Linked is a wonderful, very readable story about the relatively new science of Networks, a sleepy academic backwater before the internet made studying how networks work far easier and less costly. The discoveries made by network scientists using the internet are breathtaking. Networks are the best means to organize complexity, and could there be a better word than "complex" to describe our lives today? From the role of hubs, to the Power Curve distribution, to emergence, Barabasi shows how much alike networks are: from the network of the human body to social networks, cities, railroads, airports, the Internet, it becomes clear the impact that networks have on the way we live.

Here Comes Everybody documents a Third Wave in the evolution of the internet over the past two decades. First came dramatic changes in the way we access information, with websites like Yahoo and Google. Second came a revolution in our retail consumption habits, with websites like eBay and Amazon. Now we are witnessing another metamorphisis of the internet with a revolution in how we connect to other people in what Shirky calls "ad hoc networks." Social networking sites like FaceBook, Twitter and Linkedin are changing how we interact with our friends and associates. Shirky explains why this will drive signficant social changes.

The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom makes the case for Leaderless Organizations. An organization without a leader? Is that a dream come true, or a nightmare? In this analysis, the "spider" represents the traditional, rigid hierarchy organization, with well-defined leadership roles and responsibilities - think Army or ATT, but, crush a spider's head, and it dies. In contrast, cut a starfish in half, and you'll end up with two. The "starfish" in this analogy represents the more organic, self-controlled, self-directed organization of the twenty-first century, which emerges in response to a shared set of needs and then deals with issues and tasks from the bottom up - MoveOn.org, for instance. Such a self-organizing organization was only a concept before we had a tool like the Internet to help such a movement along, and now we all "get" MySpace, FaceBook, and a growing number of us, LinkedIn.

The Wisdom of the Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations by James Surowiecki Believe it or not, studies show that a roomful of average people, with adequate information, will arrive at better decisions than a handful of experts. This is a compelling study that will change the way you look at things. When the Internet and modern communications technology empower those crowds with the information they need to be smarter than the experts, you can see how much of the change we envision is starting to go on Autopilot. Hold on to your hat!

The Forgotten Half of Change : Achieving Greater Creativity through Changes in Perception by Luc de Brabandere. Brabandere argues that change comes in two parts: the actual, physical change, which requires a following change in perception (a change in the way we see things), in order for the actual change to become permanent. To be aware of the potential for change, de Brabandere suggests that we be on the lookout for five leading indicators of change, early warning signs if you will. He highlights these five "weak signals that indicate a mismatch between our assumptions and the real world." 1) Minor defects that signal disruptions to the status quo; 2) Dissonance, a warning of failure ahead; 3) Serendipity, when things seem to happen as if they were magic, as if they were planned ahead by some unseeing force; 4) Paradox - my favorite paradox to emphasize the change we're in is the rapid replacement of the hundreds-year old instituion Encyclopedia Britannica, the Icon of the Age of Reason, by Microsoft's Encarta, symbolizing the maturity of the Digital Era, only to be supplanted by Wikipedia a few years later - hello, Internet, World Wide Web, and the Network Era; and finally, 5) Boredom, where a new concept becomes commonplace (remember all the fuss about eCommerce just a few years ago, back when Business 2.0 was 300 pages long?).

Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder by David Weinberger shows that the way we deal with information has transformed with a maturing Internet. Search Engines mean that we no longer have to have "a place for everything and everything in its place," at least when it comes to the digital "everythings" in our lives. We can leave them in a "big, messy pile," and when everything is tagged with descriptors, we just need a good search engine and a knack for describing our search problem to find what twe are looking for - we don't need to remember where we filed the item. According to a review on Boing Boing, we've traditionally divided the world into categories, topics, and hierarchies because physical objects need to be in one place or another (they can't be in all the places they might belong). But computers and the Internet turn this approach on its head: because a computer can "put things" in as many categories as they need to be in, at little to no cost, and because individuals can classify knowledge, tasks, and objects idiosyncraticall with "tags," the hierarchy has become an outdated mode to organize infomaation.

New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World by Kevin Kelly In Kelly's own words: "Communication is the foundation of society, of our culture, of our humanity, of our own individual identity, and of all economic systems. This is why networks are such a big deal. Communication is so close to culture and society itself that the effects of technologizing it are beyond the scale of a mere industrial-sector cycle. Communication, and its ally computers, is a special case in economic history. Not because it happens to be the fashionable leading business sector of our day, but because its cultural, technological, and conceptual impacts reverberate at the root of our lives." Read this book.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson can only be described as a delightful read. Bryson walks the reader through engaging tales of how we (all of us human beings) came to know what we know about the world around us. It's amazing to me how much I missed along the way, and I consider myself fairly learned and well read. I paid attention in class, but class was a long time ago. And much has been added to the body of knowledge since I last attended class. I've been reading this on the treadmill at the health club and I easily pass an hour without looking up...I recommend it highly, not only to review much of what you may already know, but also to gain new insights into how the world around you works and why things are the way they are. This kind of comprehensive survey over everything helps, at least it does for me, to put things into context and make better sense of the world. A framework is vital if only to be able to stack new knowledge and insights into their proper context (like say, for instance, regarding RF communication, trends in broadband and popular uses of technology, like we try to do on this website).

The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science by Natalie Angier, a science writer by trade who takes on the task of putting together the Basics that all should know in order to be scientifically literate. Science Illiteracy is a challenge for our nation, it seems, as the masses blissfully grow less and less aware of more and more, even as the experts learn more and more and in the process realize they know less and less. Phewww! Nevertheless, this book is a great one to have on the shelf; having read through it, you will then have a handy reference because there's no way to keep all of this knowledge at the tip of your tongue. Highly recommended.

Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore A modern business classic, considered must-read in tech circles, this book makes what many may consider an obvious point: companies can start with a bang and gain great acceptance among "early adopters," but they must change the way they approach the market if they are going to duplicate that early success with the broader market, which will approach their product or service differently. This amounts to a "chasm" between Stage One and Stage Two, which must be crossed in order to have sustained growth and success.

Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Levitt argues that many apparent mysteries of everyday life don't need to be so mysterious: they could be illuminated and made even more fascinating by asking the right questions and drawing connections. For example, Levitt traces the drop in violent crime rates to a drop in violent criminals and, digging further, to the Roe v. Wade decision that preempted the existence of some people who would be born to poverty and hardship. Elsewhere, by analyzing data gathered from inner-city Chicago drug-dealing gangs, Levitt outlines a corporate structure much like McDonald's, where the top bosses make great money while scores of underlings make something below minimum wage. And in a section that may alarm or relieve worried parents, Levitt argues that parenting methods don't really matter much and that a backyard swimming pool is much more dangerous than a gun. These enlightening chapters are separated by effusive passages from Dubner's 2003 profile of Levitt in The New York Times Magazine, which led to the book being written. In a book filled with bold logic, such back-patting veers Freakonomics, however briefly, away from what Levitt actually has to say. Although maybe there's a good economic reason for that too, and we're just not getting it yet. --John Moe (Amazon Review)

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful : Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen Covey I find myself quoting from this book so often, I thought I better add it to the list. Published in 1990, this book has sold over 10 million copies and there's a good reason for that. It is well written, and Covey has assembled a system and anthology of the world's greatest personal success lessons, from the Bible to Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, Covey has woven an easy-to-remember set of habits that will make you more effective at whatever it is you choose to do. To become effective, Covey argues, you must first have a Paradigm Shift to see things differently, and then incorporate these habits into your daily life. For the record, here are the habits with the associated skills in parentheses: A. Personal Independence 1. Be Proactive. (initiative) 2. Begin with the End in Mind. (leadership) 3. First Things First (Management) B. Social Interdependence (4. Seek First to Understand, and Then to be Understood (listening) 5. Go For Win Win Solutions (cooperation) 6. Synergize (creativity) and C. Regeneration 7. Sharpen the Saw (health and balance).

Emergence made a lasting impression on me. Johnson shows how working from the bottom up, with a few simple rules, individuals can create new, complex things that seemingly "emerge" from out of nowhere. How, for instance, do neighborhoods form when they are not planned? What will be the impact of all the Hot Spots, Hot Zones, Metropolitan Networks, and coming WiMax networks, cellular networks, DSL networks, and Cable networks when they all start working together? To understand the complex nature of change in our world, this is a great book!

Plan C explores the futility of trying to continue our energy intensive lifestyles. Using dirtier fossil fuels (Plan A) or switching to renewable energy sources (Plan B) won't work - only a dramatic lifestyle change to make community the solution (Plan C) will lead to a sustainable, equitable world, only the twin solutions of community (cooperation replaces competition) and curtailment (reducing consumption of consumer goods) will reduce CO2 emissions sufficiently.

Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams. Collaboration and the changes it brings is well documented in this book, which highlights Wiki software and the new potential it brings for getting work done. Ask the man- or woman-on-the-street if they know what a wiki is, and they are still likely to respond "Huh?" - Wikis remain the territory of the technogeek, in large part - but ask them if they've been out on Wikipedia and they are quite likely to nod and then share their opinion with you about something they read. Iin my opinion, Wikipedia is better suited to keeping pace with the modern world, because of it's highly flexible and adaptive basis in Wiki technology, drawing from millions of opinions on millions of subjects, instead of hundreds or thousands. Some input on Wikipedia articles is from experts, but much is simply persistent and self-correcting data input, that over time grows better with each iteration. Most often, the listings prove good enough for my purposes, and it's rarely my only source, at any rate. It's fascinating to contemplate how efficient such mass collaboration is, and this book captures that in spades. This collaboration model goes way beyond an on-line encyclopedia, however.

The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life by Richard Florida. This NY Times Bestseller from 2002 has become what may be called a 21st Century Economic Development bible. Florida gave a name to this a shift in working behavior patterns, and the advent of a new class of young workers with new ideas about working and living. Worklife has evolved over the past 125 years, changing society as the nature of work has changed. Agriculture was the dominant category, but the Industrial Revolution brought more and more workers into the city in search of preferable Industrial jobs, which became the dominant category for much of the 20th Century. But by the second half of that century we began to see the rise of the Service Sector, where workers provided services to society. Florida notes that more and more, there are new Creatives, who do not fit in the previous three categories, and who represent a sea change in their approach to working and living.

Leading the Revolution: How to Thrive by Making Innovation a Way of Life by Gary Hamel With all the new tools that buyers have, companies are left with nothing but being good at innovation to provide them with competitive advantage. As technology and the Internet increasingly dominate our economy, it is innovation that becomes our watchword. Hamel argues that organizations, public or private, must make innovation a core competency if they are to have a hope for success.

Perfect Power by Robert Galvin and Kurt Yeager documents the vision of the Galvin Institute: the current electric infrastructure is wasteful and needs an overhaul. The future is distributed, but it will take time to get there, so the ideal transitional technology is the microgrid, which will gradually provide the system greater efficiency and flexibility, enabling distributed technologies to attach to the grid and mature until the point they can replace fossil fuels.

The City : A Global History by Joel Kotkin This recently published book gives great perspective on the city and its impact on our lives. The city, Kotkin says, is one of man's greatest inventions because it concentrated the learning of people into a dense area and allowed that knowledge to pass down through generations. Civilization really took off when cities became connected, first by ships (Phoenicia), then roads (Rome), then canals, then railroads, then telecommunications. The rest, as they say, is history.

The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen does a great job of explaining how innovations (and innovators) have to struggle to gain support and mindshare in large organizations. He looks at well-run, etablished companies and examines how they are able to counter the threat from new companies, which enter the market on the low end with lower quality, cheaper products and in time improve the products and take greater market share. Either private or public sector management will benefit from the insights offered herein, as innovation becomes an ever greater presence in our lives.

Creating Value in the Network Economy by Don Tapscott This compendium of Harvard Business Review articles from 1999 is a great view of how the impact of the Internet was interpreted during the boom. Prescient in their analyses, I believe many of these guys got it right.

Leading Change by John P. Kotter With change becoming one of the few constants in our lives, this book written at the dawn of the Internet (1995) offers a practical approach to an organized means of leading, not managing, change. Kotter presents an eight-stage process of change with highly useful examples that show how to go about implementing it.

The New Pioneers: The Men and Women Who Are Transforming the Workplace and Marketplace by Thomas Petzinger With intriguing stories of the people behind innovative companies, this book details the personal stories in the new economy. Petzinger sees workers who are entrepreneurial, not corporate; stressing adaptation rather than bureaucratic planning, "teamwork" and "empowerment" rather than rigid command-and-control structures.

The History of Knowledge by Charles Van Doren is a good read to put into context what may be a new revolution in the world's capabilities regarding knowledge and awareness, brought on by technological convergence. Van Doren, the same individual who was caught up in the Quiz Show scandal of the 1950s, came out with this book in 1991, after spending the previous twenty years editing the Encyclopedia Britannica. We've certainly come a long way in our time here on earth, and Van Doren tells a good story of how humans got to be so darn smart.

Powerful Times: Rising to the Challenge of Our Uncertain World by Eamon Kelly This is a book for deep thinkers. Technological, financial, social, economic, cultural, and political systems - what makes up our world - are all moving faster and faster, towards greater complexity and interdependence, according to Kelly. Paradox rears it head here - paradox is a common element of our modern world. Kelly explains that we humans seek patterns, but our simplifications of complex issues obscure more than they clarify, and our "either/or" mindsets don't really fit well in today's world. Foundational change is underway: Kelly demonstrates that deep, fundamental dynamics may be unraveling much of what we've taken for granted since the Enlightenment dawned some 400 years ago.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell This term has entered the popular vernacular - the tipping point is the point when a trend goes mainstream. That may be where we are getting to in the near term with municipal networks. This book will help you to understand popular behavior and give you a vocabulary for some things you already know.

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie If there is a better, more timeless set of principles on human relationships, please let me know. This book, written in 1937, has sold 15 million copies. I first read it in 1977, when I was a young man going door-to-door selling books in Appalachia, a life-changing experience for me in what is now a dying profession. The principles, such as "People love to hear the sound of their own name" ring true today. This book will make you think twice about how you relate to others, and your friends willl thank you for taking the time. And you will have more of those. Friends, I mean. And what's wrong with that? Spending a few bucks or so for this paperback will be the best few bucks you have spent in a long while.