Arik Johnson

My Favorite Books for Business 2008

My list of favorite business books each year is most often focused on a few core concepts that caused me to rethink my assumptions about decision making, management, innovation and strategy within the framework of my professional orientation around the use of competitive intelligence in business. The clustering of the ideas among this past year’s books were no different in 2008 and some common themes emerged that I thought reflected the cultural zeitgeist of business in general pretty well.

I found the year focused its best output on a few, persistent core themes: strategic innovation, intelligence analysis, finance and economics, decision psychology, entrepreneurial growth, leadership and management, social media and (most surprising for me this year) idea presentation (perhaps carrying over from last year’s breathtaking “Made to Stick” which was my choice for the best book of 2007.

Here’s my full list – which I limit to 40 titles these days, since there are only so many I can cram on the list for you to review. Which was my very favorite? I’ll reveal that on my Twitter feed next week. Meanwhile…

Enjoy and Happy New Year!

The Red Queen among Organizations: How Comp… by William P. Barnett $23.96	A Sense of Urgency by John P. Kotter $14.96	The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue… by A.G. Lafley $18.15
Innovation to the Core: A Blueprint for Tra… by Peter Skarzynski $23.10	The New Age of Innovation: Driving Cocreate… by C.K. Prahalad $19.77	Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the … by Judy Estrin $18.45
Innovator’s Guide to Growth: Putting Disrup… by Scott D. Anthony $23.10	Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation… by Clayton Christensen $21.75	The Innovator’s Prescription: A Disruptive … by Clayton M. Christensen $21.75

The Innovator’s Toolkit: 50+ Techniques for… by David Silverstein $19.77	The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sus… by Amar Bhide $23.10	Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outs… by Guy Kawasaki $18.65
The Granularity of Growth: How to Identify … by Patrick Viguerie $29.70	Analyzing Intelligence: Origins, Obstacles,… $26.95	Analysis Without Paralysis: 10 Tools to Mak… by Babette E. Bensoussan $16.49
Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates … by Geoff Colvin $15.75	Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell $15.39	On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right E… by Robert Burton $16.47

Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We … by Carol Tavris $9.72	Guesstimation: Solving the World’s Problems… by Lawrence Weinstein $13.57	Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational B… by Ori Brafman $14.93
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces T… by Dan Ariely $17.13	True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fac… by Farhad Manjoo $17.13	Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green… by Thomas L. Friedman $16.77
The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the … by David M. Smick $17.79	The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of… by Niall Ferguson $17.61	Panic: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity $16.77

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizi… by Clay Shirky $16.35	Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd I… by Jeff Howe $17.79	Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed… by Charlene Li $19.77
The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Ed… by Nicholas Carr $11.53	Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin $11.99	The Brand Bubble: The Looming Crisis in Bra… by John Gerzema $18.45
The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems an… by Dan Roam $15.64	slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creatin… by Nancy Duarte $23.09	Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentat… by Garr Reynolds $19.79

The Art of Strategy: A Game Theorist’s Guid… by Avinash K. Dixit $18.45	Business War Games: How Large, Small, and N… by Benjamin Gilad $13.59	Competitive Intelligence and Senior Managem… by J.H.A.M. Rodenberg $49.00
Competitive Intelligence: Fast, Cheap &… by Rob Duncan $18.95