The holidays are coming up, which means many of us will be spending a lot of time on airplanes and other places where we might have some free time. So I thought it might be helpful to post suggestions for some good books to read while you are getting where you are going, or maybe when you get there.
Below are 5 books I recommend that deal with business or product, often in unconventional ways:
- How Successful People Win–Using Bunkhouse Logic To Get What You Want Out Of Life, by Ben Stein. This is a great book giving insight into how successful people approach life, using the metaphor of the cowboy of the American West. If I were going to give one book to a teenager on how to prepare for life in college and beyond, this would be it.
- Here Comes Everybody, by Clay Shirky. Mr. Shirky is one of the leading thinkers and writers on how patterns of social usage and behavior are evolving on the web and in real-life. In this book he outlines how people are using technology to organize in new ways without formal structures, with great examples from Flickr, MeetUp and other popular sites.
- The Culting of Brands: Turn Your Customers Into True Believers, by Douglas Atkin. To understand why users become incredibly passionate about some brands more than others–e.g., Apple users going into stores and repositioning Apple merchandise to put it in front of Windows gear–Atkins studied the techniques used by religious groups and other “cults” (he defines the term in a mostly positive way) to derive 10 techniques that can be applied by brands to generate a similar level of passion or even fanaticism. IMHO, this is the most insightful book on branding I have read and the concepts are immediately actionable whether you are selling a web site or consumer products. If you are a developer and you want to read one book to get a sense for how branding works and/or how to build a strong community around your product, this is the one I would recommend.
- The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, And Join The New Rich, by Tim Ferriss. This is the NY Times bestseller that started the craze around individuals “finding their muse”, i.e., creating a company or job that pays the rent in only a few hours a week, and outsourcing parts of their daily lives and businesses to personal assistants around the globe. It offers a great perspective on why and how to take control over how you spend your time, with some excellent out-of-the-box approaches to managing your time… and especially on marketing. (Test, test, test the marketing… before you even build the product!) Also, the discussion of existential issues around what you would do if you really had a job that paid the bills enabling you to spend your time however you want is fascinating.
- Double Your Dating, by David DeAngelo. This is the most unconventional book in this list. Many of you may be familiar with The Game, by Neil Strauss a.k.a. Style, which describes Mr. Strauss’ adventure to learn and master the techniques of pickup artists to meet attractive women. Whereas The Game is mainly a memoir, Double Your Dating is an actual how-to manual for meeting–and more importantly, attracting–women. Fair warning, this is an actual “pickup” book, with some unconventional thoughts you may find a bit off-putting or at least funny. However, DeAngelo has a great way of describing how attraction actually happens (you may find yourself reluctantly nodding your head as you read it) and some attitudes and techniques anyone can adopt–male or female–to become more charismatic, whether it is for meeting members of the opposite or same sex, or attracting business partners, investors, or employees. If nothing else, it is an interesting read, and you may find it is one of the more insightful books on networking and human psychology you have read in a while.
This is my list, feel free to add more suggestions in the comments. (Many of you have told me personally you have been reading the posts, although not commenting yet–this is the time to share the love and meet some of the other folks reading the blog!)
