Best of TOC is a collection of essential posts from the last 12 months, selected from the TOC blog and a number of external sources.One of the mantras at Tools of Change is "fail forward fast," which is an alliterative way of encouraging experimentation. That's why we felt it appropriate to use Best of TOC as a testing ground for a "Web-to-book" process. As we hoped, experimentation led to lessons we wouldn't have learned otherwise.The material in Best...

A radical blueprint for universal housing meets an unflinching assessment of why we haven't won—from the bestselling author of Capital CityIn the fight for housing, we are caught between the world we know and the world we want. A Right to Housing? offers both a roadmap and a reckoning. Drawing from his own experiences of on-the-ground organizing, Stein lays out practical policies for enacting a right to shelter, a right to a home,...

Trucks! Counting! Tire-eating aliens! This wonderful, rhyming, super-silly book has it ALL...including Bob Staake's awesome artwork.THE RUNAWAY NO-WHEELER is a clever spin on a counting book and the perennial favorite, a book starring trucks. Tony is a sturdy, long-hauling 18-wheeler with a delivery to make, but many obstacles are in the way -- from potholes to slime to rescue missions to aliens' space rockets. In the style of counting classics like Dr. Seuss' ...

Look out below! Let your creativity soar as toys of all shapes and sizes squeak, zip, and whirl across the page.If you’re game, open up the world’s wackiest toy chest, where anything and everything can turn into nonstop, action-packed fun. Once again, Peter Stein’s playful verse and Bob Staake’s uproarious illustrations come together in an explosion of color and whimsy, while imagination takes center stage as the best toy of all. Toys Galore is one playground you won’t want to miss...

The process of user-centered innovation: how it can benefit both users and manufacturers and how its emergence will bring changes in business models and in public policy.Innovation is rapidly becoming democratized. Users, aided by improvements in computer and communications technology, increasingly can develop their own new products and services. These innovating users—both individuals and firms—often freely share their innovations with others, creating user-innova...

On a summers day in June, two months to the day after the sinking of the Titanic, the United States Olympic team, smartly dressed in new uniforms and preceded by a brass band, makes it's way through cheering crowds and a blizzard of confetti to New York harbor.Awaiting them the flower bedecked SS Finland, chartered transport to Stockholm, Sweden, host of the 1912 games.Among it's members, twenty three year old All American football star Jim Thorpe and his coach Glen "Pop" War...

After a murder at Bonaire Elementary, Richard and Anna Lee Gray seek a good school for their son Nick in a safe neighborhood. Their search leads them to Malliford, a "school of excellence." When redistricting sends scores of minority students to Malliford, iron-willed Principal Estelle Rutherford declares war on kids to raise test scores and save her reputation. Dissident parents revolt, electing Richard to head the Parent-Teacher Organization, and tensions explode. Welcome to Chain Gang E...

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An out and back is a run that starts and ends at the same point. Along the way we are changed. In the end we are back where we started.Amber runs every morning, bakes home cooked meals, and keeps a spotless house. She homeschools her children, grows an organic garden and milks her own goats. But Amber Stonewall is not perfect. She is a mother who fails, a wife who is unable to show affection, a daughter who is absent and a sister who knows it all. When her mom dies, it all slaps he...

Now there is a text that provides students with a comprehensive blueprint for supervisory practice in the field of education. In Supervision in Education Bernadette Marczely draws on her expertise in both law and education to fully explain different methods of supervision and to carefully identify the legal issues that drive each approach. The book presents the information future educational administrators need to know, plus it offers helpful pointers on what they need to do. Students will...

This book is a gem, if only for the list of creative words Patti had generously put together, to save the budding writer the time and effort of having to do so.Thanks Patti. Jeremy Poole.Includes Bonus reading includes Writing Tips from Authors.Participating Authors.David Bishop - The WomanSuzy Turner - The Ghost Of Josiah GrimshawElla Medler - Blood Is Power.Kenneth Hoss - Deadly Storm.Patricia Puddle - Ominous Love.Tarek H...

Seven-year old Henry Burrows is anxious to know whether Santa Claus is real. In the face of his father's lay-off and his mother's fears that Christmas might not come this year, it grows harder to believe. It would take a miracle for his family to celebrate Christmas now. The kind of miracle that only the real Santa could provide. If the old man in the Sears & Roebuck store can somehow grant Henry's wish …