The Chaos Imperative. How chance and disruption increase innovation, effectiveness and success. Ori Brafman & Judah Pollack.2013. ISBN 9780307886675. A very readable, insightful and important book.  In a world that is increasingly full of distractions, noise and time sucking activity, the authors make a very good case for doing something very different,  finding ways to sit back and think about better ways to get stuff done. This book flows so well with many varied, intriguing and surprising anecdotes (i.e. how the Black Death sparked Europe’s renaissance, or how one man was the nucleus of Silicon Valleys rise) . The authors are definitely onto something very useful and I can not think of any individual or organization that would not benefit from using the ideas in this book.

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Killing Wall Street. Sanjay Sanghoee. 2013. ISBN 9780786755028.  A fast paced murder mystery of the new style where you are in the head of a serial killer ( to all intents a regular single mom) and that of the detective who is trying to find the killer. A lot of fun and a tight quick read. The author is a business commentator for Huffington Post and FORTUNE mag so he knows the space.

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The Year Without Pants. WordPress.com and the future of work. Scott Berkun. 2013. ISBN 9781118660638.  A very good and topical book that describes remote working while  remaining digitally connected.   Scott uses a very personal writing style which puts the reader directly into the prose. This took me right back to when I was first selling mid sized computers for  Burroughs. At that time I read The Soul of  A New Machine (Tracy Kidder) and it described in a similar way the process of design innovation in a company exactly – and continued to do so for many years. ( Scott refers to that book in his appendices)  Bercun’s book puts a new look into the chaos of today’s innovative companies and makes the experience very enjoyable. These methods and beliefs transcend the technology industry and I can see them being useful in pretty well any field of team leadership. This is a must read leadership book as well as for anyone who works in the tech industry.

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The Impact Equation. Are you making things happen or just making noise? Chris Brogan & Julien Smith. 2012. ISBN 9781591844907.  The authors wrote Trust Agents which was a good read.  This book takes from their journeys in social media and develops a theme of around why you do what you do using the tools available  (including social media) . The book is more of a journey not a workbook. In this journey you cannot help but develop a better awareness of how you and your business differ and how to better communicate it. A very personal book, it speaks directly to the reader taking no short cuts. Clearly written I do not think you will roar through the book , but it would make for a very pleasant cross country flight companion.

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Iraq war 2003. What really happened behind the scenes. Charles Edmund Coyote. 2012. The sub head is The story of the biggest blunder in  American history.   Quite a telling book as it details the mis-steps, mistakes and incredible stupidity of  th e G. W.  Bush administration. To say they were ham fisted is to  be kind.  You can read about all the numerous warnings from all over the world and the US the administration chose to ignore about the preparations for 9/11. How Bin Laden telegraphed and described in his speeches that his intent was to draw the US into a long war that would drain resources. How the US special forces and others almost had him taken out after 9 /11 and then Bush decided to go after Saddam and ignore Bin laden The administration had their mind made up and ignored all the intelligence that had been gathered.  (Plus the story how the US had funded Saddam and WMDs over the years)
After reading this you realize the the US wasted billions of dollars and thousands of US lives and likely millions of Middle Eastern lives.  Without these mistakes, they would have weathered their fiscal crises and what not – as well as all the money wasted on airport security. Oh and in all this they really destabilized Iraq and Iran – cementing more support for terrorists.
Well worth your time to read and ponder.

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Born to Blog. Building your blog for business and business success one post at at time. Mark Schaeffer & Stanford A. Smith.2013. ISBN 9780071811163.  Two well respected author/bloggers have created quite a useful book for those new and old to blogging. I especially liked the straightforward approach to corporate blogging and why it fails most often.  Quite a few useful tools and sites are pointed to,  Clearly written and you can finish this in under three hours.  I have not seen a better book on this topic to date.

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Selling to China. A guide for doing business in China for small to medium-sized companies. Stanley Chao. 2012. ISBN 9781475911787.  I had been researching selling to China and this book was referenced a few times. It is a short treasure trove of up to date and timely advise to any company wanting to do business in China.  I read it in almost one sitting finding that the content flowed easily and answered my questions quickly. The author is an American of Chinese descent and he has been helping many US companies over the years ( and still does) be very profitable in China. The book contains essential background as well as checklists for pretty well everything you need to do before taking the plunge.  A must read  for any business leader looking to expand to China. Great for a 4 hour plane ride.

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