Thoughts from a Grumpy Innovator, Costas Papaikonomosa, Aikona BV Books, €14.99

Costas Papaikonomosa is one of the founders of the creative agency Happen.comand he describes this book as the narcissistic result of posting thoughts on to Twitter for two years. For the most part, then, it's a collection of pearls of wisdom of fewer than 140 characters apiece.

He takes a swipe at the breed of consultants who believe you need to work outside your comfort zone and debunks the notion that market research is a useful and accurate tool for business innovators.

As he puts it, whether its clipboard guys in supermarkets, in call centres or collating online surveys, the feedback they collect is skewed, gleaned mainly from the part of the population too polite to say, “Sorry, I’m not interested”.

The book is packed with witty observations that make serious points.

On innovation decisions, he asserts that one path takes you to endless hard work, missed holidays and possibly divorce and the other path takes you to failure.

Elsewhere, he notes that just as you avoid certain people because they kill your new ideas, they are avoiding you because you always congest their streamlined processes. This book provides numerous tips on how to organise a corporate event. It will be of use to agencies and in-house professionals charged with making a success of a range of events from conferences to corporate entertainment.

The author is an experienced international corporate and public event director who formerly ran an event management agency owned by Saatchi Saatchi.

In any Event, Simon Maier, Bloomsbury, €24.99

The book mixes advice on the nuts and bolts of organising an event with tips on understanding what the client or event sponsor is trying to achieve.

Measurement is very important, he notes. You should consider how the success of the event is going to be measured and put steps in place to achieve those objectives. This is an area that is often neglected and misunderstood so if this isn’t an area of expertise, you should get training or professional advice.

Maier supplements his personal experience with interviews with a range of experts from his contact book. Unfortunately, this is done with pompous and needless references to where and what both parties are drinking or eating during these exchanges. That aside, there’s enough good advice here to merit purchase.The two authors here, both specialists in finance and well known to those who have attended their lectures at the IMI, profess a long-time interest in the subject of costs- reduction. A survey carried out among 100 Irish chief executives in 2003 – when our economy was in rude health – identified cost-reduction as the biggest challenge facing these bosses, they note, and a comprehensive, holistic approach to how to do this was missing in management literature.

This book outlines some of the main tools used by businesses that have undertaken major costs-reduction, in both the public and private sectors.

The first part addresses the level of corporate fitness necessary for survival, while the next approaches costs-reduction from a strategic point of view looking at the issues that the board and senior management need to address.

The book then goes on to describes modern operational tools to analyse and manage costs used by top-class companies and provides advice on how to successful implement costs-reduction programmes.

This is a well-structured and accessible book on a subject all managers are likely to have to address at some stage.

Strategic Cost Reduction, Tim McCormack and Dermot Duff. Chartered Accountants Ireland. €26.99

The two authors here, both specialists in finance and well known to those who have attended their lectures at the IMI, profess a long-time interest in the subject of costs reduction. A survey carried out among 100 Irish chief executives in 2003 – when our economy was in rude health – identified cost-reduction as the biggest challenge facing these bosses, they note, and a comprehensive, holistic approach to how to do this was missing in management literature.

This book outlines some of the main tools used by businesses that have undertaken major costs-reduction, in both the public and private sectors.

The first part addresses the level of corporate fitness necessary for survival, while the next approaches costs-reduction from a strategic point of view looking at the issues that the board and senior management need to address.

The book then goes on to describes modern operational tools to analyse and manage costs used by top-class companies and provides advice on how to successful implement costs-reduction programmes.

This is a well-structured and accessible book on a subject all managers are likely to have to address at some stage