Hey, happy Monday!
This is the summer version of STRTGY Notes, the popular 1,000-word newsletters that more than 1,400 professionals and entrepreneurs read to understand how to unlock the innovative potential of the organizations they work with every day and create the next competitive advantage.
This shorter, easier-to-read format is designed to leave more time for what you like to do!
For the next few weeks I will leave you with 9 links, 3 per category, carefully selected from my bookmarks.
Use this and upcoming emails you receive as a bookmark of summer reading that matters, the kind that will allow you to broaden your field of vision on innovation and rethink what is possible!
The extended version will return in September, right on time, every Monday at 7:00. In the meantime, in addition to the contents of this issue, you will find links to the 10 most-read STRTGY Notes ever.
Have a great day!
Make yourself heard!
9 books for 🤯 ↓
The books are in English, if possible I recommend you read them in the original language. Italian versions are available for some.
Design
Liftoff!: Practical Design Leadership to Elevate Your Team, Your Organization, and You
Chris Avore and Russ Unger
Liftoff! is the guide for design managers and leaders. Written by designers for designers, it is filled with tips for growing your team, building your career, and strengthening the role of design in your organization.
If you’ve ever found yourself writing a job description instead of HR, always trying out new tools so you can work better, inviting colleagues to workshops, and translating feedback from non-designer managers–then you’re a Design Leader and you should read this.
How to Speak Machine: Computational Thinking for the Rest of Us.
John Maeda
Technology is evolving at an exponential rate and it is necessary to speak the language of machines, whether physical or in the cloud, to create the products of the future. An essential book for those who feel the need to understand computational design.
Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage.
Roger L. Martin
In 2017, the author was named the world’s No. 1 management thinker by Thinkers50, which ranks the most influential personalities in business strategy every 2 years.
In this book, he explains how le incorporate the best of design thinking into the current way of working to unlock innovation and creativity by balancing analytical and intuitive thinking in four stages through which productivity is increased and costs are reduced, thereby creating great value for all stakeholders.
Business
Mapping Innovation: A Playbook for Navigating a Disruptive Age
Greg Satel
A book that explains with great precision and without boredom the four models of innovation: Basic Research, Breakthrough Innovation, Sustaining Innovation, and Disruptive Innovation. You will thus understand which one is most useful for you which strategies to implement.
Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries
Safi Bahcall
One of my favorite books! On the one hand there are the Moonshots, those aspirational, ambitious and expensive projects… This book, on the other hand, is about the Loonshots, crazy ideas and neglected projects that instead change the world… It is often not the culture but the structure of the teams that, appropriately modified, enables a new way of working and innovating.
Uncopyable: How to Create an Unfair Advantage Over Your Competition
Steve Miller
Competition is fierce and it is too exhausting to constantly try to be better than competitors. It is easier to make it impossible for someone to copy us… The book describes the Uncopyable System: foundations, strategies and tools.
Technology
WTF?: What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us
Tim O’Reilly
He is the world’s most influential tech analyst and the founder of the publishing house of the same name. In this book he ponders what the next digital revolution will look like by asking questions like, “What will the companies of the future look like?” or “How do we make sure algorithms aren’t used the wrong way?”
Bank 4.0: Banking everywhere, never at a bank
Brett Kink
Probably in a couple of generations money as we know it will no longer exist. What then will be the role of banks and how are they reengineering and what will the experience of the future look like? Interesting not only for those working in fintech…
The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future
Kevin Kelly
What will happen in the next 30 years is inevitable, and the book describes 12 major trends that will change the way we work, play, communicate, and shop. It is the roadmap for the future.
