Notes from a Sustainopreneur | on Sustainability Entrepreneurship

You, Me, Hemingway, Van Gogh?: Moleskine Plain Notebook Classic
Reading? Naaah ;). But maybe this is one of the best books related to "creativity"? Well the "story" - or the myth? - of it still, "Hemingway and those guys used it", turns it to something more than a notebook and a rubber strap. (storytelling at http://www.moleskine.com/) Need proof? See here http://www.squidoo.com/moleskines/ - at the time of writing at #10 in the 10 000+ collection of Lenses. Still. I want one. And yes, I am buying the "story" too, but that is not the same as "believing it"...

Albert-Laszlo Barabasi: Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life
Maybe the strongest insight rush from the past year 2005 came from this volume, where the "new science of networks" have emerged further. See my dedicated "Books for 2006" blogpost for the book scheduled for release this year on the same topic. I believe Innovative approaches in networking holds a strong promise to speed up the world to be a sustainable place, and Barabasi is helping to give a general framework of insights. Exciting!

Stuart L. Hart: Capitalism at the Crossroads: The Unlimited Business Opportunities in Solving the World's Most Difficult Problems
Poverty, climate change, disconnectivity. All sustainability related problems - where entrepreneurship viewed as solving problems generates business opportunities. Includes a thoughtful "sustainability strategy mapping" matrix for transforming corporates to include sustainability as a core part of their strategy. A must read.

C.K. Prahalad: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits
A groundbreaking book to kill myths and unfold the unlimited opportunities to create win-win-win with the "Bottom of the Pyramid", the 4 and a half billion people living below $3 a day - viewed as a brand-sensitive and conscious strong consumer group with a lot of entrepreneurial and creative drive - and not helpless victims. Helps to break barriers created by institutionalized thinking for a truly learning dialogue getting to action. In short - a market is open for win-win-win chains!

Ernst U.von Weizsacker: Factor Four: Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use - A Report to the Club of Rome
This was pioneering to show some cases how business and innovation could contribute to "factor four" - halving resource use and doubling wealth, published by the Club of Rome.

Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, Mark Newman, Duncan Watts: The Structure and Dynamics of Networks (Princeton Studies in Complexity)
If "Linked" above presented an easily accessed introduction, still with quite intricate underlying mathematics making it easy to grasp, this volume seems to take it quite a bit further, to say the least! Still, given the reading experience from last summer, I expect nothing less than astounding when this lies in my lap, replacing the laptop :). -- Synopsis Quote; "From the Internet to networks of friendship, disease transmission, and even terrorism, the concept--and the reality--of networks has come to pervade modern society. But what exactly is a network? What different types of networks are there? Why are they interesting, and what can they tell us? In recent years, scientists from a range of fields--including mathematics, physics, computer science, sociology, and biology--have been pursuing these questions and building a new "science of networks." This book brings together for the first time a set of seminal articles representing research from across these disciplines."

Chris Anderson: The Long Tail
If Barabasi et al takes the concept of networks to its "abstractions" and the most far-spread cross/multi/many-disciplinary applications, Chris Anderson delivers a truly groundbreaking approach to its application in two dimensions: How to make use of the "small worlds" to generate "new business opportunities and to tap into formerly 'impossible' markets" of the niches of the millions of dozens. Read it in the crude states as a "on its way to a book-diary" at http://www.thelongtail.com and check the Long Tail basics at the "Lens" http://www.squidoo.com/longtail!

Kai Hockerts et al: Social Entrepreneurship
Pending is the book coming from Kai Hockerts et al. (ed.), one of my greatest "linkedin's", former head of CMER of Insead and now associated to "Center for Corporate Values and Responsibilities", is here on his way with a volume bringing the field forward. He was the first to have a PhD connecting the concepts "sustainable development" with "entrepreneurship", see my "theory/references" first blogpost.