Dear BNET reader,

Based on popularity and your feedback, we've pulled together the best of BNET's Crash Courses and Book Briefs for our first annual year-end roundup. It's clear that 2007 was the year of personal management. Your favorites included stories on how to build better rapport with your boss, play the office politics game, and get organized with "Getting Things Done." Is there something you'd like to see more of at BNET next year? Let us know!

Must-Read Crash Courses

How to Manage Your Boss
It would be nice if success rested solely upon your competence at your job, but that's only half of the picture. The other half is your boss. Here are five steps to building better rapport with your manager so that she'll keep your best interests in mind.

• Watch the Video: Smart or stupid, friendly or frigid, helpful or hindrance - you don't get to pick who will be your boss. Try these tips to master the proper care and feeding of the most important relationship in your career.

How to Run an Effective Meeting
Have you ever sat through a pointless meeting and calculated just how much money was being wasted as a dozen well-paid professionals zoned out around a deathly boring conference table? Making them better isn't simply a matter of ordering coffee and bagels (or even pretzels and beer). Our Crash Course will help you make your meetings matter.

• Calculate the Cost: Use the Meeting Miser at BNET to keep a tab on how much your company is actually spending to get everyone ‘round the table.
  
• Watch the Video: "Most meetings are boring, that's why no one wants to go to them," says Bert Decker, a communications expert, best-selling author and entrepreneur. Here are Decker's tips on how to keep your meeting attendees engaged.

How to Win at Office Politics
In its purest form, office politics is simply about getting from here to there: securing a promotion, seeing an idea come to fruition, or gaining support to make an organizational change. Here's a step-by-step guide to earning respect, exchanging favors, and keeping your sanity amid the chaos.

• Watch the Video: There is such a thing as positive office politics. We'll help you understand the rules of engagement.

How to Get Started with Getting Things Done
David Allen's "Getting Things Done" time-management system may sound esoteric with terms like "knowledge work" and "distributed cognition," but in practice it's cheap and very much do-it-yourself. If you don't have the book yet, our BNET Crash Course is a good introduction to the GTD way of life.

• Watch the video: The man describes his method in his own words.

Must-See Book Briefs

How to Maintain a Jerk-Free Office
In this highly rated, reader-recommended Book Brief, Robert Sutton, author of "The No ***hole Rule," explains how jerks can cost companies up to $160,000 a year and what you can do about them.

Why Staying Small Works
Author Bo Burlingham in his book, "Small Giants," challenges the idea that successful businesses have to get as big as possible as fast as possible.

Confessions of a Serial Entrepreneur
Stuart Skorman recounts the ups and downs of his high-stakes career, from founding online video store Reel.com in 1997 and selling it three years later for $100 million, to his bomb of an online learning site, Hungryminds.com, and his comeback with Elephant Pharmacy.

What Were They Thinking?
Most managers fail because they diligently follow common management myths, says author Jeffrey Pfeffer. Here are three examples of conventional wisdom you should ignore and why you should think harder about what's right for your company.

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