The CTO’s book shelf
CTOs recommend more than technical tomes.
The Innovator’s Dilemma, by Clayton Christiansen
Recommended by Sharon Mandell, vice president of technology, Tribune Publishing
The author presents many of the financial, economic, and customer challenges CTOs and other executives face and covers the introduction and adoption of new technology. The factors that drive internal customers to change — or not — aren’t that different from industry to industry.
Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, by Joseph J. Ellis
Recommended by Dwight Gibbs, independent consultant and former CTO of The Motley Fool
According to Gibbs, Founding Brothers chronicles how to bring an innovative vision to fruition in the real world. The book details how a small group of visionaries — Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, and Franklin — came together despite conflicting philosophies and ideas and created the United States.
Blur: The Speed of Change in the Connected Economy, by Christopher Davis and Stan Meyer
Recommended by Gene Rogers, CTO of Boeing Space Systems
Davis and Meyer model Blur as a redefinition of Einstein’s three classic dimensions of time, space, and mass. CTOs are chartered not to resist the blur but to harvest it. That means structuring a business model around a commercial offering that, more and more, comprises intangibles such as intellectual property.
