Smart Books 2008

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The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google

Nicholas Carr
January 7

Aspirations Alvin Toffler's Future Shock for the Web-apps era

Elevator Pitch Computing's evolution into a commodity utility is a shift akin to the late-19th-century move to the electric power grid, with a similarly profound effect on society and business.

Readability Compulsively readable--for nontechies, too--as it compellingly weaves together news stories, anecdotes, and data. Relies too much on Google, but often in new contexts, such as Sergey and Larry looking forward to when the Internet links straight into the brain.

Big Takeaway "The full power and consequence of a new technology are unleashed only when those who have grown up with it become adults and begin to push their outdated parents to the margins."

Pick it or Skip it Pick it--even if you're a Luddite.

Strategy and the Fat Smoker: Doing What's Obvious but Not Easy

David Maister
January 2

Aspirations Ram Charan for Dummies

Elevator Pitch Knowing what to do is easy; doing it is hard. (Like being a self-aware fat smoker!)

Readability Folksy, with lots of personal anecdotes (Maister struggled with sleep apnea! Okay. . .). Written for the ADD executive, in quick bites. Ten demerits for the copious references to other biz books and articles, including his own.

Big Takeaway "First, people; then processes; then structure."

Pick it or Skip it Skip it--unless you haven't read a management article in the past 15 years.

The Breakthrough Company: How Everyday Companies Become Extraordinary Performers

Keith R. McFarland
January 15

Aspirations Jim Collins for the junior-varsity corporation

Elevator Pitch A blueprint for companies looking to break out and create lasting growth.

Readability Dense research is leavened by a sprinkling of interviews and site visits that keep things interesting. Anecdote-freshness points for case studies of Polaris and Chico's. Old-chestnut alert: Intuit's story gets trotted out.

Big Takeaway "When a leadership team realizes that strategy is really the single most important opportunity for learning within a company, it is free to drop some of the more cumbersome trappings of traditional strategic planning."

Pick it or Skip it Pick it--unless you're dying to reread Good to Great.

The Pirate's Dilemma: How Youth Culture Reinvented Capitalism

Matt Mason
January 8

Aspirations PR touts: "Malcolm Gladwell for the iPod generation." Spin the jog wheel and try again.

Elevator Pitch How graffiti, pirate radio, and music remixes have influenced mainstream society, and how the current media wars will change the future of business.

Readability Sift through some clunky writing to enjoy wacky and intriguing stories--a history of graffiti art; cameos by 50 Cent and Russell Simmons. Bad move: bringing up game theory.

Big Takeaway "Punk capitalists mix altruism with self-interest to compete on new levels the free market by itself cannot reach."

Pick it or Skip it Skip it--unless you're in the entertainment business.

The Riddle: Where Ideas Come From and How to Have Better Ones

Andrew Razeghi
January 28

Aspirations Made to Stick: the prequel

Elevator Pitch Debunks myths of the creative process and provides a system for making "Eureka!" moments as easy as lather, rinse, repeat.

Readability It's no Caribbean beach read, but you won't nod off, either. A "history of creativity" speeds from Socrates to Freud to Soichiro Honda. Abbott and Costello and Aaron Spelling share space with Greek philosopher Heraclitus. But the Edsel, again?

Big Takeaway "Although there is no such thing as a new idea, there are such things as new concepts. You can think of concepts as 'idea systems.' Although the individual components of the concept may not be new, the combination of ideas--what you cannot see--is where the money is."

Pick it or Skip it Pick it--especially if you were an English major.