Ford Library

These two titles prove that technological innovation and insight can be “locally grown” in our market of ideas just down the road from Durham, in Research Triangle Park and Raleigh, NC.

Click the titles below for information on location and availability.

• Brilliant: Shuji Nakamura and the revolution in lighting technology. by Bob Johnstone. Prometheus Books, 2007..
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  Inspirational story of a young researcher from rural Japan, who invented the technology that underlies the solid-state lighting industry, energy-saving LED’s. After an impressive string of achievements in semiconductor research, he left his Japanese company, which then sued him for leaking trade secrets to Cree Research, based in Research Triangle Park, NC.
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• On the grid : a plot of land, an average neighborhood, and the systems that make our world work. by Scott Huler. Rodale / McMillan, 2010.
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  Beginning with the systems in his Raleigh, NC home, author Scott Huler investigates the infrastructure and the workers who make his existence livable. He discusses water, electricity, and the internet; sewage removal; street and highway construction, while providing insight into why this complicated structure doesn’t collapse, or why it works as well as it does.

© Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.

Mason, Matt. The pirate’s dilemma : how youth culture is reinventing capitalism.. Free Press, 2008.

We are living in a time when music and art can be infinitely reproduced and instantaneously distributed all over the planet without cost. This book is about a new set of market conditions that are emerging, where piracy is just another business model and where remixing is a tool used to create change. Boundaries are coming down. Technology has removed old restrictions on new ideas. The Pirates Dilemma is essentially about sharing and using information in new ways.

Author Matt Mason is unconcerned with file sharing and downloading. File sharing sites make an abundance of music available from aspiring musicians and niche artists. He cites a study that shows downloading has boosted CD sales, and claims that file sharing has attracted a new type of music fan. And iTunes made the music industry more democratic.

This book is an interesting read, but it should not be attempted by readers who don’t know P. Diddy from 50-Cent, or Sex Pistols from the Ramones. Author Matt Mason makes his points through dozens of stories involving cultural icons, most of them from the music industry.

© Reviewer: Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.

Krupp, Fred and Miriam Horn. Earth: The Sequel, the race to reinvent energy and stop global warming. Norton, 2008.

In the 1980’s, author Fred Krupp of the Environmental Defense Fund proposed the world’s first cap and trade system to reduce the levels of acid rain. The cap and trade system placed a limit on sulfur dioxide, divided the total among polluters and allowed them to trade on the market. Companies learned they could make money by not emitting pollutants. Innovation was inspired throughout the market and within five years, emissions were 30% lower than the cap required by law. Krupp and Horn’s new book, Earth: the sequel, makes the case that the same market forces can be brought to bear on the problem of global warming.

After making the case for a new cap and trade system, the authors discuss new and emerging energy technologies, including solar, biofuel and geothermal technologies. Most of the book is about the challenges and successes of the companies and people who make up the new clean energy industry — inventors and investors; visionaries and venture capitalists; entrepreneurs and their start-ups. This upbeat book is hopeful about the opportunities to reduce greenhouse emissions and resolve our environmental problems.

© Reviewer: Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business. All rights reserved.

Are you thinking of attending Duke’s Second Annual Conference on Intellectual Property Markets for Technology: Challenges and Opportunities?

Then you may also want to check out any of these excellent books on these subjects available at the Ford Library: (Click on any of the titles below to check availability or to place a hold.)

• Strategic Use of Information Technology for Global Organizations by M. Gordon Hunter and Felix B. Tan
• The Consequences of Information: Institutional Implications of Technological Change by Jannis Kallinikos
• Innovate or Perish: Managing the Enduring Technology Company in the Global Market edited by Edward Kahn
• The Clean Tech Revolution: The Next Big Growth and Investment Opportunity by Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder
• Information Resources Management: Global Challenges by Wai K. Law
• E-Business Innovation and Process Management edited by In Lee
• Future Thinking, Learning, and Leading: Applying Multiple Intelligences to Success and Innovation by Irving H. Buchen
• 24/7 How Cell Phones and the Internet Change the Way We Live, Work, and Play by Jarice Hanson
• Blind Men and The Elephant: Demystifying the Global IT Services Industry by Was Rahman and Priya Kurien

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