📚​​​​ Join the Miro Community Book Challenge for a Chance to Win 🏆

📚​​​​ Join the Miro Community Book Challenge for a Chance to Win 🏆
M
Rank

Hey Miro Community, 

 

Are you ready to take your creativity and innovation to the next level? We know you're always looking for new ways to improve your workflows and maximize your potential beyond Miro. That's why we're excited to announce our latest community challenge: the Miro Community Book Challenge 📚!

 

Whether it's a timeless classic or a recent bestseller, we want you to share your favorite book that has unlocked innovation in your work life. From productivity hacks, design thinking, or leadership principles–– your recommendations will hopefully inspire others to solve problems, discover new talents, and inspire creativity!

 

🏅 Here’s how to participate:

  • Comment your favorite book title and author 
  • “Like” recommendations from fellow community members.

🎯 *Bonus Points: If you share your recommendation this week with a brief description of why this book impacted you*

 

🤔 What's in it for you? Not only will you be contributing to our knowledge hub of great book recommendations, but two lucky winners will receive a limited edition Miro Mug (see below) for sharing your thoughts and recommendations with the community! Submissions are due Friday, April 26, 2024. 

As always, whether you're a seasoned Miro user or just getting started, join us in this new challenge, discover new reads, and connect with innovators in the Miro community.

 

Please be sure to keep in mind our community guidelines and terms and conditions as you share your recommendations.

 

We’re so excited to hear from you–– let the book recommendations begin 🎉

 

**Submissions are now closed to enter and win but you can still join the conversation and share your favorite books in the comments below. We always love learning from you!**

 

50 replies

C
Userlevel 3

Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin has been one of my favorite books on leadership as a manager of people. What it taught me about accountability and the section on “decentralized command” helped change the way I led my team. 

I highly recommend the book to anyone that leads a team. It’s a super quick read and something I felt was very actionable!

A
Userlevel 2

Hidden Potential by Adam Grant was an awesome read. It focuses on shifting your mindset away from how hard you’re working to how well you learn. Essentially prioritizes character growth and new skill development rather than simply working until you burn out which is something I’ve struggled with in the past.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone that has been climbing the corporate ladder and has ever felt stuck, burnt out or like they’re just stuck in the mud!

A
Userlevel 2

Atomic habits by James Clear. All the progresses we can make is based on the smaller positive changes we do with our habits. This helps to improve as an individual as well as a team.

vprds
Userlevel 3


MY ULTIMATE FAVORITE (more abstract)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin: In "The Creative Act: A Way of Being," Rick Rubin lays out the essence of creativity across various disciplines. Rubin, a legendary music producer, dives into the mental and environmental factors that nurture creativity. This book reshaped my approach to creative projects by emphasizing the importance of simplicity and listening deeply within and outside of oneself. It's a transformative read that encourages breaking free from conventional patterns to truly innovate and rediscover one’s creative instincts.

MY +1 (more concrete) 
🍵🍵🍵 Japanese Layout Design by Wu Dongyang: "Japanese Layout Design" by Wu Dongyang offers a fascinating exploration into the design principles of Japanese aesthetics. This book has significantly influenced my approach to design thinking and spatial organization in my work. Wu’s insights into balance, harmony, and functional beauty, derived from centuries of Japanese tradition, provide invaluable lessons on how to enhance visual communication and create impactful, serene environments. This is an essential guide for anyone looking to infuse elegance and efficiency into their design practice.

Additional comment on Wu’s book. It is 75% visual and 25% written. Reaaally one of those read less and practice more books. (Buy hard-cover edition😉) 

Couldn’t post just 1 🙄 😬 Going to lengths for that mug 🤌
Blessings🙏

I 💛 MIRO!
M
Userlevel 1

‘Creativity, Inc.’ by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace, Pixar founders sharing their experiences from starting to delivering the worlds best animated features.

Reading this over the festive break this year has driven a few changes in my approaches when conducting work. There are great insights into the tension between creative and operational outcome delivery, building and managing ways of working, and interpersonal relationship development.

A senior leader at my company has shared that it is required reading for their division!

Highly recommend.

B
Userlevel 2

I present to the Miroverse:

Millions of Cats by Wanda Gág.

 

A screen grab from the linked read aloud video below

 

Hear me out.

 

Millions of Cats is a children’s book about an elderly man who wants to bring home a cat for his wife. However, this task proves difficult as the man happens upon–spoiler alert–millions of cats, all adorable and adoptable in their own ways. What’s a guy to do? 

 

In its own right, this is a wonderful little book. The author, Wanda Gág, illustrated and hand-lettered the book herself (we love a multi-faceted queen), and I just think the style of her artwork is wonderful. I can say with confidence that her work had a huge influence on me as a child, materializing both in my gravitation to simple black & white graphics, and in my lifelong love for large volumes of tiny cats.

 

If you don’t believe me that this book is excellent...it is one of the only picture books to have won the Newbery Honor, and is the only American picture book to still be printed today. Objectively, a great book! 🤓

 

With that said, this book holds a lot of meaning for me. My late maternal grandparents kept this book at their home, and read it to me often. It is the first book that I have any memory of hearing, and as I got older I would return to it to read it myself. Perhaps coincidentally, I had a lot of kittens in my life growing up (Bob Barker would have shamed my parents, and rightfully so), and the presence of & responsibility for these little creatures was a formative aspect of my young life. This book grants me pure nostalgia, and it was a great joy for me to adopt my own copy for my young son.

 

Here is a great little read-aloud/flip-along version from Brightly Storytime: 

 

V Boscaljon
Userlevel 2

For me ’The Goal’ (which I’ve in three different versions (uk original version, nl version and in pdf) was for me 20+ years ago a ‘game changer’ and although I never worked in engineering nor a factory it remains, for me, the most clear metaphor.

In the past decade two derivatives/ spin offs have been published ’the phoenix game’ and ‘the unicorn project’ which aligns more close with ICT and development than the original one.

However, I still use the ’boy scout’ on an almost weekly basis to elaborate and educate on workflow management and agile way of working.

Happy are Those Who Dream Dreams and are Willing to Pay the Price to See them Come True
R
Userlevel 1

To keep it simple 😉

A picture can say more than thousands words , so here you go 

 

 

Lawrence Brock
Userlevel 1

My favourite book is How to Listen by Oscar Trimboli. I’m now a little ashamed to admit I thought ‘active listening’ (i.e. paraphrase, don’t overtalk, be empathetic, make eye contact, etc) was the pinnacle of listening theory. This book had a major impact on how I work because it outlines the key elements in a very pragmatic way. It’s deep but easy to follow and put into practice. For example, everyone makes listening mistakes, but better listeners notice when they have lapsed faster, and recover faster. 

 

Jimmy Sjolund
Userlevel 1

There’s so many books now, but I’ll pick the one that got me going into the direction that I’m still in:

 

Personal Kanban by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria.

https://www.personalkanban.com/

 

It started me with kanban which pulled me into the agile and lean parts of work and I’ve been in this domain ever since.

Kyle Chipman
Userlevel 5
Badge

This is a super fun post. I’m extra curious to check out @vprds’ recommendation of Japanese Layout Design. I love books on layout both for form and content, and already have a soft spot for Japanese design sensibility.

It would be super fun to collate these into a board, though I’m also putting-my-finger-on-my-nose-not-it.

When it comes to the way I work, my answer is Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler. Read through it to strategize our 2016 rebrand and the notion of The Sequence of Cognition - the order or perceiving Shape, then Color, then Content / Language - was genuinely transformative to my thinking. Has served as a bedrock for a lot of design-first decision making.


On a personal, non-work level, the most significant reading experience of my life remains two works, All The King’s Men and the Collected Poetry of Robert Penn Warren. Read both these in the same stretch of time about fifteen years ago and they shifted my perception of the pursuit of power and the nature of time with some of the most precise language I had / have encountered. Check out his poetry if you’re unfamiliar, and make sure you read it out loud. He was among the first US Poet Laureates, won the Pulitzer for Literature once and Poetry twice (only person to get both) and was a big civil rights advocate. Robert Penn Warren was a bad motherfucker.

Maria Pedone
Rank
Userlevel 3
Badge

@Ron Basu so great to you this book has helped you to find clarity and take your ideas further — thanks for sharing with us!

@Clyde D'Souza - Bad Blood sounds like a gripping book to read, thank you for the rec. And congrats on your children’s book; we have a lot to learn from kids and the way they use their creativity and imagination! We actually just wrote a blog about this as well, on how a childlike state of creativity fuels innovation. 

 

@Yong-Chong Long this seems like a vital book to have in our toolkits to stay focused! I love the idea of those “continuous small improvements” that can make a big impact (reminds me of Atomic Habits which @Arunkumar Sekar suggested); and it’s so great to hear that Miro is one app that helps you stay focused in an easily-distracting digital world! Thanks for sharing. 

Manouska J
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +3

I’ll be adding these books to my shopping cart @Alex Dias and @chris.herdman! Thank you for sharing! 

 

I’d love to hear more book recommendations from the community and how the insights from these pages have helped you create and innovate! Share a book that has inspired you for a chance to win this limited edition Miro Mug–– the perfect companion to your favorite book 📕☕!

 

 

xManouska @Miro
M

Adaptive Enterprise by Stephan Haeckel taught me how to think of a business as an open system. IN 1999, Steve set forth the foundations of Reason for Being, Principles, Roles and Accountabilities, and more. All tools that help the people in an enterprise steer it successfully. Adaptive Enterprise: Haeckel, Stephan H: 9781523631469: Amazon.com: Books

Y

When applying to Google many years ago, they recommended a few books to read.

One of them was The Design of Everyday Things

It opened up my mind into how amazing the world of design is and how great product (could) be made or how difficult and unintuitive they could be. 

Recommended to everyone, in any field. 

Giovanni Giazzon
Badge +1

Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin. It changed how I approached work by making me realize that, no matter where you are or what you do, doing your best and doing it in the way you believe that it should be done is what matters.

 

K

Really appreciate the book Move Fast and Fix Things: The Trusted Leader’s Guide to Solving Hard Problems.
It’s an antidote to some of the individual-focused books running through Silicon Valley, and instead focuses on radical change through building trust and a strong community of high performers. Written by two amazing women, it is a more collective approach than I’ve seen in many leadership / team productivity books. 

Kenneth Ritley
Userlevel 3

 

You either know it or you don't.

If you know it, enough said.

A

The Power of Ritual by Casper Ter Kuile

This book changed the way I saw balance in my life and the importance of signing off from work at the end of the day. It’s a beautiful exploration of concepts usually implemented through faith practices, but applied to other aspects of connection to our communities, the world and to meaning. 

 

A

Influence - The Psychology of Persuasion by R. Cialdini. 

After learning that are things I cannot control, but I can influence (learnt from the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”), I decided to learn more about how I can influence. I found the tips in this book (“Influence” by Cialdini) simple to implement and very effective. It slowly changed the way I approach people at the workplace but also in my personal life. 

Also, working with Sourcing teams, vendors and external customers is an eternal negotiation and being able to influence the other side while not having full control, has proven to be instrumental for my growth and the ability to execute through others or simply get what I want or what was required. At the end of the day, most of the time I use my influence for the benefit of the company (at work) or the broader community (in my personal life with charity and fundraises) and not for myself

G

I have two books that I use frequently.  The first is “Do Story - How to tell your story so the world listens” by Bobette Buster.  This is a quick read (about 100 pages) about the 10 principles of telling a story.  Whether it be a story about my life, a business presentation, or social conversation with friends and acquaintances, it is the perfect guide for crafting a story.  I have started using these principles in Miro’s talk track capability to enhance my boards.

The second book is the “Ten faces of Innovation” by Tom Kelley and Jonathan Littman.  It help me identify the different roles I needed to bring to a team to drive innovation throughout an engagement or internal project.  Also, I was able to identify characteristics that I need to work to enhance my innovation competencies. 

V Boscaljon
Userlevel 2

For me ’The Goal’ (which I’ve in three different versions (uk original version, nl version and in pdf) was for me 20+ years ago a ‘game changer’ and although I never worked in engineering nor a factory it remains, for me, the most clear metaphor.

In the past decade two derivatives/ spin offs have been published ’the phoenix game’ and ‘the unicorn project’ which aligns more close with ICT and development than the original one.

However, I still use the ’boy scout’ on an almost weekly basis to elaborate and educate on workflow management and agile way of working.

 

Happy are Those Who Dream Dreams and are Willing to Pay the Price to See them Come True
Ron Basu
Userlevel 1

This book and concept really helped me clear my mind from circular thinking, increasing mental capacity, and ultimately finding more clarity in my work and personal life. As someone who has always had a creative, come and go, big picture thinking process, using digital tools to replace tabs, sticky notes, and notebooks into a system that allows me to put my chaotic thoughts together and connect the dots for the bigger picture has transformed my life. I have found clarity and the ability to take ideas further and move towards creation and not just endless ideation. Highly recommend reviewing the concept with the book or youtube/podcast content!

Maria Pedone
Rank
Userlevel 3
Badge

There is such a great balance and dance between the creative and operational, @Mark Tyas! Thank you for recommending this book — I can’t wait to dive in. 📚

Maria Pedone
Rank
Userlevel 3
Badge

@Arunkumar Sekar Atomic Habits is one of my faves! I think this book will turn into a classic on productivity and habit-forming; I read it for the time years ago, and actually decided to the listen the audiobook this week! I forgot about the traumatic experience the author opens with, but then is able to provide so much hope and practical advice for all on the power of small but consistent habits. Thank you for sharing!

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