Ultimate Questions

Health, finance, family, the future - life is full of questions. There are deeper questions, too. Who am I Why am I here? Where am I going? Does life have any purpose? But the ultimate questions are about God. Does he exist? What is he like? Can I know him and experience his power in my life? And if so, how? This booklet tackles these vital questions head-on - and answers them simply, clearly and directly. Read it carefully. It could change your life - for ever.

Health, finance, family, the future - life is full of questions. There are deeper questions, too. Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? Does life have any purpose? But the ultimate questions are about God. Does he exist? What is he like? Can I know him and experience his power in my life? And if so, how? This booklet tackles these vital questions head-on - and answers them simply, clearly and directly. Read it carefully. It could change your life - for ever.

How to live meaningfully in the face of the unknowable We human beings had no say in existing—we just opened our eyes and found ourselves here. We have a fundamental need to understand who we are and the world we live in. Reason takes us a long way, but mystery remains. When our minds and senses are baffled, faith can seem justified—but faith is not knowledge. In Ultimate Questions, acclaimed philosopher Bryan Magee provocatively argues that we have no way of fathoming our own natures or finding definitive answers to the big questions we all face. With eloquence and grace, Magee urges us to be the mapmakers of what is intelligible, and to identify the boundaries of meaningfulness. He traces this tradition of thought to his chief philosophical mentors—Locke, Hume, Kant, and Schopenhauer—and shows why this approach to the enigma of existence can enrich our lives and transform our understanding of the human predicament. As Magee puts it, "There is a world of difference between being lost in the daylight and being lost in the dark." The crowning achievement to a distinguished philosophical career, Ultimate Questions is a deeply personal meditation on the meaning of life and the ways we should live and face death.

Life's Ultimate Questions is unique among introductory philosophy textbooks. By synthesizing three distinct approaches—topical, historical, and worldview/conceptual systems—it affords students a breadth and depth of perspective previously unavailable in standard introductory texts. Part One, Six Conceptual Systems, explores the philosophies of: naturalism, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, and Aquinas. Part Two, Important Problems in Philosophy, sheds light on: The Law of Noncontradiction, Possible Words, Epistemology I: Whatever Happened to Truth?, Epistemology II: A Tale of Two Systems, Epistemology III: Reformed Epistemology, God I: The Existence of God, God II: The Nature of God, Metaphysics: Some Questions About Indeterminism, Ethics I: The Downward Path, Ethics II: The Upward Path, Human Nature: The Mind-Body Problem and Survival After Death.

Fred Reichheld's 2006 book The Ultimate Question, that question being, "How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend or colleague?"-challenged the conventional wisdom of customer satisfaction programs. It coined the terms 'bad profits' and 'good profits' and pointed to a faster, much more accurate way of gauging customers' real loyalty to a company, introducing a quantitative measure (the Net Promoter Score) for establishing a baseline and effectively tracking changes going forward. Richard Owen and Laura Brooks are co-developers, along with Reichheld, of the methodology behind answering the question. In this book, Owen and Brooks tell how based on a variety of real case studies' to actually embed Net Promoter discipline in organizations of all types.

Helps readers understand the issues and problems in philosophy by reading original materials that demonstrate that philosophy is not about remote questions, but rather issues that lie deep within ourselves. With a blend of classic and contemporary readings, this anthology covers the major topics in philosophy, includes readings by outstanding contemporary philosophers that are enjoyable to read, encourage philosophical thought, and show readers how contemporary philosophers approach philosophical problems, and presents historical readings that show the work of figures in the history of philosophy. For anyone interested in understanding philosophical issues and how they relate to our lives.

In the first edition of this landmark book, business loyalty guru Fred Reichheld revealed the question most critical to your company’s future: “Would you recommend us to a friend?” By asking customers this question, you identify detractors, who sully your firm’s reputation and readily switch to competitors, and promoters, who generate good profits and true, sustainable growth. You also generate a vital metric: your Net Promoter Score. Since the book was first published, Net Promoter has transformed companies, across industries and sectors, constituting a game-changing system and ethos that rivals Six Sigma in its power. In this thoroughly updated and expanded edition, Reichheld, with Bain colleague Rob Markey, explains how practitioners have built Net Promoter into a full-fledged management system that drives extraordinary financial and competitive results. With his trademark clarity, Reichheld: • Defines the fundamental concept of Net Promoter, explaining its connection to your company’s growth and sustained success • Presents the closed-loop feedback process and demonstrates its power to energize employees and delight customers • Shares new and compelling stories of companies that have transformed their performance by putting Net Promoter at the center of their business Practical and insightful, The Ultimate Question 2.0 provides a blueprint for long-term growth and success.

Business growth depends on more than asking a single question. Challenging the widely touted Net Promoter Score (NPS) claims, author Bob E. Hayes provides compelling evidence that, to grow their business, companies need to look beyond this simple question to efforts on improving the entire customer feedback program (CFP). First, customer loyalty consists of three components, advocacy, purchasing, and retention, each providing unique and useful information regarding future business growth. By measuring these three components of customer loyalty, companies will be better able to manage their customer relationships to maximize growth through new and existing customers. Second, because of the diverse business practices companies can employ with respect to their CFPs, there are hundreds of different ways a company can structure its particular program. Some companies have top executive support for their programs while others do not. Some companies integrate their customer feedback data into their daily business processes while others keep them separate. Some companies use customer feedback results as part of their employee incentive programs while other companies rely on more traditional incentive programs. Still some companies conduct in-depth customer research using their feedback data while others rely on basic reporting of their customer feedback data for their customer insight. But are there critical elements of a customer feedback program that are absolutely necessary for its success? Can a company exclude some elements from its program without adversely impacting its effectiveness? How important are certain components in increasing customer loyalty? This book answers these questions. It is a direct result of the author’s scientific research and professional experience in the field of customer satisfaction and loyalty. This book represents the first scientific study that has tried to identify the best practices of customer feedback programs. Hayes formally collected information from many CFP professionals regarding how they structure their CFPs, and identified specific CFP practices that lead to higher levels of customer loyalty. Additionally, he worked first-hand with employees from Microsoft, Oracle, Harris Stratex Networks, Akamai, and American Express Business Travel in gathering insights and case studies to illustrate how to build a world class CFP. Learn why companies should look beyond the NPS as the ultimate question and learn how to design an effective CFP that will help improve the customer experience, increase customer loyalty, and, ultimately, drive business growth. For those unfamiliar with CFPs, the appendices provide detail on methods used in the main body of the book: a discussion on methods of determining customer requirements (those elements of your business that are important to your customers), a complete discussion on how to write survey questions, and brief discussions on particular statistical analysis methods that can help you understand how customer feedback data are analyzed.