Author: Paul Ormerod

Failure is a part of life, both in business and science, which is very much ignored in the business world, actually causing more failure. The book examines failure from three different aspects.

• a documentation of failure
• the subtle patterns found in the apparent disorder of failure
• the causes of failure

According to the author, understanding failure is more likely to lead to success than understanding success. Below is an excerpt that seems to sum up the author’s stance on failure.

I am often asked by would-be entrepreneurs seeking escape from life within huge corporate structures, “How do I build a small firm for myself?” The answer seems obvious: “Buy a very large one and just wait.”

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Author: Glenn Reynolds

Glen Reynolds’, the voice behind instapundit.com, most recent book, is one of the most optimistic books I have come across in a long time. The book gives a big-picture view of how tachnology is making the little guy matter a lot more than he has in a long time.

Reynolds’ optimism is infecting. Any aspiring blogger, entrepreneur, or anyone starting out on their own, especially in the content-creation and online publishing areas, will be greatly inspired by this book. It’s a refreshingly positive outlook of the future.

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Author: Douglas Rushkoff

The first line of Get Back in the Box pretty much sums up the book. “There is no Next Big Thing. In fact, the more things seem to change, the better opportunity you have to stay the same.”

Rushkoff, who is a writer of ten-or-so bestsellers, explains throughout this book that the best way to innovate is to focus on your core competencies, create an innovation conducive work environment, and focus on your customers needs. Pretty straight-forward, but very insightful into the way to do this and full of all sorts of examples. Th interview by Kris Krug in the review snippets is great as well.

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Author: John Battelle

I have to admit that I am a bit of a google-phile. I like a lot of their products and a lot of the way they do business, so my overview may seem a bit positively biased. The book isn’t just a biography of the rise of Google though. It is more an examination of search, how it has changed our culture and uses Google (obviously) as the rat to study.

Battelle introduces a term he calls “Database of Intentions, which is the sum total of all queries that pour into search engines daily, revealing the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of our culture.” It is obvious in the book that Battelle is more interested in search in an anthropological sense more than Google itself, though a lion’s share of the book is focused on Google. He has a great blog about search that can be found here.

You can also get it on audiobook here.

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Author: Jeffrey L. Cruikshank

Today’s entry is brought by Brian from freemacblog.com and freemacware.com. Since he read the book, I figured it would be better to have him be the reviewer instead of me. Everything below is his review. Thanks Brian.

I am a fan of Apple Computer products. They make make computing easy and more productive. But not only are the products unique, but the company itself is run in a unique way as well. In fact, I believe that their “insanely great” products are a direct extension of the decisions they make in the business division of 1 Infinite Loop. This book explains those unique decisions. Both the good and the bad.

More than just a history book, “The Apple Way” offers “12 Management Lessons From The World’s Most Innovative Company.” With topics ranging from the love/hate relationship with Mac User Groups to why Apple has an edge over Microsoft because they control the hardware AND the software of their products.

In all, this book addresses the history and business side of Apple and not so much the technology side. In it’s most basic reading, you learn the four rules.

• Make the customer king
• Make the product king
• Break the marketing mold
• Build the learning organization

And how Apple did them right…and wrong.

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Author: 37signals

This is one of the best books on software design I have ever read. Though not necessarily the appropriate approach for all types of software design, it provides tons of great insight into how to efficiently and effectively build web applications. In the words of the 37signals “Anyone working on a web app — including entrepreneurs, designers, programmers, executives, or marketers — will find value and inspiration in this book.”

37signals is a web application software that has a refreshingly fresh take on software design. Instead of packing their products full of features, they keep them simple and easy-to-use, which in turn makes them more useful. I personally use a few of their products and wouldn’t ever switch back to previous solutions. The book even follows their simple mantra, it is easy to read without all the extra fluff that so many authors can’t seem to avoid.

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Author:James Surowiecki

Eric Schmidt from Google recommended this book in the “mistakenly” published powerpoint presentation slide notes from Google’s Analyst Day a couple of weeks ago. I had heard of it, but didn’t know much about it, so I did a little research and it seems like James Surowiecki, a writer for the New Yorker, has some great evidence (or maybe just ideas) about trusting the masses.

Surowiecki goes over types of crowd wisdom, types of crowd wisdom, and failures of crowd intelligence and how when certain factors combine, the wisdom of the crowd is much more accurate than the wisdom of individuals, even experts. One of the stories he uses to illustrate this is a study done in the 19th century by a British Anthropologist named Francis Galton. In the study he took an ox to a county fair and had people guess its weight. He also had cattle ranchers and farmer (experts) guess the weight. The general public as a whole did much better at guessing the weight than the so-called experts.

In the review snippets there is a link to Wikipedia’s entry for the book, which goes over these and other topics in a bit more detail. Also, from what I can tell, Wisdom of Crowds reads a lot like a Malcolm Gladwell book.

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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: Thomas L. Friedman

The World is Flat examines the flattening, or connecting, of the world over the last few years since 9-11 and the dot com bust. Thomas L. Friedman, author of the New York Times “Foreign Affairs” column, explains how the world is now flat, or connected, through the disappearance of trade and political barriers and the increase in technological breakthroughs.

According to Friedman, Globalizations 3.0 (his term) is led by freelancers and entrepreneurs who effectively compete in the new climate created by these changes. A good resource for anyone wanting to learn about new economy globalization and how to take advantage of a flat world.

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