Distribution Matters

How Amazon combined branding and relationship marketing with massive distribution infrastructure to become the ultimate service brand in the digital economy.Amazon is ubiquitous in our daily lives―we stream movies and television on Amazon Prime Video, converse with Alexa, receive messages on our smartphone about the progress of our latest orders. In Buy Now, Emily West examines Amazon’s consumer-facing services to investigate how Amazon as a brand grew so quickly and inserted itself into so many aspects of our lives even as it faded into the background, becoming a sort of infrastructure that can be taken for granted. Amazon promotes the comfort and care of its customers (but not its workers) to become the ultimate service brand in the digital economy. West shows how Amazon has cultivated personalized, intimate relationships with consumers that normalize its outsized influence on our selves and our communities. She describes the brand’s focus on speedy and seamless ecommerce delivery

How can we tend the garden of our souls? Meg Funk turns to the wisdom of the desert fathers for the means of removing obstacles to spiritual growth, which include thoughts of food, sex, possessions, a

In Lectio Matters, respected spiritual guide Meg Funk accompanies the reader in exploring the various levels of lectio divina as taught by the ancient church writers and by sharing her own long experi

Humility Matters makes the claims that humility is for a disciple of Jesus Christ what enlightenment is for a Buddhist, realization for a Hindu, surrender for a Muslim, and righteousness for a Jew. It

Cassian taught that real intimacy with God in prayer demands renouncing one's former way of life, the thoughts belonging to that former way of life, and one's very idea of God. In Thoughts Matter, Mar