Our top 6 reads for a new year
The future of technology, connection, and design…and a little bit of sci-fi: a short and sweet starter reading list from our team for 2017.
The Inevitable, by Kevin Kelly
This latest book from the technological visionary Kevin Kelly presents twelve culture-shifting technology trends that will transform — and are already beginning to transform—the way we live.
Read it for: big-picture inspiration on where we’re going in the next three decades.
Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline
Our fiction pick, Cline’s dystopian novel is a simultaneously fun and serious thriller that raises questions around the digital utopias we try to create and their eventual power over us.
Read it for: a thoroughly entertaining fantastical journey that is also thoroughly thought-provoking.
Becoming Wise, by Krista Tippett
Tippett’s a Peabody award-winning journalist and Nationalist Humanities Medalist whose masterful interviews with a wide-ranging cast of “spiritual geniuses” has made her podcast On Being essential listening. In this volume she condenses what she has learned from years of synthesizing some of the most profound voices of our time.
Read it for: beautiful and generous insights on the nature of being human: from community to belief to science and technology.
This is Service Design Thinking, edited by Marc Stickdorn & Jakob Schneider
Twenty-three authors from around the world unpack service design thinking in this useful resource. Accessible enough for newbies and deep enough to bring new insights to seasoned designers, the book was co-created through some of the very approaches it promotes.
Read it for: a one-stop, well-rounded education on the emerging methodology that will shape how we work.
The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection, by Michael Harris
Winner of a Governor General’s award, Harris’ thoughtful meditation on what it means to be the last generation in history to experience life without the internet is a skillful, well-researched tour through the human implications of consistent connection.
Read it for: a clear-sighted and urgent look at the implications of digital connection and what we stand to lose in its wake.
Design, When Everyone Designs, by Ezio Manzini
Whether we hold the title “designer” or not, we all engage in what Manzini calls “diffuse design” — actions that create social change. Manzini investigates the interaction between diffuse and expert design, providing inspiration for how the two can collaborate to create solutions.
Read it for: ideas for meaningfully approaching collaborative design in socially purposeful work.
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