Books

8 May 2007

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[Book Review]: Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge

Infotopia

Infotopia by Cass R. Sunstein

Published by Oxford University Press
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Cass Sunstein is an incredibly original and clear thinker on the whole topic of human organization. At the cutting edge of how new digital technologies are allowing us to harness the “wisdom of the many”, this book is a must read to provide a 21st century take on human organization. It provides examples of the power of the group, but also ways in which group organization can go wrong. Managers of all business, technology-driven or otherwise, would do well to read this book.

Thanks to Alec Saunders for recommending this book.

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7 Apr 2007

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[Book Review]: Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything

Wikinomics

Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams

Published by Portfolio
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Don Tapscott presents another well thought out and lucid work on the digital revolution. This time, he focuses on how these digital technologies are fundamentally changing, and perhaps creating, new economic realities. It was published around the same time as the Web 2.0 techniques of user generated content, Wikis, open source, blogging, etc. were moving into a more mainstream position and starting to impact the business world. This book has a more technological focus than other books in this space, so I recommend reading alongside, say Friedman’s The World is Flat.

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6 Mar 2007

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[Book Review]: The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century

The World Is Flat

The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman

Published by Thorndike Press
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Thomas Friedman provides an excellent pairing to Wikinomics in describing the inevitability and intertwining of globalization with the digital revolution. An extremely insightful book that is very well written, the only failing is that Friedman can’t seem to see the fundamental disconnect between continued “American exceptionalism” in a globalized world. Thanks to Ginny Dybenko for turning me onto this book.

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12 Feb 2007

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[Book Review]: The Soul of a New Machine

The Soul Of A New Machine

The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder

Published by Back Bay Books
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Way back in 1981, I identified strongly with Tracy Kidder’s description of the intensity of non-stop, passionate, 24×7 product development. The hacker culture, harnessed to corporate product development, predates the many Silicon Valley stories of Netscape or today’s Google. Having gone through a “burn out” process in developing Coherent, this book gave me great perspective that has stuck with me to this day.

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4 Jan 2007

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[Book Review]: Co-Leaders: The Power of Great Partnerships

Co-Leaders

Co-Leaders by David A. Heenan & Warren Bennis

Published by John Wiley & Sons
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Over the years, I’ve learned that leadership and building great companies is all about the team, rather than a single rock star individual CEO. I met Warren Bennis in the late 1990′s at the CIO conference and this book really helped to shape my thinking, including my post in the Entrepreneurial Toolkit series The Power of Two (or Three).. Although focused more on larger traditional companies, it contains lots of great case studies of how great leadership is defined by great teamwork.

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5 Jun 2004

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[Book Review]: Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age

Six Degrees

Six Degrees by Duncan J. Watts

Published by W. W. Norton & Company
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Duncan Watts is an academic researcher, and pioneer, in the new integrated science of social networks. While the book is a bit drier than the more journalistic and populist The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, it is well worth the read because it both drills deeper into this important area and avoids Gladwell’s factual errors. Understanding the timeliness of the breakthroughs in our understanding of this science coupled with a digitally connected technology platform to implement these ideas will show people who think MySpace and Facebook are just fads that they are, in fact, harbingers of more fundamental changes to.

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