These are some of my favorite reads – an eclectic mix of business, water, climate change, social sciences, network science, behavioral psychology, anthropology, decision systems, human history, and personal interest. They are just a sampling of available reads, but together they are solid building blocks for network competency.
Quick Suggestions
Currently Reading
Bootstrapping Complexity, Learning From Self-Organizing Systems in Nature and Technology. Andreas Lloyd, (2011)
Evolutionary Psychology, a Graphic Guide, Dylan Evans and Oscar Zarate (2012)
Rest, How to Get More Done When You Work Less. Alex Soojung-Kim Pang (2016)
Superintelligence, Paths, Dangers, Strategies. Nick Bostrom. (2014)
Give and Take. A Revolutionary Approach to Success. Adam Grant.
What Technology Wants. Kevin Kelly.
David and Goliath. Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants. Malcolm Gladwell.
Conversational Intelligence. How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results. Judith A. Glaser.
McQuivey, James, Digital Disruption: Unleashing the Next Wave of Innovation Amazon Publishing (2013)
Rainee Lee, and Wellman Barry, Networked, The New Social Operating System MIT Press (2012)
Steiner, Christopher, Automate This: How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World, Penguin (2012).
Easy And Helpful Reads
Adams, Paul, Grouped, How small groups of friends are the key to influence on the social web, New Riders (2012)
Benkler, Yochai, The Penguin and the Leviathan, How Cooperation Triumphs Over Self-Interest, Crown Publishing (2011)
Buchanan, Mark, The Social Atom, Why the Rich Get Richer, Cheaters Get Caught, and Your Neighbor Usually Looks Like You, Bloomsbury (2007)
Christakis, Nicholas A., and Fowler, James H., Connected, The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, Little Brown and Company (2009)
Davidson, Cathy, How You See It, How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn, Viking, (2011)
Dunbar, Robin, How Many Friends Does One Person Need?, Dunbar’s Number and Other Evolutionary Quirks, Harvard University Press (2010).
Johnson, Steven, Emergence, The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software, Touchstone, Published by Simon and Schuster (2002)
Kahneman, Daniel, Thinking Fast and Slow, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux (2011).
Lessig, Lawrence, Code Version 2.0, Sharealike, (2006)
Pink, Daniel, Drive, The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Riverhead Books (2009)
Shirky, Clay, Cognitive Surplus, Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age, Penguin Press, (2010)
Sustein, Cass R., Infotopia, How Many Minds Produce Knowledge, Oxford University Press (2006)
By Category
I. Water. Climate Change and a Network Perspective.
Sedlak, David. Water for All, Global Solutions for a Changing Climate. (2023).
Mann, Michael E. Our Fragile Moment. How Lessons Learned from Earth’s Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis. (2023)
Gleick, Peter, The Three Ages of Water, Prehistoric Past, Imperiled Present, and a Hope for the Future. (2023).
Gies, Erica, Water Always Wins, Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge (2022)
Jackson, Wes, and Jensen, Robert, An Inconvenient Apocalypse Environmental Collapse, Climate Crisis, and the Fate of Humanity (2022)
Egan, Dan, The Death and Life of the Great Lakes (2019)
Boccaletti, Giulio, Water, a Biography (2021)
Siegel, Seth Troubled Water, What’s Wrong With What We Drink (2020)
Sedlak, David, Water 4.0 The Past, Present and Future of The World’s Most Vital Resource (2014)
Postel, Sandra Replenish, The Virtuous Cycle of Water and Prosperity (2017)
Hazen, Robert M. Symphony in C. Carbon and the Evolution of (Almost) Everything (2021)
Boyd, Claude E. Water Quality an Introduction (2015)
Gates, Bill, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need (2021)
Lockwood, Devi, 1001 Voices on Climate Change, Everyday Stories of Flood, Fire, Drought and Displacement From Around the World (2022).
II. Network Science and Social Network Analysis.
A. Easy Reads.
Adams, Paul, Grouped, How small groups of friends are the key to influence on the social web, New Riders (2012)
Benkler, Yochai, The Penguin and the Leviathan, How Cooperation Triumphs Over Self-Interest, Crown Publishing (2011)
Block, Peter, Community, The Structure of Belonging, Berrett-Koehler Publishers (2008)
Buchanan, Mark, The Social Atom, Why the Rich Get Richer, Cheaters Get Caught, and Your Neighbor Usually Looks Like You, Bloomsbury (2007)
Christakis, Nicholas A., and Fowler, James H., Connected, The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, Little Brown and Company (2009)
Dunbar, Robin, How Many Friends Does One Person Need?, Dunbar’s Number and Other Evolutionary Quirks, Harvard University Press (2010).
Johnson, Steven, Emergence, The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software, Touchstone, Published by Simon and Schuster (2002)
Watts, Duncan, Six Degrees, The Science of a Connected Age, W.W. Norton and Company (2003).
B. For More of a Deep Dive Into Network Science
Barbabasi, Albert Laszlo, Linked, The New Science of Networks, How Everything is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means For Science, Business and Everyday Life, Perseus Publishing (2002)
Benkler, Yochai, The Wealth of Networks, How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, Yale University Press (2006)
Burt, Ronald S, Structural Holes. The Social Structure of Competition. Harvard University Press (1992).
Huberman, Bernardo A, Laws of the Web, The Ecology of Information, The MIT Press (2003)
Jackson, Matthew O. Social and Economic Networks, Princeton University Press (2008).
Newman, Mark, Barbabasi, Albert Laszlo, and Watts, Duncan J., The Structure and Dynamics of Networks, Princeton University Press (2006).
Ronald, Burt S., Structural Holes, The Social Structure of Competition, Harvard University Press (1992).
White, Harrison C., Identity and Control, A Structural Theory of Social Action, Princeton University Press, (1992)
III. Social Attention, Brain Science, Learning, Decision Making
Bingham, Tony, and Conner, Marcia, The New Social Learning, A Guide To Transforming Organizations Through Social Media. ASTD Press, Berrett Book Publishers, (2010)
Brown, John Seely, and Duguid, Paul, The Social Life of Information, Harvard Business School Press (2000, 2002)
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, Flow, The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Harper and Row (2004)
Davidson, Cathy, How You See It, How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn, Viking, (2011)
Dunbar, Robin, How Many Friends Does One Person Need?, Dunbar’s Number and Other Evolutionary Quirks, Harvard University Press (2010).
Duhigg, Charles, The Power of Habit, Why We Do What We Do In Life and in Business, Random House (2
Gazzaniga, Michael S., Human, the Science Behind What Makes Us Unique, Harper Collins (2008)
Gilbert, Daniel, Stumbling on Happiness, Alfred A. Knoff Publishing (2006).
Johnson, Steven, Mind Wide Open, Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life, Scribner (2004).
Kahneman, Daniel, Thinking Fast and Slow, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux (2011).
Pink, Daniel, Drive, The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Riverhead Books (2009)
IV. Business Transformation
A. Commerce and Innovation.
Chesbrough, Henry, Open Business Models, How to Thrive in the New Information Landscape, Harvard Business School University Press (2010).
Chesbrough, Henry, Open Services Innovation, Rethinking Your Business to Grow and Compete in a New Era. A Wiley Imprint (2011).
Lessig, Lawrence, Code Version 2.0, Sharealike, (2006)
Johnson, Steven, Where Good Ideas Come From, The Natural History of Innovation, River Head Books (Penguin), (2010)
Levine, Rick; Locke, Christopher; Searls, Doc; and Weinberger, David. The Cluetrain Manifesto, The End of Business as Usual, Perseus Books Group (2000)
Neilsen, Michael, Reinventing Discovery, The New Era of Networked Science, Princeton University Press (2012)
Postrel, Virginia, The Future and Its Enemies, The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress
Rosenzweig, Phil, The Halo Effect,.. and the Either Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers, Free Press (2007)
Searles, Doc, The Intention Economy, When Customers Take Charge, Harvard Business School Publishing (2012)
Shirky, Clay, Cognitive Surplus, Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age, Penguin Press, (2010)
Sloane, Paul (Editor) A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowd-Sourcing Kogan Page Limited (2011).
B. Organization.
Cross, Robert L., Parker, Andrew, The Hidden Power of Social Networks, Understanding How Work Really Gets Done in Organizations, Harvard Business School Press (2004)
Forester, Daniel Patrick, Harnessing the Power of Reflective Thinking In Your Organization, Palgrave McMillan (2011)
Martin, Roger L., The Opposable Mind, How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking, Harvard Business School Press (2009)
Pink, Daniel, Drive, The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Riverhead Books (2009).
V. Human Evolution, Prediction, Future Thinking.
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel. The Fates of Human Societies. W.W. Norton & Company (1999).
Dunbar, Robin, The Human Story, A new history of mankind’s evolution, faber and faber (2010)
McClellan, James E.III, and Dorn, Harold, Science and Technology in World History, Second Edition, John Hopkins University Press (2006).
Mitchell, Melanie, Complexity, A Guided Tour, Oxford University Press (2009).
Omerod, Paul, Why Things Fail …and how to avoid it, Evolution, Extinction, and Economics, Faber and Faber (2004)
Randall, Lisa, Knocking on Heaven’s Door, How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and The Modern World, Harper Collins (2011)
Shuban, Neil, Your Inner Fish, A Journey Into the 3.5 Billion Year History of the Human Body, Pantheon Books, a Division of Random House (2008).
Taleb, Nassim Nicholas, The Black Swan, The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Random House, (2010)
