Halley Suitt, in Worthwhile, refers to the 800CEOREAD list of top 25 books for business. I have read only one of these, The Art of the Start, which I believe is an excellent reference book for any business. In perusing the other 24 titles, I noticed that there is nothing that peeks my interest. I guess I’m not your "average" business reader. For instance, here are my best reads this year, though they weren’t all published in 2004:
- Drucker (2002) Managing in the Next Society [a good review of Drucker's writings]
- Zuboff & Maxmin (2002) The Support Economy [read Parts 1 & 2, then go to Dave Pollard's Natural Enterprise]
- Federman & de Kerckhove (2003) McLuhan for Managers [absolutely essential reading if you're trying to understand the effects of any technology]
- Malone (2004) The Future of Work [a good high level view of a new perspective on work]
These are some of the books on my list to buy/read:
- Dawson (2002) Living Networks: Leading Your Company, Customers, and Partners in the Hyper-Connected Economy
- Barley & Kunda (2004) Gurus, Hired Guns, and Warm Bodies: Itinerant Experts in a Knowledge Economy
- Surowiecki (2004) The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations
- Malcolm Gladwell’s new book: Blink [to be published in Jan 2005]
Any other suggestions for a free-agent, consultant, learning/business/technology guy?
Worthwhile Reading – From the Frozen WestHarold,
Hope all is well in Sackville – it certainly has to be
warmer than Saskatoon – I gotta stop living in cold
cities and towns that start with “S”.
I found Jim Collins “Good to Great” (2001) to be worthwhile
reading, although it’s not as “research-based” as Collins
would have use believe. Sometimes I read these things just
to be able to refute glossed or incorrect versions I hear
from other executives.
For any instructional design folks out there, David Jonassen’s
“Learning to Solve Problems: An Instructional Design Guide” (2003)
is an excellent and well-writen resource. Jonassen is becoming
the new Polya with respect to reverse-engineering the problem-solving
process and its related pedagogy/andragogy.
I still refuse to read “Who Moved My Cheese” (1998, Johnson)
or the “One Minute Manager” (Blanchard, 1990) and I think
your readers should too. Awful!
Merry Christmas all!
David Francis
Academic Director, SIAST Virtual Campus
ThanksThanks David:
I’ve lost your e-mail, so could you send it to me?
Merry Christmas!
Top 25Harold,
Todd from 800-CEO-READ here.
Thanks for the linking to us and you raise a great question about the Top 25. That is a list we compile monthly that is based on sales at 800-CEO-READ. So, you are seeing what we are selling in December. I also noticed that in no one way do we say that on the page. We’ll fix that.
Might I recommend the Jack Covert Selects as books we recommend you read. We choose 3 to 6 titles each month. Here is the link:
http://www.1800ceoread.com/we_recommend.asp
Thanks again,
Todd
P.S. Read Surowiecki’s book; it’s great. Also skip Gladwell and read anything by Gary Klein instead like Sources of Power or Intuition at Work.
Thanks for the advice, Todd.Thanks for the advice, Todd. I’ll check these out.
Two New BooksIn my pre-new year’s spending spree, I purchased two new books:
Frans Johansson (2004) “The Medici Effect”, HBS Press
Clayton Christensen, et al (2004) “Seeing What’s Next”, HBS Press
The Medici Effect is interesting so far …
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