JANICE GJERTSEN
cofounded Total New York; she is now in business development at Digital City. She also hosts the New Media Roundtable Dinner Series.
From Power to Partnership: Creating the Future of Love, Work and Community, by Alfonso Montuori and Isabella Conti. "This book opened my eyes to how powerful a true partnership can be. Every page is full of insights shifting how I typically look at a partnership, including one with yourself, which I think people forget about. The same dynamic threads through all types of relationships."
Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, by Robin I. M. Dunbar. "Community is still such a buzzword. I see it in many business plans based on creating tight communities of more than a million people. Dunbar points out that in today's evolutionary path we can't form communities of more than 150 people. I don't know when that number will grow."
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, by Scott McCloud. "This is a must-read for any Web designer. McCloud talks about what happens between the frames in a comic strip. We don't think about that when we build Web sites. We still have a page-by-page mentality. We don't look at what experience people are having between the pages. McCloud had no idea that he wrote this book for this media."
DOUGLAS ADAMS
wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*, which he is adapting into a screenplay.*
"Generally speaking, I don't read much fiction. We used to turn to the big novel for insights into the big questions of life. Most literary novelists now don't know anything about this stuff, which is why I turn to the life scientists. They are thinking more profoundly about the nature of the human condition by shining the light into the depths of what it means to be human."
The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation, by Matt Ridley. "For a long time people said that science can self-evidently have nothing to say about morality. Ridley makes it clear that out of evolutionary theory and its offshoots scientists are getting close to being able to say intelligent things about ethical issues. People believe they apprehend the world in a rational way. This is a wonderful illusion that we practice on ourselves."
The Evolution of Cooperation, by Robert Axelrod. "Axelrod was the guy who first made solving the prisoner's dilemma into a computer game. This sort of research couldn't have been done before the advent of computers. Everything until now has been the process of taking things apart to see how they work. The coming of the computer has enabled us to start putting things together."
KATHLEEN EISENHARDT
coauthor of Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos*, is a Stanford professor, mother, and avid skier.*
A Thief of Time, by Tony Hillerman. "I enjoy a book that surprises me. This is a great mystery set in the Southwest about the disappearance and death of an archaeologist. The story twists and turns; the characters are complex and realistically flawed. And there's something haunting about the Southwest; I think it's the mix of the Indian culture with the Anglo culture in the starkness of the desert."
Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen. "I like Jane Austen because I think the language is fabulous. Her vocabulary and turns of phrase are more sophisticated and fun. It's English at its highest form. I don't think you see that very often anymore. Austen inspired me to upgrade my syntax and sense of style when I was writing my book."
The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and the Complex, by Murray Gell-Man. "I like the elegance of science, and this is a book that melds two different and complex fields - quantum physics and evolutionary biology. It's written for the layperson who likes deep science books. I alternate between mysteries and Austen-like books before bed, and I save this for when I'm on vacation."
STREET CRED
Speech Recognition - To Go Dutch Hitmeister
When the Background Eclipses the Game
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