LEC Library

Looking for a spark of inspiration? Need a catchy book or a binge-worthy podcast? We’ve got you covered with the LEC Library!

Books

Design Thinking, Lean Launch, and Customer Discovery

• The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage, by Roger L. Martin
• The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you, by Rob Fitzpatrick
• Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, by Dev Patnaik
• Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know, by Adam Grant

Innovative Thinkers

• Climbing My Mountain: My Life, My Words, and Values, by Sheldon B. Lubar
• Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcom Gladwell
• Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All, by Tom Kelley
• Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, by Ashlee Vance
• Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative, by Austin Kleon
• Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, by Adam Grant
• The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, by Richard Rothstein

Building & Launching Your Startup

• Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers (The Strategyzer series), by Alexander Osterwalder
• The Art of War, by Sun Tzu (Translated)
• InstaBrain: The New Rules for Marketing to Generation Z, by Sarah Weise
• The Art of Changing the Brain: Enriching the Practice of Teaching by Exploring the Biology of Learning, by James E. Zull
• The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, by Eric Ries

Effective Communication

• The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters, by Priya Parker
• As We Speak: How to Make Your Point and Have It Stick, by Peter Meyers
• Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, by Simon Sinek
• Dance of Leadership: Mastering the Art of Making a Difference Using Your Unique Style, by Robin Denise Johnson
• Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well, by Douglas Stone

Inspiration

• You Are a Badass® Talking Button: Five Nuggets of In-Your-Face Inspiration, by Jen Sincero
• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters
• Ecological Aesthetics: artful tactics for humans, nature, and politics (Interfaces: Studies in Visual Culture), by Nathaniel Stern
• Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, by Cal Newport
• reWork, by Jason Fried
• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, by Anne Lamott
• How to Think like Leonardo Da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day, by Michael J. Gelb
• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell
• Telling Our Stories: A History of Diversity at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 1956 to 2022, by Drs. Chia Y Vang and David J. Pate, Jr.

Podcasts

• For Your Innovation by ARK Invest
• On Being with Krista Tippett
• How I Built This with Guy Raz
• Interdependence with Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst