Bookshelves and ebook libraries increasingly feature new thoughts and fears on mobile communication. BSR presents its recommended e-reading.

1. M READING
Bookshelves and ebook libraries increasingly
feature new thoughts and fears on mobile
communication. Business Strategy Review
presents its recommended e-reading.
© Copyright 2013 London Business School

2. BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW 1
The Mobile Wave: How Mobile Intelligence Will Change
Everything
Michael Saylor
MIT-educated Michael Saylor boldly tackles mobile technology from a futuristic and global
perspective. Communication, he says, will include everything: not only humans but also cars, banks,
homes, pets and even fruit will be talking back. Fear not, says Saylor, the ‘mobile wave’ is a
benevolent force that will wash over and improve every aspect of life as we now know it. Beginning
with computers, and continuing with one-word-titled chapters on paper, entertainment, wallet, social
networking, medicine, education, the developing world and, finally, the new world, he outlines how the
global community will become even more interconnected. He predicts that by 2015 there will be over
4.5 billion mobile devices in use and asserts that firms should harness this force to grow their brand
and build their businesses. But, he warns, if you hesitate to capture this transformative power,
someone else is likely to step in and use it to destroy your brand. Don’t expect MIT-level language
here: Saylor’s style is accessible and energised.
281 pages, CDS Books, 2012

3. BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW 2
Digital India: Understanding Information,
Communication and Social Change
Pradip Ninan Thomas
Thomas challenges the assumption that mobile technology levels the economic playing field
for the majority of Indians. Rather, he says that most of the benefits of the information
revolution have profited the already privileged. Drawing from his experience in studying areas
such as Hyderabad (also known as Cyberabad, an area filled with software developers,
banks and business schools), he explores the second-tier economy. This so-called
illegitimate economy is feeding off the dominant economy by pirating digital resources; yet
this sector is credited with contributing to the growth of the Indian GDP at a rate of ten per
cent per year over the course of two decades. Thomas points out that digital pirates should
be considered innovators who are actually creating opportunities for marginalised
populations to participate in the new economy.
228 pages, Sage Publications, 2012

4. BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW 3
The Third Screen: Marketing to Your Customers
in a World Gone Mobile
Chuck Martin
The author is the CEO of the Mobile Future Institute and a former Vice President of IBM,
where he ran a division responsible for business strategy solutions in the media industry.
Here he takes a long view and foresees a new type of consumer. In 2012, he says,
shopping is m-commerce (mobile commerce), and the new target customer is an
‘untethered’ customer. This new paradigm for retailers represents a fundamental shift in
the buying process. Martin drew from his contacts in the publishing world as a New York
Times bestselling business author and interviewed over 1,000 executives in the mobile
technology industry to provide an old vs. new perspective. This is primarily a how-to
guide for developing mobile promotions.
256 pages, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2011

5. BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW 4
The Little Data Book on Information and
Communication Technology 2012
(World Development Indicators)
This reference work offers up-to-date statistical information on 213 economies based on
key indicators of access, quality, affordability, efficiency, sustainability and applications.
252 pages, World Bank Publications, 2012

6. BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW 5
Moving Data: The iPhone and the Future of Media
Pelle Snickars
Head of research at the National Library of Sweden, Snickars has assembled a collection of
essays on how the iPhone has become the embodiment of, as some have called it, a
‘disruptive technology’. In this work, scholars, researchers, critics and media pundits
chronicle the meteoric rise of the iPhone and tell how this gadget has changed our lifestyles
with its pleasure-inducing touch technology, apps, trail of consumption, creative
possibilities, sharing habits and privacy issues. The essays consider how user-led
innovations and collaborations are changing the study of the media.
352 pages, Columbia University Press, 2012

7. BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW 6
Mobile Interface Theory: Embodied Space and
Locative Media
Jason Farman
Farman believes that mobile technologies are creating a new sense of self in a world in which
time and space no longer constrain our daily lives. An Assistant Professor at the University of
Maryland, Farman researches embodied space in the digital age. Our familiar modes of
communication are changing in response to the notion of physical space and virtual space
colliding with the aid of mobile devices. The author explores the ramifications of having the
internet right in our pockets.
184 pages. Routledge, 2012

8. BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW 7
MHealth in Practice: Mobile Technology for Health
Promotion in the Developing World
Jonathan Donner and Patricia Mechael (Editors)
In an effort to promote and share rigorous research for better informed policy and investment,
Donner and Mechael have compiled essays by researchers and practitioners to identify best mobile
technology practices to promote healthy behaviours (and reduce unhealthy ones) in areas with
limited resources, especially developing countries. One issue the book explores is what on-location
treatment options and recommendations actually work. The practitioners discuss what they have
learned from decades of real-world experience.
256 pages, Bloomsbury Academic, 2012

9. BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW 8
Mobile Communication and Greater China
(Routledge Research on Social Work, Social Policy
and Social Development in Greater China)
Rodney Wai-chi Chu, Leopoldina Fortunati, Pui-Lam Law and Shanhua Yang (Editors)
This book explores the phenomenon called the ‘the great mobile revolution’ now taking place
in China. Few countries have experienced such a profound transformational shock in such a
short time, as China is simultaneously embracing industrialisation and cyberisation. How does
this rapid compression of advances change social relations? In particular, the authors ask if the
Chinese use their cell phones differently from Western users. The editors note that the blurring
of public and private domains troubling many in the West do not bother the Chinese, because
situation-specific and relationship-specific differentiation is a part of their culture. Editor
Fortunati provides a historic overview beginning with the emergence of cell phones in the
1980s to the present globalisation of human society.
248 pages, Routledge, 2012

10. BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW 9
M Reading was part of the M World special report in
Business Strategy Review, Volume 24 Issue 1 – 2013
For more information, visit london.edu/bsr