Holden Reviews

It is always a shame when a really great book is badly marketed and consequently does not reach as many professionals and citizens as it should. This is such a book.

What the blurbs don't tell you, such as they are, is that the author was one of the true pioneers in the world of open source intelligence (creating useful actionable intelligence using only legal and ethical sources and methods). His brilliant efforts in the early 1990's were easily a decade ahead of where the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) is today--using a wide variety of Latin American newspapers and lots of brainpower, he was able to create tactical intelligence that contributed significantly to the success of operational missions by the U.S. Southern Command and the Drug Enforcement Administration, leading the destruction of cocaine laboratories, the interdiction of aircraft, and the arrest of key people in the transnational criminal structure.

This book is an essential reference for any agency or command library concerned with asymmetric warfare, unconventional threats, and non-traditional methods of providing intelligence support to those responsible for dealing with anything other than traditional war. The sources and methods that the author discusses are especially pertinent to the study of terrorism, proliferation, transnational crime, cross-national toxic dumping, and other sub-state and non-state threats.

First, unlike other books that teach spreadsheet modeling, the spreadsheets that come on the CD ROM are not finished products. Instead the author has chosen spreadsheets that use dynamic charts to illustrate concepts in an interactive manner (drag a control to change the parameters and the chart changes - this is a powerful teaching tool in or out of the classroom).

Second, the book needs to be read in sequence because spreadsheets you build in one chapter are the basis for refinements and added complexity in later chapters. This leads to highly complex spreadsheets, such as the model in chapter 16 (Life-Cycle Financial Planning), which incorporates tax parameters (federal and state levels), benefits analysis and other factors.

In all there are 53 spreadsheets presented in this book, and you build them. The author calls this "active learning" (as opposed to passive learning where you are provided templates), and it is effective because you are the one who builds the models and tools while following the book. Note that this book does NOT purport to teach Excel programming, but how to build models using Excel's basic features and functions.

As a consultant and project manager the parts of this book that were immediately useful to me were: Parts I (Time Value of Money), III (Capital Budgeting) and IV (Financial Planning). In particular, project management requires a thorough understanding of time value of money and capital budgeting, and the chapters in these sections should be read by anyone who is assigned as a project manager. Financial planning, especially from the perspective of IT asset management, is another knowledge area in which IT consultants should be well versed.

The other parts of the book (II Valuation and V Options and Corporate Finance) will be more useful to finance professionals and general business managers. There is a collection of supporting material on the author's web site that augment this book, including spreadsheets that can be downloaded. Another plus for the working professional is the book is fast-paced and, dare I say, engrossing.