn crucial AutoCAD tools and techniques with this Autodesk Official Press Book Quickly become productive using AutoCAD 2014 and AutoCAD LT 2014 with this full color Autodesk Official Press guide. This unique learning resource features concise, straightforward explanations and real-world, hands-on exercises and tutorials. Following a quick discussion of concepts and goals, each chapter moves on to an approachable hands-on exercise designed to reinforce real-world tactics and techniques. Compelling, full-color screenshots illustrate tutorial steps, and chapters conclude with related and more open-ended projects to further reinforce the chapter's lessons. Starting and ending files for the exercises are also available for download, so you can compare your results with those of professionals. You'll follow a workflow-based approach that mirrors the development of projects in the real world, learning 2D drawing skills, editing entities, working with splines and polylines, using layers and objects, creating and editing text, dimensioning, modeling in 3D, and much more. Hands-on exercises and their downloadable tutorial files are based on the real-world task of drawing a house Covers crucial features and techniques, including 2D drawing working with layers, organizing objects with groups and blocks, using hatch patterns and gradients, using constraints and layouts, importing data, 3D modeling, and Includes content to help prepare you for Autodesk's AutoCAD certification program AutoCAD 2014 and AutoCAD LT 2014 Essentials is the Autodesk Official Press guide that helps you quickly and confidently learn the newest version of AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT.
Common Core Literacy for ELA, History/Social Studies, and the Humanities In this age of the Common Core State Standards, all content area teachers must integrate literacy standards into their curriculum. If you're like most content area educators, you're feeling a bit overwhelmed at the thought of applying the new standards, or you might just need a little extra help. In this hands-on resource, Common Core literacy expert Katherine McKnight offers secondary teachers a clear understanding of what literacy looks like in English Language Arts (ELA), social studies, and other humanities-related subjects. She gives educators proven teaching techniques that will help them to develop literacy skills in their students. The book offers a wealth of practical strategies and activities that content area teachers can integrate seamlessly. Included are A selection of activities that support literacy skills and build content knowledge Ideas for implementing the literacy requirements of the Common Core in specific content areas An easy-to-use Difficulty Dial that indicates the complexity of each activity Robust student samples that bring the activities to life across a variety of grade levels Praise for Common Core Literacy for ELA, History/Social Studies, and the Humanities «McKnight eloquently dispels much of the mythology surrounding the new standards, and explains how to help students find success. You'll find this engaging book your 'go-to' resource for implementing the Common Core!» – Richard M. Cash, Ed.D., Educational Consultant; Author, Advancing Differentiation: Thinking and Learning for the 21st Century «While this book would be a gift to any beginning teacher, its practical and comprehensible support for literacy as defined by the Common Core State Standards makes it a must-have for all teachers.» – Laura Garner, Language Arts Coordinator, Berkeley County (South Carolina) Public Schools «This is a must-read for all middle and high school content area teachers! McKnight shows how every strategy in the book supports student achievement of the Common Core.» – LeAnn Nickelsen, M.Ed., Educational Consultant; Coauthor, Deeper Learning and Bringing the Common Core to Life in K – 8 Classrooms
Edit and apply effects for stellar visual and special effects This important resource is like having a personal instructor guiding you through each lesson, while you work at your own pace. Each self-paced lesson lets you discover essential skills and explore the new features and capabilities of Adobe After Effects CC (Creative Cloud). Every lesson is presented in full color with step-by-step instructions. Video tutorials and lesson files on a companion DVD were developed by the same team of professional instructors and After Effects experts who have created many of the official training titles for Adobe Systems. Combines a full-color, step-by-step instructional book along with lesson files and video training from expert instructors Written for After Effects CC, a leading motion graphics and visual effects program that allows users to create and deliver compelling motion graphics and visual effects Demonstrates how to quickly get up to speed using After Effects to create and animate text, images, and video for the web, TV, and digital displays After Effects CC Digital Classroom takes you from the basics through intermediate-level topics, teaching you this complex software in a clear, approachable manner. DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of the e-book file, but are available for download after purchase.
A visual and interactive guide to building and communicating strategies that actually work YOUR STRATEGY HAS SEVEN SECONDS TO CAPTIVATE ITS AUDIENCE… So how are you going to present it? A big wordy document? A lengthy address? Slides full of bullet points? The best way to engage and involve people is through pictures. Strategy Builder shows you how to creatively combine the best strategy frameworks to orient and animate strategy discussion and development in your team. This visual, interactive guide, with illustrations by Visory, uses real world examples and practical tips to help you: Discover the five key foundations that every strategy should be built upon Draw compelling and unique pictures that capture your organization’s distinct strategies Develop your skills as a leader of strategy discussions Understand how to use interactive drawing to engage others and achieve ‘buy in’ Additional online resources available including Strategy Drawing Templates, plus Builder Slides and case studies materials for instructors. Locate the 'Companion Website' link towards the bottom of this page to access these materials. Test your strategic vision or develop a new strategic plan based on the best elements of key strategic frameworks by trying the FREE interactive Strategy Builder app, developed in association with StrategyBlocks, at www.strategicplan.com Praise for Strategy Builder: Cummings & Angwin are pioneers in introducing novel approaches in teaching and applying the principles of strategy –Robert M. Grant, Bocconi University, author of Contemporary Strategy Analysis In a complex, fast changing world, where we are bombarded by words, numbers and reports, the visual-first approach to strategy provided by Strategy Builder is immensely helpful for inspiring and communicating a clearer vision of how to move forward. – Rachna Bhasin, VP Strategy, SiriusXM At last someone has grasped this idea and come up with a way to help us demonstrate strategic plans and ambitions in a creative new way. –Vikki Heywood CBE, Chair of The Royal Society for the Arts This wonderful book is the first to solve a near-universal problem: communicating strategic ideas is just as hard and just as important as coming up with them in the first place, and both are visual activities. The question is not “Do you understand?” but “Do you see?” –William Duggan, Professor, Columbia University, author Strategic Intuition This book shows how to draw an organization's strategy so you see what's been considered, what's not been considered, and how things are related,. Strategy building is presented as a fun and involving learning process.The approach is revolutionary in that it enables not only the development but also the easy sharing of strategic understanding. –Roger L.M. Dunbar, Emeritus Professor, Stern School of Business, New York University What a great idea! They layout is also really thoughtful; it makes you immediately want to get out a pencil and start doodling. –Adam Martin, Customer Solutions Director, The Brakes Group As a time pressed executive it was a delight to find a book that I can dip into to find the best strategic frameworks – those that have proved the test of time and academic scrutiny as being truly useful in the workplace. Even better for an inveterate scribbler: endorsement that a picture and ‘permission to play’ with ideas visually really does say a thousand words and more! –Sarah Mitson, Global Business Director, TNSGlobal This is an invaluable resource for any executive wanting to improve engagement in strategy development and c
HOPE IS ON THE WAY! “I firmly believe that what will make you a master teacher is not the advice I give you; what will make you a master teacher is that you figure out how to solve those challenges on your own, in your own way.” —From the Preface As a new teacher you face numerous challenges. Right from the start you must learn how to manage a class full of restless students; develop productive relationships with fellow teachers, administrators, and parents; and design engaging lesson plans that will meet ever-increasing levels of accountability all while building a life for yourself in the process. It can be overwhelming and sometimes you can feel like you’re all alone. And yet, you came to this profession because you want to make a difference. How do you juggle the demands of the profession and find your own voice, your own teaching style, your own teaching self? The good news is that you can do this. In this down-to-earth, inspirational book, bestselling author Robyn Jackson offers encouragement and real-world advice for navigating those difficult years as a beginning teacher. Sharing stories from her own humbling first years as a new teacher, Robyn helps you tackle challenges such as motivating students, planning effective lessons, building relationships with parents, bouncing back from embarrassing mistakes, and finding your own authority as a teacher. She also helps you find success outside the classroom with practical pointers for living on a teacher’s salary and carving out time to have a life of your own. With candor and a good deal of wit, she gently guides you to develop your own teaching style and, ultimately, to find your own path toward mastery. Robyn speaks to new educators as a trusted mentor, one who knows how to navigate the tricky terrain of “new teacherdom”—and knows how rich and rewarding the payoff will be. If you’re new to the profession or know someone about to embark on a teaching career,You Can Do Thisis the essential roadmap to succeeding as a new educator both inside and outside the classroom.
The financial services world is changing. Technology is enabling an automated approach to investing that should bring down the cost of commodity services. No longer do you have to fund the lifestyle of a broker or advisor to have him tell you how to diversify or where to find the next investment that cannot be missed. This book will provide the tools for calculators that tell you most of what you need to know; from how much insurance you need to have to how you should diversify. The book will help readers with the following: Understand what you have Plan your long-term goals Start to save (maximizing your 401k) Reduce debt Run your Monte Carlo Simulation Determine the appropriate asset allocation Set up your auto-rebalancing and periodically (annually, perhaps) re-examining your asset allocation to account for globalization Deploy the asset mix through low cost, tax-efficient strategies Look at it once per year This book will provide a better understanding of your investment decisions. But, we all cannot be do-it-yourselfers. Advisors serve as an important resource for consumers when they are both capable and understand their duty to serve you, the customer, first. To complement their moral station, they must have the skills to deliver appropriate advice. The book, much like the company Steve founded, will simplify standards for consumers and audit advisors to those standards.
A provocative, personal approach to leadership based on in-depth research with hundreds of executives around the world Confronted by disruptive change and economic turbulence, many of today's leaders find themselves ill-equipped to manage the hazards they now face. They must contend with chronic uncertainty, cynical employees, and personal burnout. Most are poorly served by the prevailing paradigm that obsessively focuses on what we do to produce short-term results while sabotaging who we are as healthy human beings. Few have seen alternatives, until now. Grounded proposes a new approach that's designed for actual humans who must grapple with these forces. This new paradigm speaks to our better selves. Based on the author's Healthy Leader model, it focuses on the six personal dimensions that fuel—and refuel—the world's top leaders: physical, emotional, intellectual, social, vocational, and spiritual health. The book argues that leaders at every level can be more self-aware, develop their untapped potential, and drive significantly better results—for themselves, their teams, and their organizations. Shows readers how to build a personal leadership model that works with their values, goals and capabilities Features fresh stories from leaders in a variety of organizations including the New York Fire Department, PricewaterhouseCoopers, The Lego Group, and Medstar Health Gives leaders practical tools to face their toughest challenges with greater skill, confidence, and impact By developing themselves and mastering the six dimensions, readers can gain the stamina and strength to not only weather tough times but to achieve much, much more.
From the Somme to Gallipoli to the home front, First World War For Dummies provides an authoritative, accessible, and engaging introduction to the War to End All Wars. It takes a global perspective of this global conflict, proving insight into the actions and motivations of the participants and how each nation’s story fits into the wider one. Coverage also includes: The origins of the war and a snapshot of what the world looked like at the beginning of the 20th century The battles of Western Europe, and action in the Southern and Eastern Fronts The war at home – the civilian war, propaganda, opposition, politics, protests, and more 1918: The German spring offensive, the Allied success and the beginning of the end The Treaty of Versailles, the League of Nations, and the effect on the future First World War For Dummies is the go-to source for readers seeking to learn more about the fundamental event of the 20th century.
Your all-in-one guide to Adobe's new Creative Cloud Packed with more than a thousand pages of content, Adobe Creative Cloud All-in-One For Dummies is exactly what you need to get your head in the Creative Cloud. Written by designers for designers, this book is filled with useful information and expert instruction that spans eight minibooks to help you get started with Adobe Creative Cloud, InDesign CC, Illustrator CC, Photoshop CC, Acrobat XI, Dreamweaver CC, Flash Professional CC, and Fireworks CC. You'll learn the latest graphic design and web development tools, tricks, and techniques; watch your productivity explode; and unleash your creative genius with this valuable resource. Helps print, web, and mobile media professionals get the very most out of the latest features and techniques available in Adobe Creative Cloud Provides beginners with design basics while providing the depth of coverage sought by more experienced design professionals Covers the key features and tools in seven of Adobe's most popular Creative Cloud applications (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat, Dreamweaver, Flash Professional, and Fireworks) plus a minibook dedicated to Creative Cloud basics From 3D images and vivid illustrations to dynamic web pages and interactive effects, this comprehensive guide shows you how to do it all!