Reading List

Here are some books that celebrate Simplicity — how to communicate more effectively, how to improve your presentations, and how to think through your personal brand or company value proposition.  I hope the authors would welcome such a description. While this is a personal list — and the books are in no particular order, I will appreciate your input.  Forgive me if you feel a book should be in a different category, but this is my list.  The titles are set up as links in those cases where I’ve blogged on the book.  I’ll be doing more of that in the days to come — some on books listed here so stop back occasionally.

Simplicity

1. Switch by Chip and Dan Heath
2. Rules of Thumb by Alan Webber
3. The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande
4. The Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda
5. Simply Effective by Ron Ashkenas
6. Any of the Simplicity books by Bill Jensen
7. The Leadership Code by Dave Ulrich, Norm Smallwood, and Kate Sweetman
8. The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki

Personal Brand/Company Value Propositions

1. Anything by Peter Drucker — it probably goes without saying and my two favorites are The Effective Executive and The Daily Drucker (bite-sized pieces)
2. The Trusted Advisor by David Maister
3. Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi
4. Linchpin by Seth Godin
5. Blink and The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
6. The Little BIG Things by Tom Peters

Presentations and Communication

1. PresentationZen by Garr Reynolds
2. slide:ology by Nancy Duarte 
3. The Elements of Style by Strunk and White
4. Trust Me by Nick Morgan

Random Business Books

1. Negotiations: The Power of Nice by Ron Shapiro and Mark Jankowski (along with subsequent books like Dare to Prepare)
2. Time Management: Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy
3. Website Usability: Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug