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: Vickie L. Milazzo

I found this book browsing through Amazon’s entrepreneurship best sellers. I was immediatley impressed with the quality of Vickie L. Milazzo’s blog entries. they were insightful and inspiring, without being too gender specific. I researched a bit about her company, Medical-Legal Consulting Institute Inc., and based on her experience, this book should be an interesting read, no matter your gender.

Here’s a list of the ten strengths covered in the book.

• Ignite your inner fire with passion to reach exciting, new levels of growth
• Harness your intuitive vision to attain an audacious future
• Use the power of engagement to achieve big things
• Flex your feminine agility and stretch further than ever before
• Intensify your genius for accelerated achievement
• Live with uncompromising integrity to attract authentic success
• Energize your performance with endurance
• Apply the Feminine Force of enterprise to excel at being the CEO of your life
• Reclaim your life energy through renewal
• Activate female fusion by partnering with other women to attain the impossible

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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: 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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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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Author: Lawrence Lessig

Ok, this is two “non-business” books in a row. I apologize to those in need of the newest airport best-seller, we’ll be getting right on it next week. This one is good though. Free Culture is all about how the American tradition of mixing and remixing culture and ideas, building on those around us and that came before us, is being quashed by dramatic changes in the scope and intent of content protection, especially copyright.

Understanding the ideas regarding the nature of creativity in this book is sure to help any entrepreneur, especially any Internet entrepreneur. There is even a section on how the ideas in the book affect entrepreneurial innovation (called Constraining Innovators). The author is a Stanford Law professor that specializes in cyber-law and has amazing insight into how law affects the way society is shaped. You can get the book from Amazon or you can get a free E-book from Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture Web site.

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Author: Malcolm Gladwell

I really liked this book. It is all about rapid cognition or thin-slicing. Malcolm Gladwell goes into how we as people have the innate and effective ability to rapidly take in what is around us and make sense of it, understand it, and take action on it without consciously thinking about it.

This book isn’t about intuition though, what Gladwell calls thin-slicing is a skill that can be examined, understood, learned and our innate ability to use it can even grow through continual effort.

As with Gladwell’s other books, he has all sorts of pertinent stories and examples that drive his points home. Not directly a business book, but has all sorts of business applications.

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Author: Guy Kawasaki

What Guy Kawasaki says:

This book is a weapon of mass construction. My goal was to provide the definitive guide for anyone starting anything. It builds upon my experience as an evangelist, entrepreneur, and most recently, as a venture capitalist who found, fixed, and funded startups.

The book is as relevant for two guys in a garage starting the next Google as social activists trying to save the world. GIST: cuts through the theoretical crap, theories and gets down to the real-world tactics of pitching, positioning, branding, recruiting, bootstrapping, and rainmaking.

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