Top 29 Books Forbes Councils Members Recommend on Innovation and Technology
Innovation, Creativity, Change
Be More Pirate by Sam Conniff. It’s time to act and change the way we work and live! — Matteo Atti (Forbes Communications Council)
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. If you read one book this year, it should be this one. Take time to read it, it’s not light reading. Internalize the takeaways and get to a point where you know that there are things you don’t know and that’s ok. Experts know they don’t know. It’s why they’re so good because they know when to dig deeper and ask more questions. If you think you know, this book is for you (become competent and move down Dunning-Kruger’s graph!). — Charles Argianas (Forbes Real Estate Council)
Blue Ocean Strategy – How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne — Michael Raggo (Forbes Technology Council)
Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger — Don Baham (Forbes Technology Council)
Creating Things That Matter: The Art and Science of Innovations That Last by David Edwards — Cory Munchbach (Forbes Business Council)
Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull. A very good and authentic book on Pixar’s rise to the front (the hard way) — Satyam Kantamneni (Forbes Business Council)
The Design Thinking Playbook: Mindful Digital Transformation of Teams, Products, Services, Businesses and Ecosystems by Michael Lewrick, Patrick Link, and Larry Leifer. They mix innovative thinking with employee personas to help leaders communicate appropriately with everyone on the team. The results are higher levels of engagement and the creation of the best solutions for the business. — Ellen Williams (Forbes Business Development Council)
Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change by Joseph Grenney et.al. — Brian Gorman (Forbes Coaches Council)
Leading Transformation: How To Take Charge of Your Company’s Future by Nathan Furr, Kyle Nel, and Thomas Zoega Ramsoy — Lere Baale (Forbes Business Council)
Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries by Safi Bachall: How innovation really occurs across companies, industries, governments and countries — John Rogers (Forbes Technology Council). Also recommended by — Brian Sathianathan (Forbes Technology Council).
Moneyball by Michael Lewis recounts how Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane changed the game of baseball by adopting sabermetrics (analytics, numbers-based) to acquire new players. A great lesson for CEOs who need to approach problems and issues from a completely new, innovative perspective. — Maura FitzGerald (Forbes Agency Council)
Moonshots: Creating a World of Abundance by Naveen Jain, Scott R. Pollak, Sir Richard Branson, John Schroeter. Highly recommend [this] to anyone who is interested in innovation, especially in the C suites working on transforming companies. — Brian Sathianathan (Forbes Technology Council) Brian Sathianathan
Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen by Rita McGrath and Clayton Christensen— Brian Sathianathan (Forbes Technology Council)
Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance?: Leading a Great Enterprise Through Dramatic Change by Louis Gerstner — Tom Garrubba (Forbes Technology Council)
Zero to One by Peter Theil. It fuels the way I think, lead and hire. Zero to One suggests that the best businesses must go from nothing to something and create a new paradigm. The essence of the book for me is contained in one of my favorite quotes from the book. “Today’s ‘best practices’ lead to dead ends; the best paths are new and untried.” — Don Dodds (Forbes Agency Council)
AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order by Dr. Kai Fu Lee — Michael Drew (Forbes Agency Council)
Future Crimes: Inside the Digital Underground and the Battle for Our Connected World by Marc Goodman — Tom Garrubba (Forbes Technology Council)
The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives (Exponential Technology Series) by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler — Andrew Koh (Forbes Finance Council)
Human + Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI by Paul R. Daugherty and H. James Wilson — Russell Klosk (Forbes Human Resources Council). Also recommended by Nallan Sriraman (Forbes Technology Council).
Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change by Beth Comstock and Tahl Raz — Michael Plummer (Forbes Technology Council)
Information is Beautiful by David McCandless — Soner Baburoglu (Forbes Business Development Council)
The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves by W. Brian Arthur — Havell Rodrigues (Forbes Technology Council)
Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy and How to Make Them Work for You by Geoffrey Parker, Marshall Van Alstyne, and Sangeet Paul Choudary. This book does a great job of talking about the value of platforms or ecosystems like Amazon that are disrupting the business world. I have been challenged to think about collaboration as a requirement to doing business today. Users demand a seamless environment to operate today. This trend will only continue. — Dave Marcinkowski (Forbes Real Estate Council)
Product-Led Growth: How to Build a Product That Sells Itself by Wes Bush. For those of you in the SaaS business. — Steven Wastie (Forbes Communications Council)