Author: Jeffrey Sachs

Though this isn’t a book about running a business, it is definitely a book about what the ends of business should be. Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, lays out a plan to eliminate serious poverty in the world by the year 2025. The basis of the plan is the level of ODA (Official Development Assistance) that developed country’s need to give to poorer countries. The book also chronicles more than 20 years of Sachs work with heads-of-state all over the world from his own perspective, which is what most piqued my interest to read it.

The End of Poverty has been accused by some as being “dangerously naive” and Sachs has a lot of critics in both the political and academic worlds, but it is compelling enough of a book and argument to warrant a look at. Oh and one more thing, Bono wrote the forward.

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Author: Seth Godin

In Permission Marketing, Seth Godin teaches his well-known idea of getting people to “raise their hands”. The problem with mass advertising, according to Godin, is that it vies for people’s attention by interrupting them rather than asking for permission and then buliding relationships based on that permission. Marketers can learn to be more effective by learning to build over time a meaningful and beneficial relationship between both a company and it’s customers/prospects.

What this book is really known for is email-marketing techniques. This seems to be the main reason this book is recommended. I’ve included a few excerpts from Fast Company’s interview with Seth Godin, in the review snippets. There is also a link to the full interview. It’s very insightful and worth reading the whole thing.

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Author: Steve Krug

If your organization has any sort of Web site or if you are in any way involved in the usability and design of software, this book is the place to learn how to make your customers enjoy using what you design. Everyone from Joel Spolsky to marketingsherpa.com recommends this book.

I’ve thumbed through it a few times but haven’t actually read it yet. It has a very conversational style of writing and should be an easy read, yet not just a bunch of fluff, judging by the types of people that recommend it.

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Authors: Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox

I had a friend in college who lived, breathed and died economics. Everything in life, no matter what the subject, could be explained by economics. He recommended this book to me and it was one of the most intriguing business books I’ve ever read.

It is a novel about a Alex Rugo, a plant manager that learns the concepts of the Theory of Constraints from an ex-physics professor named Jonah. What is most interesting is that the book uses the storyline to teach about the theory of constraints rather than explaining the concepts in a textbook or standard business book style.

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Author: Dale Carnegie

It’s crazy to think that this book was first published nearly 70 years ago, yet is still on nearly every list I’ve seen of must-read business books. To be honest, How to Win Friends and Influence People has always rubbed me the wrong way, so I have never read it (almost out of spite), but its staying power has been so strong that it is now on my list of books to read. It was a NY Times bestseller for 10 years.

It’s split into 4 sections, each of which deal with a different aspect of human interaction and persuasion. Here are the four main sections.

1. Fundamental Techniques in Handling People
2. Six Ways to Make People Like You
3. Win People to Your Way of Thinking
4. Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

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