Interested in Web 2.0? Pick up a good book   |  November 17, 2008  

By Peter Wolchak

Web 2.0 is hot right now but there is more hype than knowledge about it out there. That lack of understanding was one of the main themes to come out of two round table discussions held recently by Backbone and KPMG. One of the panelists, Michael Sikorsky of Cambrian House pointed the crowd in Vancouver to a number of books that will help business leaders understand this cultural and tech change.

His reading list contains 12 recommendations, including Peter Drucker's Concept of the Corporation, an analysis of the General Motors operation in the 1940s. Sikorsky said that, while this book doesn't talk about wikis, blogs or social networking, it will help readers understand corporate cultures, and that is key to implementing Web 2.0 systems properly. He also points out that his list does not include standards like Wisdom of Crowds, We Are Smarter Than Me, Wikinomics and The Starfish and the Spider, as people have probably already read those.

Sikorsky also has a list of books on crowdsourcing, for those interested in that topic.