More books
| reading"I enjoyed lunch too :) Please email the titles of all of those books! They all sounded wonderful," tweeted Heidi Hansen. E-mail, Heidi? ;) E-mail is so old-school. Here are the books we talked about:
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The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative by Stephen Denning Read the first few chapters to learn about telling springboard stories. This book is more about influencing large groups of people, but you might find the tips on storytelling useful even if you’re working one-on-one. Tell people stories about the ways social software saves you time and helps you do more, and tell those stories in a way that helps people imagine the time they could save and the things they could do. =) (Also, it’s a good read.) |
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Influencer: The Power to Change Anything by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler This one talks about the personal, social, and structural motivations and abilities that you need to think about if you’re influencing adoption. Again written for the large-scale, but worth keeping in mind when you’re trying to influence behavior one-on-one. Also good because it’ll help you understand why you can’t win everyone… =) |
I also often recommend this:
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Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore also has some good stuff about technology adoption. Here you’ll see the technology adoption curve, with innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. (Or something like that…) |
Alex might find these books about writing useful, as they talk about scientific writing as well:
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Writing To Learn by William K. Zinsser Start with this one; it’s about bridging the gap between science and writing. =) |
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The Periodic Table by Primo Levi One of William Zinsser’s favorite examples of chemical writing. A friend lent this to me, and it’s a great read. Read more about this book… |
Jennifer Dodd, I think I mentioned the first three books to you as well, and these ones for independent consultants:
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Million Dollar Consulting: The Professional’s Guide to Growing a Practice by Alan Weiss A friend strongly recommended this. I haven’t read it yet, but I trust his taste in books. Read more about this book… |
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Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used by Peter Block |
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Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling by Michael Port Just finished this one. Practical advice. Haven’t read enough in this area to tell you if it’s one of the better books, but it seems okay. =) |
WLW really should have a frequently-recommended-books plugin.