I spend a considerable amount of time reading business books and benefit a great deal from their content. I have now reorganised my website to cover the six main headings in shown in the diagram above. The listing of new books is now very simple and straightforward which should make updating faster and easier. So far I have three of the six segments up and will add to these over the coming weeks.
I would be really interested to know which books you recommend so please leave a comment or email me.
The Six Segments are
1. Corporate Strategy – this will cover all aspects of corporate strategy from theory, through case studies and historiograhies. I find these books interesting structural material to use when faced with real life examples.
- Michael Porter Competitive Strategy – Techniques for analyzing industries and competitors
- Michael Porter Competitive Advantage – Creating and sustaining superior performance
- Michael Porter On Competition – Updated and Expanded Edition
- Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pineur – Business Model Generation – Eye Piece review here.
2. Social Media – there are so many aspects to social media that the ecosystem takes some real work to understand it. Many of the books in this segment address specific parts of Social Media, Search or Google for example. This is one of the hottest areas for business publishing at the moment.
Blogging
- Robert Scoble Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers – Kindle Edition
- David Kirkpatrick The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World – Kindle Edition
- John Battelle The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture – Kindle Edition
- Bernard Girard The Google Way: How One Company Is Revolutionizing Management as We Know It Kindle Edition
- Jeff Jarvis What Would Google Do? – Kindle Edition
- Avinish Kaushik Web Analytics: An Hour a Day – Kindle Edition
- David A Vise The Google Story: For Google’s 10th Birthday – Kindle Edition
Marketing
- Chris Anderson Long Tail, The, Revised and Updated Edition: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More – Kindle Edition
- Chris Anderson Free: How Today’s Smartest Businesses Profit by Giving Something for Nothing
- CC Chapman Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business (New Rules Social Media Series) – Kindle Edition
- Dave Evans – Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day – with a foreword by Susan Bratton (Dishymix Podcast)
- Dave Evans – Social Media Marketing: The Next Generation of Business Engagement
- Seth Godin – All Marketers are Liars (with a New Preface): The Underground Classic That Explains How Marketing Really Works–and Why Authenticity Is the Best Marketing of All
- Seth Godin – Graceful
- Seth Godin – If You’re Clueless about Starting Your Own Business
- Seth Godin – Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? Kindle Edition
- Seth Godin – Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers – Kindle Edition
- Seth Godin – Purple Cow, New Edition: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable–Includes new bonus chapter – Kindle Edition
- Seth Godin – The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)
- Seth Godin – The Big Red Fez: How To Make Any Web Site Better
- Seth Godin – Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us – Kindle Edition
- Seth Godin – Unleashing the Ideavirus
- John Jantsch – The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself – Kindle Edition
- John Jantsch – Duct Tape Marketing: The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide – Kindle Edition
- David Meerman Scott – The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 2nd Edition – Kindle Edition. I have posted a brief review here.
- David Meerman Scott – Newsjacking – How to inject your ideas into a breaking news story and generate tons of media coverage. You can listen to my Podcast review here.
Podcasting
- Shel Holz with Neville Hobson – How to Do Everything with Podcasting – Book: Kindle Edition
Presentations
- Garr Reynolds – Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery – Book: Kindle Edition
Social Media
- Chris Brogan – Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust – Kindle Edition
- Mitch Joel – Six Pixels of Separation: Everyone Is Connected. Connect Your Business to Everyone – Kindle Edition
- Amber MacArthur – Power Friending: Demystifying Social Media to Grow Your Business – Kindle Edition
- Brian Solis – Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web – Kindle Edition
- Don Tapscott & Anthony D Williams – Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything – Kindle Edition
- Don Tapscott & Anthony D Williams – Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World – Kindle Edition
- Don Tapscott & Anthony D Williams – Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World – Kindle Edition
Web Design
- Steve Krug – Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition – Kindle Edition
3. Biographies – I find biographies absolutely compelling. I have read about half a dozen books on Warren Buffett alone and I still can’t invest like he can. Still there are great lessons out there and a lot to learn from a well crafted biography.
- Walter Isaacson – Steve Jobs – Eye Piece review here
4. How to… Yes I need these too! I am currently working with two WordPress books at the moment as you may surmise from my new website. There are lots of other fantastic areas covered and I will build the hexagon structure to make these easy to find.
- Chris Treadaway and Mari Smith – Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day – Book: Kindle Edition
- Joel Comm – Twitter Power 2.0: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time– Book: Kindle Edition
WordPress
- Janet Majure – Teach Yourself Visually WordPress
5. Leadership – As a Graduate of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst – the equivalent to West Point here in the UK – I have done some considerable reading on military leadership. Business leadership is just as critical and I believe the trick here is to try to take individual tricks and tips rather than to try to become another Jack Welch.
The Expert Success Formula by Daniel Wagner.
Check out my Blog post –3 Steps to becoming an Expert – The Expert Success Formula – here
6. Entrepreneurs – this covers everything to do with starting and growing companies. I have been involved in two financial services business as well as my own private company and there is a lot to learn. Thank heavens some of these authors have shared their knowledge and experience with us.
- Is this the Best Entrepreneurs Magazine you have read?
- Eric Ries – The Lean Start Up – How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses: You can find my review of it here.
If you wish to support my website in a modest way please click through to Amazon to buy the book. I hope you get as much pleasure from the books as I have.
I would be delighted to receive ideas and recommendations for further reading from you.
Please feel free to email or comment.
Full Disclosure: I have provided links to Amazon and I am a member of Amazon’s Associates Affliliate programme.