Readings

The Book

The Machine

The Fuel


My personal Intellectual Capital Engine includes many ideas borrowed from other writers and even other disciplines. What follows is an annotated list of the most important references for The Strategy Machine. Just click on the book jacket if you want to learn more about the book or buy it at Amazon.com.
	Henry Adams, *The Education of Henry Adams*. Henry Adams, the grandson and great-grandson of American Presidents, lived at the height of the Industrial Revolution. In his autobiography, he describes the difficulty of adapting when change increases faster than the human mind can absorb.
	C. Gordon Bell, *High Tech Ventures*. Gordon Bell, both an engineer and an entrepreneur, descibes a systematic approach to evaluating and refocusing ventures at key stages in their development. His twelve dimensions of measurement are rigorous tools that can be adapted to any investment in your strategy portfolio.
	Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., *The Mythical Man-Month*. Frederick Brooks’ “essays on software engineering” mark the beginning of the study of software project management. His parables are more relevant today, as companies move toward strategic applications of information technology, than they were twenty years ago when first published.
	James Burke, *Connections*. In this and other books (as well as TV series, audio programs, and other media), James Burke demonstrates how small discoveries or events in history can change the course of civilization in fundamental ways. More important, Burke teaches us how to use history as a competitive weapon.
	Clayton M. Christensen, *The Innovator’s Dilemma*. Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen unlocks an important clue in the search for a sociology of strategy. Why is it so hard for market leaders to maintain their lead in the face of disruptive technologies that affect their core products and services? It is not because they don’t see them coming.
	Ronald H. Coase, *The Firm, the Market and the Law*. Nobel Prizewinning economist Ronald Coase explains, among other things, transaction costs, the nature of the firm and why he doesn’t consider himself an economist! “The Nature of the Firm” is perhaps the most important essay written in economic theory since the time of Adam Smith.
	Larry Downes and Chunka Mui, *Unleashing the Killer App*. Killer App, my first book, describes the process of strategy design in the early days of the Internet revolution. Think of it as a prequel to The Strategy Machine, which is focused more on problems of execution and refinements to the model from Killer App.
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	Peter F. Drucker, *Post-Capitalist Society*. Always ahead of his time, Peter Drucker’s 1993 book heralded the new economy, where information can be more valuable than the products and services it describes, and where the structure of companies would be reconfigured to optimize the care and feeding of data rather than fixed assets.
	Corporation for National Research Initiatives. During 1995-1996, CNRI, a non-profit organization, published a remarkable series of monographs by Prof. Amy Friedlander on the history of key elements of business infrastructure: telephone, electricity, banking, and railroads. The lessons of these dramatic stories have even more to teach us today as new business infrastructure is created in the form of digital technology.
	Randy Komisar, *The Monk and the Riddle*. Silicon Valley veteran Randy Komisar’s thoughtful and entertaining look at what drives the entrepreneurial personality, with important lessons on staying the course, pursuing your passion, and maintaining a balance between work and the “deferred life plan.”
	Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, *On Death and Dying*. Dr. Kübler-Ross’s study of the psychological stages of grief experienced by patients with terminal illness turns out to be one of the most important books on management science written in the last fifty years. Her lessons on the mourning process apply with equal force to industries, businesses, and individuals caught in the process of industry metamorphosis. Fortunately, in the business context the chances of reincarnation are much higher.
	Thomas S. Kuhn, *The Structure of Scientific Revolutions*. Professor Kuhn’s seminal study of the difficulty of propagating scientific breakthroughs in the thinking of the current practitioners of the science. His overused term “paradigm shift,” is equally applicable to the process by which companies and those who work for them resist the reality of industry metamorphosis.
	Heidi Mason and Tim Rohner, *The Venture Imperative*. Just released, Mason and Rohner’s book picks up where Gordon Bell leaves off, applying the Bell-Mason venture evaluation model to the particular problem of corporate venture capital.
	Henry Mintzberg, *The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning*. Professor Mintzberg’s devastating critique of traditional strategic planning is a must-read for anyone trying to break themselves of bad habits or just avoid starting them in the first place. Tom Peters says this book changed his life.
	Geoffrey A. Moore, *Crossing the Chasm*. The best of Geoffrey Moore’s excellent books. His application of the technology adoption curve to new product marketing goes well beyond the original audience of high-tech companies. Any company hoping to succeed with a project, venture, or option will need to understand the chasm and how to get past it.
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	Nicholas Negroponte, *Being Digital*. Nicholas Negroponte’s distillation of his early columns from Wired Magazine is still the best text written on what the digital revolution means in every day life.
	Michael E. Porter, *Competitive Advantage*. Prof. Porter distills the best thinking about corporate strategy in the last century. Unfortunately these techniques work best in the classroom, not in industries undergoing metamorphosis. Still, it helps to know what not to do.
	Carl Shapiro and Hal R. Varian, *Information Rules*. Two economists tackle the difficult problem of the unusual properties of information in the market. An excellent guide for executives coming to terms with the reality that information increasingly determines profitability.
	Don Tapscott et al., *Digital Capital*. Don Tapscott’s excellent book on the ways in which information sharing among supply chain participants chains the nature and economics of the underlying relationships.
	Frederick Winslow Taylor, *Principles of Scientific Management*. The much-maligned Taylor invented management science with this ground-breaking study of how the likes and dislikes of human beings affects productivity and what to do about it. Read it yourself and decide if you think Taylor is a hero or a heel.
	Alvin Toffler, *Future Shock*. The book everyone bought in the 1970’s. Just for fun, read it again (or for the first time) to see how remarkably prescient Toffler’s prediction were about life in the 21st century. More to the point, the malady described by the title has only become pandemic, and particularly so in business life.
	Lynn White, Jr., *Medieval Technology and Social Change*. Prof. White’s stunning investigation into the relationship between disruptive technology and long-term social change—set in the Middle Ages. Reading his stories about the stirrup, the plow, crop rotation, and eyeglasses will make you realize how little things have changed and how little we have learned from our past.
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