Communication Essentials

 Communication Essentials (The Complete MBA Course Work Series), Hicham and Mohamed Ibnalkadi, 2021

Part of a series that attempts to provide an affordable MBA education, this short book is all about business communications. This book does not cover shaking hands (or fist bumps or elbow bumps) or looking people in the eye or remembering people's names.

Instead, this book looks at advanced persuasive speaking. The goals of persuasive speeches or presentations include stimulating a person to do something, and convincing your audience that your point of view is correct. The types of persuasive speeches are: propositions of fact, of policy and of value. Your audience will range from supportive to hostile. A person connects with an audience through concepts like trustworthiness, being similar to your audience, your reputation and your authority.

Whether you are a politician giving a big public speech, or you are giving a big presentation at work, this book is worth reading. It is very short, less than 30 pages, and can be very helpful.

Introduction to Machine Learning

Introduction to Machine Learning (The Complete MBA Coursework Series), Hicham and Mohamed Ibnalkadi, 2020, self-published

This book is part of a series that attempts to provide an affordable MBA education. It is all about machine learning, the science of making computers act in different ways without being programmed.

For instance, you want a computer to scour the internet looking for pictures of black cats. First, you need to give the computer thousands of pictures of cats of all colors. Then, you might give the computer thousands of pictures of not-cats, so it can learn to distinguish between them. After that, you need to teach the computer the difference between the color black and all other colors. When the computer learns to find black cats in its sample pictures, then you can unleash it on the internet.

This book talks about different types of machine learning, including supervised and unsupervised learning, reinforcement and deep reinforcement learning. It also talks about decision trees, the Bayes Theorem, natural language processing and neural networks.

Automation, and artificial intelligence, is part of daily life in present-day business. This book provides a very good overview of the field. It will help the reader to ride the AI wave, and not be swamped by it.

Social Networking Essentials

 Social Networking Essentials (The Complete MBA Course Work Series), Hicham and Mohamed Ibnalkadi, 2021

This book is part 7 of a series that attempts to provide an affordable MBA education. These days, it is tempting to think that the online business networking that matters takes place online. This book looks mostly at offline social networking.

Consider joining appropriate trade organizations. Attend conferences and trade shows. Attend networking events sponsored by local organizations. Make use of your university's alumni association. Make sure that have an online presence; start with LinkedIn. Start your own network of co-workers inside your workplace.

You have to give value, before your get value. Help others in your network, with introductions or references, for instance, before you ask for help. Perfect your "elevator pitch."

For entrepreneurs, help out others, use every opportunity to meet new people, go to networking events alone, so that you are forced to talk to people, meet people from other industries, and bring plenty of business cards. If you are looking for a new job, tell your network. How can they help you with names and phone numbers of people to contact, if you don't tell them? It's also possible to network at a new job; start with those sitting near you.

This is a short book (less than 50 pages) and is very easy to read. It is recommended for everyone, from MBA students to small business owners to employees at large companies. Not all networking happens online.

Digital Marketing and E-Commerce

Digital Marketing and E-Commerce (The Complete MBA Coursework Series), Hicham and Mohamed Ibnalkadi, 2021

Part of a series, this book attempts to give a short overview of the world of digital marketing.

The book starts by looking at "traditional" marketing. Some sort of marketing plan is needed, ahead of time. Segmentation of the market is also very important. Who is your customer? Don't say "everybody." What makes your product or service different from the rest of the market? The next thing to consider id the marketing mix (product, place, price and promotion).

Today, there are many more marketing avenues. Come up with several different ads, or several different versions of the same ad. What works on Instagram will not work on Twitter. An ad that works on Facebook will not work on Snapchat. There are ways to analyze how well each ad is working. How many people are clicking on your ad? How many of those people actually buy your product?

For millions of people all over the world, access to the Internet is through their cellphone. The average online banner ad will not work on a cellphone. There are a number of ways to reach a potential customer, like through SMS or text messages. Overall, don't ignore older marketing methods, like email mailing lists, and video marketing through YouTube.

This does a really good job at presenting an overview of the world of digital marketing. It is recommended for MBA students. It is also recommended for small and large business owners who want to start digital marketing. This is very much worth reading.

100 Business Math Questions and Answers

100 Business Math Questions and Answers (The Complete MBA CourseWork Series Book 2), Hicham  and Mohamed Ibnalkadi, 2021

The business problems described in this book (with answers explained) are not bookkeeping or accounting questions. These questions and answers involve calculus and linear algebra.

For anyone who loves math, this book is recommended. It is especially recommended for anyone who is on the journey toward getting their MBA. For the average reader, this book can be skipped.

Introduction to Econometrics

Introduction to Econometrics (The Complete MBA Course Work Series Book 1), Hicham and Mohamed Ibnalkadi, 2020

First in a series that attempts to provide an entire MBA course, as taught by top universities, This book is all about econometrics. It is "the unified assimilation of economic models, economic data and mathematical statistics."

An important part of creating these economic models is the quality of the data ("Garbage In, Garbage Out"). Is the data clean and legitimate? Is it reliable? Is it usable by the company creating the model? Is the data in the right standard of measurement? Make sure of the quality of the data before creating a model that ends up being worthless.

Now what do you do with this data? Do you know calculus? There is a lot of it in this book. The data goes into models with names like Linear Regression  Model and Classical Linear Regression Model. The reader will also be introduced to Ordinal Regression Models, multicollinearity and heteroscedasticity.

This book is recommended for anyone who enjoys calculus. It is also recommended for anyone who has started the journey toward getting their MBA. For the average reader, well, maybe not. This book gets four stars, maybe four-and-a-half stars.