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"I enjoyed lunch too :) Please email the titles of all of those books! They all sounded wonderful," tweeted Heidi Hansen. E-mail, Heidi? ;) E-mail is so old-school. Here are the books we talked about:

The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative
by Stephen Denning

Read the first few chapters to learn about telling springboard stories. This book is more about influencing large groups of people, but you might find the tips on storytelling useful even if you’re working one-on-one. Tell people stories about the ways social software saves you time and helps you do more, and tell those stories in a way that helps people imagine the time they could save and the things they could do. =) (Also, it’s a good read.)

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Influencer: The Power to Change Anything
by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler

This one talks about the personal, social, and structural motivations and abilities that you need to think about if you’re influencing adoption. Again written for the large-scale, but worth keeping in mind when you’re trying to influence behavior one-on-one. Also good because it’ll help you understand why you can’t win everyone… =)
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I also often recommend this:

Crossing the Chasm
by Geoffrey A. Moore

also has some good stuff about technology adoption. Here you’ll see the technology adoption curve, with innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. (Or something like that…)

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Alex might find these books about writing useful, as they talk about scientific writing as well:

Writing To Learn
by William K. Zinsser

Start with this one; it’s about bridging the gap between science and writing. =)
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The Periodic Table
by Primo Levi
One of William Zinsser’s favorite examples of chemical writing. A friend lent this to me, and it’s a great read.  
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Jennifer Dodd, I think I mentioned the first three books to you as well, and these ones for independent consultants:

Million Dollar Consulting: The Professional’s Guide to Growing a Practice
by Alan Weiss
A friend strongly recommended this. I haven’t read it yet, but I trust his taste in books.
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Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used
by Peter Block

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Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling
by Michael Port

Just finished this one. Practical advice. Haven’t read enough in this area to tell you if it’s one of the better books, but it seems okay. =)
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WLW really should have a frequently-recommended-books plugin.

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