Lanny

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Leigh -

Here’s a little skepticism about the general approach, at least for the MBA content. I looked through the 2005 list which is available in the manifesto pdf document linked from here

http://www.changethis.com/17.PersonalMBA

Since I teach economics, I looked specifically at what was recommended for that. Apart from the magazine, The Economist, the suggestion was Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt, with publication date in 1981.

http://800ceoread.com/products/?ISBN=0517548232

I verified it is available at amazon.com

Then I looked at the 2007 updated list here.

http://personalmba.com/recommended-business-books/business-reference/

Hazlitt’s book is not listed. Indeed there are no economics books on the updated list. What gives? Why did it make sense to include that category in 2005 but not in 2007? An oversight? They no longer could get the rights to include the book in their bundle? Economics is no longer relevant? What?

More generally, how does a potential reader know this is a good list. What checks are there on that? They do provide criteria for how the books were selected. That’s a start. But how does one know whether those criteria have been well applied? Further, once given such a list, is there perhaps an appropriate sequence in which to read these things? Perhaps there are interdependencies between the books that should be brought out. Will the reader get that? How?

I think the building the deck thing is different for two reasons. First, the knowledge you are looking for is quite applied and down to earth. Much of the MBA content is conceptual and abstract. Second, you are your own master. You are quite able to judge whether you’ve learned what you need to know from the deck you build. With the MBA content there is a need to convince an employer or potential employer, a co-worker, a client, etc. about what you know. And that’s just to get the opportunity to work on something.

BTW, I got Hazlitt’s book out of the Library here and started to read the first few chapters. I will read the rest in the next few days. But i can see from it that it hammers on some basic ideas - principally opportunity cost. This is a necessary component, but there are other things I would teach that the book seems to ignore - nothing on uncertainty, for example.

I would be much happier with this type of approach if

(a) the producing of the list were entirely independent of the selling the books,

(b) there were extensive bibliographies rather than just a handful of books in each category so that people who are curious about the subject can read till their heart’s content, and

(c) there were articles from periodicals as well as entire books listed.

It still wouldn’t help on the convincing others of what you know, but it would be much better in other ways.

________________________________

Lanny Arvan

CIO and Associate Dean for eLearning

College of Business

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

219 Wohlers Hall

1206 South Sixth Street

Champaign, IL 61820