The dog days of summer are officially here! Whether you need a book to accompany you on a summer road trip, flight, or a lazy day at the beach, our Allen Interactions team shares their industry favorites. Our finds in artificial intelligence, learning strategy and design, organizational change, and the metaverse are not only insightful but great reads for anyone hoping to learn more about the future of learning technology and performance optimization.

The Metaverse and How it Will Revolutionize Everything

Author: Matthew Ball

The internet will no longer be at arm’s length; instead, it will surround us, with much of our lives, labor, and leisure taking place inside the Metaverse. Bringing clarity and authority to a frequently misunderstood concept, Ball foresees trillions of dollars in new value―and the radical reshaping of society.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting Robots

Authors: Laura Major, Julie Shah

In What to Expect When You're Expecting Robots, Laura Major and Julie Shah focus on the importance of relationships between working robots and their uncertain environment, especially humans. The authors' experience includes robotics for the aerospace, military, and autonomous vehicle industries. Their consideration of robot behavior incorporates examples across industry and academia.

We are shown connections from past human/automaton collaborations from aviation and process control to today's commercially-available smart robots. In parallel with technological innovation, they also expound on the related sociology and human-factors engineering that accompanied it.

An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization

Authors: Lisa Laskow Lahey, Andy Fleming, Deborah Helsing, Robert Kegan, Matthew L. Miller

An Everyone Culture dives deep into the worlds of three leading companies that embody this breakthrough approach. It reveals the design principles, concrete practices, and underlying science at the heart of Deliberately Developmental Organizations (DDOs)—from their disciplined approach to giving feedback, to how they use meetings, to the distinctive way that managers and leaders define their roles. The authors then show readers how to build this developmental culture in their own organizations.

This book demonstrates a whole new way of being at work. It suggests that the culture you create is your strategy—and that the key to success is developing everyone.

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

Author: James Clear

Atomic Habits will reshape the way you think about progress and success, and give you the tools and strategies you need to transform your habits--whether you are a team looking to win a championship, an organization hoping to redefine an industry, or simply an individual who wishes to quit smoking, lose weight, reduce stress, or achieve any other goal.

The Augmented Workforce: How the Metaverse Will Impact Every Dollar you Make

Authors: John Buzzell, Cathy Hackl

Business as usual is over. The age of hyper-change is upon us, and technology is at the forefront. Since the dawn of the microchip, exponential growth has defined modern technology. Today, entire industries are being upended by software, sensors, cameras, LiDAR, processors, and optics - all growing smaller by the day. Tech is pushing into every corner of our world, and businesses that ignore the disruption do so at their own peril. The end of the mobile phone is near, and the age of hyperconnectivity is here, with AR glasses, the intelligent edge, and IoT.

Snow Crash

Author: Neal Stephenson

Snow Crash is a science fiction novel by the American writer Neal Stephenson, published in 1992. Like many of Stephenson's novels, it covers history, linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, religion, computer science, politics, cryptography, memetics, and philosophy. Widely hailed as the birth of the metaverse, Snow Crash set the stage for dreams of the digital revolution.

Make it Meaningful: Taking Learning Design from Instructional to Transformational

Author: Clark N. Quinn

Co-author of the Serious eLearning Manifesto, Dr. Clark Quinn covers underlying principles including surprise, story, and emotion, and pulls them together to create a coherent approach. The author also covers the implications for learning elements and a design process. With concise prose and concrete examples, this book provides the framework to take your learning experience designs from instructional to transformational. 

Blockchain: The Next Everything

Author: Stephen P. Williams

What is blockchain? Why does everyone from tech experts to business moguls to philanthropists believe it is a paradigm-shifting technology, bound to revolutionize society as significantly as the internet? Indeed, why is blockchain touted as The Next Everything?

Stephen P. Williams answers these questions, revealing how cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are just one example among dozens of transformative applications that this relatively new technology makes possible. He interprets the complexity into digestible anecdotes, metaphors, and straightforward descriptions for readers who don't know tech, and explains all of blockchain's most important aspects: why this so-called digital ledger is unhackable and unchangeable and how its distributed nature may transfer power from central entities like banks, government, and corporations to ordinary citizens around the world; and what its widespread use will mean for society as a whole.

The Achievement Habit: Stop Wishing, Start Doing, and Take Command of Your Life

Author: Bernard Roth

In The Achievement Habit, Roth applies the remarkable insights that stem from design thinking—previously used to solve large scale projects—to help us realize the power for positive change we all have within us. Roth leads us through a series of discussions, stories, recommendations, and exercises designed to help us create a different experience in our lives. 

The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Author: Brené Brown

Now more than ever, we all need to cultivate feelings of self-worth, as well as acceptance and love for ourselves. In a world where insults, criticisms, and fears are spread too generously alongside messages of unrealistic beauty, attainment, and expectation, we look for ways to “dig deep” and find truth and gratitude in our lives. A new way forward means we can’t hold on too tightly to our own self-defeating thoughts or the displaced pain in our world. Instead, we can embrace the imperfection.

What have you been reading? We would love to hear your suggestions! Tell us what you've been learning about, books that have piqued your interest, and have fueled your passion for the evolution of learning, technology, and performance change in our comments!