Clay Shirky: Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations
Why does Wikipedia and Open Source Software work? What are the implications of tools that make group formation easy? Clay Shirky is emerging as the uber-expert on the sociology of social media and his book sheds much light on the phenomenon.
Rob Walker: Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are
One of the most interesting marketing books I've ever read. With a journalist's perspective Rob Walker has come up with a though-provoking theory about why certain products have so much perceived meaning attached to them. The keyword being “perceived”, a lot of meaning is rather contrived. Tons of great case studies.
Lawrence Lessig: Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy
I dig his hybrid vision of a commercial culture and sharing culture harmonizing to create a new economic reality that benefits both sides (****)
Roald Dahl: The Witches
Connecting with children? Or anyone with a sense of mischief? Devour this. (*****)
Daniel H. Pink: A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future
Step aside, number-crunchers. (***)
Salman Rushdie: Midnight's Children
Communicators, if you want to see the power of symbolism and metaphor unleashed- this is required reading. (*****)
Malcolm Gladwell: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Thin-slicing, knowledge, expertise, the power of instinct- it's all in here folks (****)
Nassim Nicholas Taleb: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
Intense sermon on randomness and our obsession with making sense of an inherently senseless world. The author has a delightful arrogance and a rib-tickling though frustrating writing style. Serious brain fodder. (****)
Kerry Patterson: Influencer: The Power to Change Anything
Wow, scary how the ideas in the book can send us to the dark side of commercial persuasion (****)
David Meerman Scott: The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly
Wish I could flip a switch and have people understand how powerful these ideas are- (****)
Michael Lewis: Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
Innovation and analytics wrapped in killer narrative- fuckinawesome (*****)
Malcolm Gladwell: Outliers: The Story of Success
I'm sick of his genius. (*****)
Richard Florida: Who's Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life
Riveting commentary on how location, location, location is more important than ever in a 'spiky' world. Lots of amazing Canadian data included. (***)
Peter Morville: Ambient Findability: What We Find Changes Who We Become
Extracting Music from Noise :)
Overview:
How do you find your way in an age of information overload? How can you filter streams of complex information to pull out only what you want? Why does it matter how information is structured when Google seems to magically bring up the right answer to your questions? (****)
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Not to make this a movie review blog-a-blab, but while all of us marketers are spewing about the conversation economy, real conversations are happening that sound nothing like our sanitized attempts at stimulating discourse. Check out Superbad, and get a smattering of the brilliantly obscene and perverse conversations that take place between people every day.
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Hi Tony/Bennett,
I have a feeling that most brands would be intimidated to generate that level of honest conversation. I'm not saying it's not needed. I think honest conversations are what forces a brand (and it's product/service) to be better and authentically perform in the market.
I just think that it might be difficult to convince a Tide To Go client that they could sponsor a "Red Stain Removal" program at high school parties. Although, it would be funny.
Posted by: Christian | January 23, 2008 at 03:18 PM
Absolutely, but we first need to recognize that we're full of shit, and are light years away from honest conversation and a truly,consistently authentic voice.
Posted by: Bennett | January 23, 2008 at 03:49 PM