Looking to refresh your reading list this year?
Here’s what IT and grants management leaders in philanthropy are reading now.
Accelerate: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations
How can we apply technology to drive business value? For years, we’ve been told that the performance of software delivery teams doesn’t matter―that it can’t provide a competitive advantage to our companies. Through four years of groundbreaking research to include data collected from the State of DevOps reports conducted with Puppet, Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim set out to find a way to measure software delivery performance―and what drives it―using rigorous statistical methods. This book presents both the findings and the science behind that research, making the information accessible for readers to apply in their own organizations.
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It’s a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a superpower in our increasingly competitive twenty-first-century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there’s a better way.
Elon Musk: Tesla, Space X and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
Elon Musk is the most daring entrepreneur of our time. There are few industrialists in history who could match Elon Musk’s relentless drive and ingenious vision. A modern alloy of Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, and Steve, Jobs Musk is the man behind PayPal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX, and SolarCity, each of which has sent shock waves throughout American business and industry. More than any other executive today, Musk has dedicated his energies and his own vast fortune to inventing a future that is as rich and far-reaching as a science fiction fantasy. In this lively investigative account veteran technology journalist, Ashlee Vance offers an unprecedented look into the remarkable life and times of Silicon Valley’s most audacious businessman.
Future Crimes: Inside the Digital Underground and the Battle for Our Connected World
Technological advances have benefited our world in immeasurable ways, but there is an ominous flip side: our technology can be turned against us. And just over the horizon is a tidal wave of scientific progress that will leave our heads spinning—from implantable medical devices to drones and 3-D printers, all of which can be hacked, with disastrous consequences.
Millions worldwide have read and embraced John Kotter’s ideas on change management and leadership—and Leading Change, his seminal work is widely recognized as the bible on leading transformational change.
Needed more today than any time in the past, this classic book serves as both visionary guide and practical toolkit on how to approach the difficult yet critical work of leading change in any type of organization. It outlines John Kotter’s 8-step approach to change management and reveals what the author has seen, heard, experienced, and concluded in many years of working with companies to create lasting transformation.
Mapping Innovation: A Playbook for Navigating a Disruptive Age
Today, managers are often told that they must “innovate or die,” but are given little useful guidance on how to go about it. Sure, there are many books and articles that champion one approach or another, but till now there has been no effective guide to help executives find their way through the tangled jungle of competing ideas.
Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy
After the sudden death of her husband, Sheryl Sandberg felt certain that she and her children would never feel pure joy again. “I was in ‘the void,’” she writes, “a vast emptiness that fills your heart and lungs and restricts your ability to think or even breathe.” Her friend Adam Grant, a psychologist at Wharton, told her there are concrete steps people can take to recover and rebound from life-shattering experiences. We are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. It is a muscle that everyone can build.
Platform Revolution teaches newcomers how to start and run a successful platform business, explaining ways to identify prime markets and monetize networks. Addressing current business leaders, the authors reveal strategies behind some of today’s up-and-coming platforms, such as Tinder and SkillShare, and explain how traditional companies can adapt in a changing marketplace. The authors also cover essential issues concerning security, regulation, and consumer trust, while examining markets that may be ripe for a platform revolution, including healthcare, education, and energy.
The Givers: Wealth, Power, and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age
While media attention focuses on famous philanthropists such as Bill Gates and Charles Koch, thousands of donors are at work below the radar promoting a wide range of causes. David Callahan charts the rise of these new power players and the ways they are converting the fortunes of a second Gilded Age into influence. He shows how this elite works behind the scenes on education, the environment, science, LGBT rights, and many other issues–with deep impact on government policy. Above all, he shows that the influence of the Givers is only just beginning, as new waves of billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg turn to philanthropy. Based on extensive research and interviews with countless donors and policy experts, this is not a brief for or against the Givers, but a fascinating investigation of a power shift in American society that has implications for us all.
The Guide to Balancing Chaos & Career
This interactive, self-improvement guide ingeniously crafts a progressive sequence of quick yet powerful reads that force readers to inoculate themselves with the positivity and strategies they need to conquer chaos and career. Designed for busy professionals and students who want the benefit of useful personal development content without spending hours of valuable time deciphering hundreds of pages of lengthy text. This first part of the three-volume series is sectioned into short, easy to read text that focuses on building the reader’s mental and emotional stability so that they are well-equipped to absorb life’s inevitable disruptions. After reading this book, readers will find themselves able to approach any situation, past or present, with a positive perspective. As an added bonus, this first guide also includes insider tips on key aspects such as how to triple your salary, achieve inner peace, and garner respect in the workplace.