If you have been living in a cave for the last 71 years and missed the work of management guru, Peter F. Drucker, here is your chance to catch up. I just finished reading The Essential Drucker, a weighty tome of 368 pages which summarized the high points and pearls of wisdom of the author?s 38 books published since 1939.

A self described ?social ecologist?, Drucker was a journalist who moved to Germany because job prospects in his native Austria-Hungary were so poor following its defeat in WWI. He became a close friend of Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, who popularized the term ?creative destruction,? and attended lectures by John Maynard Keynes. He fled to the US in 1934 after his writings were burned by the Nazis.

For most of human history, armies were the predominant management model, and most corporations today show the military influence. Management only emerged as a science during the 1920?s, and Drucker was one of the founding fathers. Early adopters, like Coca Cola, DuPont, IBM, and General Electric, went on to prosper mightily.

He observed that Franklin Delano Roosevelt set up the most productive administration in history. Even a single step was so painful for him that he, and all those who worked around him, had to organize the government with the maximum efficiency possible. This was a key element in America?s victory in WWII.

Drucker writes at length on the risks and opportunities of entrepreneurship, and argues that all companies must innovate, or die, no matter how pedestrian their product. He predicted many of the trends that came to dominate the late 20^th and early 21^st century, such as privatization, decentralization, globalization, and the rise of the knowledge worker. He had a huge following when I was in Japan during the seventies, and his mark can be seen in today?s global presence of the major Japanese Keiretsu.

While most people define a company in terms of producing products and making a profit, Drucker sees its mission as ?creating a customer.? He presents a rigorous process for decision making. He lauds non profits as the best run organizations in the country because they have to be. Groups like the Girl Scouts, the Red Cross, and United Way maintain an effective global presence without paying their people any money. He makes the distinction between efficiency and effectiveness; doing things well, versus doing the right thing.

Anyone who manages any business of whatever size, from a Fortune 500 company to a single individual banging away on a PC at home, will benefit from reading this book. It forces you to take a look at your own operation with a fresh set of eyes. It even advises on how to manage one?s own time, from dispensing with unnecessary meetings to minimizing paperwork and bureaucracy.

Drucker moved to California during the seventies, where he set up one of the early MBA programs for Claremont College. He died in 2005 at the age of 96. To obtain preferential pricing from Amazon for this insightful book, please click here.

Hey! You there, staring at this monitor. This is your PC talking to you. No, not you over there standing in the background. I?m talking to the guy sitting in front of me poking at my keys. Ouch! That one hurt!

So you thought no one was watching, did you? Let me set you straight. About a month ago you clicked on a certain website, and I installed myself as a cookie on your computer, which is an innocuous little text file that you can?t see. Since then, I have been tracking your every move, recording websites you clicked on, the pages you visited, and the stuff you ordered. I then used this handy little algorithm to build a profile of exactly who you are. I now know you better than your own mother. In fact, I know you better than you know yourself.

For example, I am aware that you make more than $250,000 a year, live in a posh zip code in San Francisco, belong to a fancy country club, and drive a Mercedes. You donate to Republican political causes, send your kids to a prestigious private school, and bill it all to an American Express Platinum Card. Did I leave anything out?

Because I know every detail of your life, down to your inside leg measurement, I am able to harness the power of this machine to more precisely service your every need. That includes directing advertising to you, which you have a high probability of clicking on. The more you click on my ads, the higher prices I can realize for those ads. The ad campaigns you now see are unique to your own personal computer because they are tied to your IP address. My program, called ?behavioral targeting? is the next ?big thing? in online advertising. It?s all part of the brave new world.

I see you have been shopping for a new car. Check out the new Hyundai at http://www.hyundaiusa.com/, which offers the same quality as your existing ride, at half the price. Your clicks this morning suggest you?re taking your ?significant other? out to dinner tonight. Might I suggest Gary Danko?s on Bay Street at http://www.garydanko.com/site/bio.html ? The rack of lamb is to die for there.

Your visits to Travelocity and Expedia tell me you?re planning a vacation. I bet you didn?t know you can find incredible deals in Las Vegas at http://www.visitlasvegas.com/vegas/index.jsp . Thinking about buying a condo there? They?ll even pay for the trip if you promise to check one out while you?re there.

Since we?re chatting here mano a mano, I noticed that that last pair of jeans you ordered from http://us.levi.com/home/index.jsp had a 42-inch waist, up from the 40?s in your last order. Better lay off those cheeseburgers. Pretty soon, they?ll be calling you ?tubby? or ?fatso?. Better visit http://www.weightwatchers.com/Index.aspx soon, or the legs on that chair might buckle out from under you.

Worried about privacy? Privacy, shmivacy. There hasn?t been privacy in this country since the first social security number was handed out in 1936. And don?t expect any relief from Congress. I doubt half those dummies even know how to turn on their own PC?s.

Don?t even think about trying to delete me. I?m a ?flash cookie?, an insidious little piece of code that reinstalls every time you try that. Think of me as a toenail fungus. Once you catch me, I?m almost impossible to get rid of.

I hope you don?t mind, but I?ve been passing your personal details around to some of my buddies at other websites. That?s why when you clicked on http://www.nfl.com/ you got deluged with product offers from your local team, the San Francisco 49ers. I?ve got friends at Google, Facebook, MySpace, and pretty much everywhere. Can I help it if I?m a popular guy? I bet the view from those 50-yard seats is great, isn?t it?

I noticed that your spending habits don?t exactly match with the income you reported on your last tax return. Do you think the IRS would like to know about that? I bet you didn?t know the agency offers a 10% reward for turning in tax cheats.

How about those triple XXX DVD?s you bought last week? Whoa! Hot, hot, hot! I hope your employer never finds out about those. It might not go down too well at your next performance review.

I thought it was lovely that you bought your spouse a two carat, yellow, vvs1, round cut diamond ring for $26,000 from http://www.bluenile.com/ for your 30^th wedding anniversary. But who is Lolita, the Argentine firecracker, in Miami Beach? Does the old wifey know you sent her a $2,000 pair of diamond stud earrings? What?s it worth to you for me to keep mum on this? Maybe you should take a quick peak at? 3StepDivorce.com at http://www.3stepdivorce.com? and see what you?re in for?

Naw, I?m just pulling your leg. This is all just between friends, right? Think of it as a doctor/patient relationship. I?ll tell you what. See that leaderboard ad at the top of the page? Just click on that and we?ll call it even. Oooh that felt good! Click it again. Oh, baby! Not too many times. You?ll trigger my anti click fraud program.

Now you see that wide skyscraper add over on the right? Click on that too. Oh baby! Click it again! And there?s a little button ad at the bottom of the page. No, not that one. A little lower. What was that little cutie?s name in Miami again? Aaaaah.