I found You are not a gadget to be a compelling book, especially worthy of attention by anyone who has embarked on the perilous journey of making a living from the web.

Jaron Lanier is a man after my own heart: someone who is not afraid to swim against the tide, even when the gathering waters seem irresistible.

Lanier has taken on the mantle of the boy in the story of The Emperor's New Clothes and points out some essential home truths about the prevailing tide of enthusiasm for washing away established business models and human behaviour.

He is a global heavyweight who has substantial experience at the bleeding edge of technology and talent in the world of music.

Lanier is credited with coining the term Virtual Reality and has impeccable credentials in that field.

Now, in his book You are not a gadget Lanier swims against a tide, that he has formerly surfed quite happily, by speaking out against some of the fundamental tenets of Web 2.0, the Hive mind, Creative Commons, the Singularity and the so-called Long Tail; all of which he categorises as worrying elements in the previously inexorable trend towards what he terms Cybernetic Totalism.

The book is insightful and highly recommended.

Some say that small businesses will lead the way out of the global economic downturn, presumably because hard times create necessity - the mother of invention.

I am not so sure, although I would be pleased to be proven wrong. I suspect that the credit crunch will give us only a handful of golden acorns - but not a forestful.

Very few newly-founded, small businesses get sufficient traction, quickly enough, to have the broader short-term impact that we will need to restore much-needed economic 'normality.'

For sure, history teaches us that even the largest enterprises all begin with an individual with an idea. However, not every acorn fulfils its potential to become a mighty oak tree.

For every multinational conglomerate founded in a back bedroom or garage, there are millions of would-be entrepreneurs who don't realise their ambitions.

That's life - the world of business is a harsh environment, even in the best of times, and we have to deal with it. But having a go is what it's all about. Actually doing something new and risky; not just daydreaming.

Building any sort of new business needs substantial investments: time, effort and money - especially money. But where do you go when the money supply for risk has pretty much dried up?

During hard-pressed times, the traditional sources of funding (e.g. Banks, Venture Capitalists) tend to sit on their hands and raise the drawbridge - or at least make borrowing difficult and expensive. The would-be entrepreneur has to look elsewhere for investment. Or, perhaps, become even more inventive.

Sramana Mitra has written a book (Bootstrapping: Weapon of Mass Reconstruction) to show that successful businesses can be built without formal borrowing. The book contains a dozen case studies of successful [mostly online] businesses that have been built on the principle of bootstrapping - development through progressive re-investment of revenue, rather than borrowing money and watching the burn-rate until the business either prevails or fails.

Mitra has structured the narrative interviews with the successful entrepreneurs into four useful sections:

Doing more with less;
Getting started with little or no capital
Validating the market - on the cheap
Resurrecting the dead

All of these topics are attractive to readers keen to start out as business owners. I must say though that this is not a 'how-to' book, more of 'how we did it' compendium. The case studies are particularly relevant to online/ intellectual property propositions and somewhat less relevant to 'bricks and mortars' entrepreneurs.

Bootstrapping: Weapon of Mass Reconstruction is a fair insight into how a previous handful of golden acorns was nurtured into healthy maturity. You will also find some useful war stories of what was less successful too. Could be a useful book, if you are about to embark on the search for your own golden acorn.

Disclosure: the publisher sent me a free copy of the book.

Marshall Phelps has made billions of dollars for his employers and fundamentally changed the outlook of some very hard-faced businesses along the way. Burning The Ships describes how Phelps took the lessons he learned making a fortune for IBM and repeated the trick for Bill Gates at Microsoft.

Readers of this book get a no-holds barred perspective of Marshall's magic - and an intriguing insight into the inner workings of the Redmond giant.

Anecdotes from within the fortress walls are always interesting but the big payoff from BurningThe Ships is a real learning opportunity for those people and organizations who want to share in the largely untapped value of their intellectual property assets. This book is a primer for better business, in any field not just technology.

According to Phelps and Kline, Forbes estimates the opportunity value of unrealised intellectual property at a trillion dollars, per annum; unrealised because many businesses have yet to work out how to really exploit their knowledge assets. Who wouldn't want a piece of that action?

The universal business principles described in Burning The Ships are all about relationship building, collaboration and maturity; values that have not always been associated with Microsoft, historically a predatory corporation par excellence. There are some who will never be convinced that the leopard can change its spots but the evidence is there. Over the past few years Microsoft has built invaluable bridges by collaborating with a large number of competitors, well beyond their traditional value chain partners; a difficult journey, no doubt, but worthwhile.

Not least of the difficulties described by the authors is the challenge of relaxing long-held personal and corporate beliefs.

Most of us guard our secrets carefully and worry about losing real value if we open the kimono and let others see what we have been hiding. Agreeing to share intellectual property, either on a commercial or non-commercial basis, is total anathema to many businesspeople. It's also a legal minefield that needs extremely careful navigation.

But attitudes are changing and I genuinely believe that an increasingly joined-up world requires effective joined-up management thinking, which naturally embraces collaborative development for mutual benefit.

Burning The Ships will show you not only how to lighten the load of your own baggage, by radically rethinking your historical approach to Intellectual Property but also how to build valuable new business relationships through collaboration.

So this book is worth its weight in gold, which is highly appropriate because the quest for gold in the New World drove Conquistador Hernando Cortez to burn his expedition's hips, thereby symbolically and practically demonstrating that there would be no going back. Marshall Phelps persuaded IBM and Microsoft to follow the example of Cortez, with tremendous returns. His experiences and David Kline's writing expertise combine to smooth your path to a better business future. Highly recommended.

Chris Potts is a brave author, his new book - fruITion: Creating the Ultimate Corporate Strategy for Information Technology is a novel written around the story of a CIO and his IT strategy. Notwithstanding the dryness of the subject matter, this is an encouraging tale of courage and growth.

fruITion tells the story of Ian, a CIO suddenly faced with a very different future when the Chief Executive rejects a carefully crafted IT strategy and "suggests" that Ian needs to make some serious changes, not only to the strategy but also to his own role within the organisation. And quickly.

Ian has only a fortnight to sort himself out so this very readable book moves swiftly through a sequence of meetings and reflections that begin the transformation of Ian from IT-centric boardroom bystander to key business player. His biggest challenge is letting go of the past - and letting go of the boxes.

For many years a large proportion of CIOs and directors have expressed their deep frustration at not being at the top table, or who feel that their management talents are overshadowed by the routine pressures of simply "keeping the lights on."

I recommend this book because it offers a much brighter future for any directors and managers trapped in the bowels of the business. Read fruITion and resolve to be braver.