I’ve put together a list of the best “big picture” business books I’ve read in the past years to demonstrate Wajapi tags and to illustrate a nifty feature I call javascript widgets (for more on js widgets, see below).
The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric Raymond: The best analysis I’ve read on the impact of open source on business models and software, written by uber geek, open source promoter and gun enthusiast(!) E. Raymond.
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman or as I call it “globalization happened, get over it”. Another interesting read for those interested in open source and how it affects business.
The Pirate’s Dilemma by Matt Mason: Why are you reading Lawrence Lessig when you could be reading Matt Mason? Mason was a pirate radio and club DJ in London, and later became founding Editor-in-Chief of the magazine RWD. Who cares if he thinks Linux is a corporation? Read this book!
The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb – the core message of this book is “shit happens, wear a helmet” and it explains why financial risk models don’t work, why you should go to networking events and how the movie business is similar to the VC industry.
The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen: Of all the five books this is the most academic and best researched. Clayton’s insight into disruptive technologies has far reaching implications for any business.
Wajapi tip: Every user’s profile page and every tag on Wajapi has a javascript widget attached to it. The list above is created by pasting the following code into the blog post:
<script src="http://www.wajapi.com/geir/tags/top_business.widget"> </script>
If I go back to Wajapi and update the list, the list on this page changes. Yay.
