As another school year comes to a close, I get motivated to catch up on all the great books that I have stacked up on my desk or heard about from colleagues during the year. Not unlike my other lists (things to do, steps to getting in shape, etc.), the book list gets pushed aside during the school year as deadlines and work debris piles up. In hopes that committing my list to the outside world might shame me into reading, here are a few titles I hope to devour soon.

Each are quirky (according to my librarian wife) non-fiction titles that seem to attract a following and discussion among technology and business leaders. In no particular order:

• Linked: How Everything Is Connected To Everything Else and What It Means, by Albert-Laslo Barbasi
• How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of "Intangibles" In Business, by Douglas Hubbard
• The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surwicki
• Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams
• The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Behavior, by Dan Ariely

Each of these books seems to offer some application to working with technology and leadership issues in school settings. I am hopeful that after finishing some of these titles that I can persuade some of my colleagues as well as district technology leaders and superintendents to give them a try. Check back for reviews of these titles and others as I commit myself to my book list. Really.

While this post is about what I intend to read on my list, I have to put a plug in for one I just read, Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind. Look here soon for a full review, but Pink’s focus is on society’s shift from the information age to the conceptual age and the skills/abilities that we need to nurture to address these changes, both individually and as a workforce. If you have read Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat, Pink’s book is a nice follow-up with similar themes, but more focus on the skills needed for individuals to thrive in this new environment.

Lane B. Mills, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Educational Leadership program at East Carolina University. A former Assistant Superintendent for Accountability and Technology for a North Carolina school system, Dr. Mills was a 2004 Technology and Learning Ed Tech Leader of the Year finalist.

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