Authors James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras, through six years of research and observation attempt to answer the question "What makes the truly exceptional companies different from the comparison companies and what were the common practices these enduringly great companies followed throughout their history?"

Author Wayne Baker explains the sociology of social networks and how they can be managed to help an organization and its members thrive.

Excerpt:
"Fish are the last to discover water. Whether one sees it or not, every organization has a social architecture that sets the conditions of interaction. Usually, people take the design of an organization for granted; they simply accept it as is without thinking too much about it.. . . You cannot escape social architecture. Your only choice is whether you will take control of social architecture or let it control you."

The ability to build business and personal networks can make or break a career, or a company. This business bestseller teaches entrepreneurs, change agents, and corporate executives to boost their effectiveness, influence, and happiness by building powerful networks. Named "one of the top 30 business books of 1994" by Executive Book Summaries, and a main selection of the Business Week and Newbridge Book Clubs.

Information, disease, knowledge and just about everything else is disseminated through a complex series of networks made up of interconnected hubs, argues University of Notre Dame physics professor Barabasi. These networks are replicated in every facet of human life: "There is a path between any two neurons in our brain, between any two companies in the world, between any two chemicals in our body.

Author Malcolm Gladwell provides a wealth of social science and ingenious theory to describe "that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate."

Author Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief of Wired Magazine, shows how the Internet has made possible a new world in which the combined value of modest sellers and quirky titles the long tail of retail distribution is creating a new model: the economics of abundance.

Excerpt:
"In short, though we still obsess over hits, they are not quite the economic force they once were. Where are those fickle consumers going instead: No single place. They are scattered to the winds as markets fragment into a thousand niches."

Author Ray Kurzweil, one of the worlds most respected thinkers, makes the critical point that since the advent of evolution, advancements in technological change have been exponential, not linear. And, in the case of information technology, the rate of exponential change has itself been exponential.

Excerpt:
"Based on the explosive nature of exponential progression, humans will experience 20,000 years of progress in the 21st century. Thats 1,000 times more than in the 20th century."

While it may seem that we're in the midst of an unprecedented technological transition, Carr (Does IT Matter?) posits that the direction of the digital revolution has a strong historical corollary: electrification. Carr argues that computing, no longer personal, is going the way of a power utility.

Excerpt:
"Today, we're in the midst of another epochal transformation, and it's following a similar course. What happened to the generation of power a century ago is now happening to the processing of information."

Author Nassim Nicholas Taleb continues his exploration of randomness in his fascinating new book, The Black Swan, in which he examines the influence of highly improbable and unpredictable events that have massive impact.

Excerpt:
"History does not crawl, it jumps." Our assumptions grow out of the bell-curve predictability of what he calls "Mediocristan," while our world is really shaped by the wild powerlaw swings of "Extremistan."

To be a successful business leader, executives need to make values-based problem solving a habit of mind, argue management experts and Notre Dame professors Viva Bartkus and Ed Conlon. In Getting It Right, Bartkus and Conlon draw on insights from consulting, management, and academia to deliver a powerful message: no matter how chaotic the marketplace, leaders can still address even the most staggering challenges in a calm and confident manner.

Excerpt:
"Business leaders are facing unprecedented challenges in today's uncertain environment. To fully grasp the untold challenges of a turbulent marketplace, a great leader must have great problem solving skills, clarity of thought, tenacity in action, and uncompromising values."

Chances are you know a person between the ages of 11 and 30. You've seen them doing five things at once: texting friends, downloading music, uploading videos, watching a movie on a two-inch screen, and doing who-knows-what on Facebook or MySpace. They're the first generation to have literally grown up digital--and they're part of a global cultural phenomenon that's here to stay.

Excerpt:
"Today's young people are using technology in ways you could never imagine. Instead of passively watching television, the "Net Geners" are actively participating in the distribution of entertainment and information. For the first time in history, youth are the authorities on something really important."

Gladwell once again proves masterful in a genre he essentially pioneered—the book that illuminates secret patterns behind everyday phenomena. His gift for spotting an intriguing mystery, luring the reader in, then gradually revealing his lessons in lucid prose, is on vivid display.

Excerpt:
"they (superstars) are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot."

Author Gladwell has a dazzling ability to find commonality in disparate fields of study. As he displays again in this entertaining and illuminating look at how we make snap judgments—about people's intentions, the authenticity of a work of art, even military strategy—he can parse for general readers the intricacies of fascinating but little-known fields like professional food tasting (why does Coke taste different from Pepsi?)

Excerpt:
"I think that this is the way that our unconscious works. When we leap to a decision or have a hunch, our unconscious is doing what John Gottman does. It's sifting through the situation in front of us, throwing out all that is irrelevant while we zero in on what really matters."