Ten-Books A Year Challenge
The ten-books a year challenge is a simple challenge. Read ten books or eBooks a year where some material is within your field, and the rest is not. The primary goal is continuous learning while broadening knowledge, viewpoints, and perspectives. Professionals become more flexible and adaptable when they stretch beyond the confines of their career paths and siloed knowledge. In other words, they become better professionals because they understand what other people do for a living better. This challenge does not consider whitepapers, magazine articles, blogs, video training, lectures (no books), conferences, symposiums, and webinars. It must be a book.
Why ten-books? It is less daunting to read one book a month for ten months out of twelve months as a goal. It also induces less stress when considering whether the goal is achievable in twelve months. Also, it is easier to stack five books within a field with five books in a range of non-fiction topics—any non-fiction topic like accounting, graphic design, web design, cybersecurity, cabinet making, time management, or organization as examples. In addition, people have busy lives, work, kids, and so on. They also have mandatory requirements for maintaining continuing professional education credits for licenses and certifications. Likewise, be mindful that if you read a two-thousand-page tome on any topic, take it as four-hundred pages equals a single book and count it as reading five books.
Implementing the 10-Books A Year Challenge at a company:
- If implementing at a company, it should be optional. Don't immediately suck the life out of it by making it mandatory.
- There is a mentoring aspect to the challenge.
- People interested in accounting should read books about accounting and then talk about it with accountants.
- People interested in cybersecurity should read books about it and then discuss it with cybersecurity professionals.
- There should be a willingness amongst participating personnel to meet and discuss their chosen careers with other people.
- Meetings and meet-ups could be informal lunches, dinners, or formal lunch and learn meetings.
- Provide a crowd-sourced SharePoint list somewhere available to all employees.
- Let them add non-fiction titles across the organization.
- The goal should be personal and professional development.
- Getting staff involved in cross-functional role conversations.
- Developing broader viewpoints and perspectives between roles.
- Helping different roles and functions learn what other people do.
- It may drive movement between departments as people find a better role fit.
Architecture
This My Library section is a curated collection of architecture-related books. It includes books related to business, cybersecurity, enterprise, information, data, and service-oriented architectures.
Please be mindful that some books may be out of print, have more current editions, or are available in digital formats.
Business Management & Leadership
This My Library section is a curated Business Management and Leadership book collection. It contains books related to business management and leadership across multiple topic areas.
Please be mindful that some books may be out of print, have more current editions, or are available in digital formats.
Business Process
This My Library section is a curated collection of business process books, including books related to business process development.
Please be mindful that some books may be out of print, have more current editions, or are available in digital formats.
Common Bodies of Knowledge
This My Library section is a curated collection of common bodies of knowledge. The CBOKs range in areas of knowledge to cover a large body of core knowledge.
Please be mindful that some books may be out of print, have more current editions, or are available in digital formats.
Cybersecurity
This My Library section is a curated collection of cybersecurity books. It presents various cybersecurity information and related books across multiple areas and domains.
Please be mindful that some books may be out of print, have more current editions, or are available in digital formats.
Cyber Resilience
This My Library section is a curated collection of cyber resilience books related to business continuity, disaster recovery, incident response/management, and crisis management.
Please be mindful that some books may be out of print, have more current editions, or are available in digital formats.
Cybersecurity Career
This My Library section is a curated collection of cybersecurity career books. These will interest current and future cybersecurity professionals, regardless of their career paths.
Please be mindful that some books may be out of print, have more current editions, or are available in digital formats.
Cybersecurity Leadership
This My Library section is a curated collection of cybersecurity leadership books. The books here cover a wide range of knowledge areas in cybersecurity leadership.
Please be mindful that some books may be out of print, have more current editions, or are available in digital formats.
IT Service Management
This My Library section is a curated collection of IT service management books. The books here cover a wide range of knowledge areas in ITSM.
Please be mindful that some books may be out of print, have more current editions, or are available in digital formats.
Legal and Regulatory
This My Library section is a curated collection of legal and regulatory books. The books here cover a wide range of legal and regulatory knowledge areas.
Please be mindful that some books may be out of print, have more current editions, or are available in digital formats.
Modeling Notation Languages
This My Library section is a curated collection of books on modeling notation languages. The books cover several different modeling notation languages.
Please be mindful that some books may be out of print, have more current editions, or are available in digital formats.
Networking
This My Library section is a curated collection of networking books. The books here cover a wide range of knowledge areas in networking.
Please be mindful that some books may be out of print, have more current editions, or are available in digital formats.
Project Management
This My Library section is a curated collection of project management books. The books here cover a range of knowledge areas in project management.
Please be mindful that some books may be out of print, have more current editions, or are available in digital formats.
Risk Management
This My Library section is a curated collection of risk management books. The books here cover a range of knowledge areas in risk management.
Please be mindful that some books may be out of print, have more current editions, or are available in digital formats.
Threat Modeling
This My Library section is a curated collection of threat modeling books. The books here cover a range of knowledge areas in threat modeling.
Please be mindful that some books may be out of print, have more current editions, or are available in digital formats.
Writing and Research
This My Library section is a curated collection of writing and research books. The books here cover a wide range of knowledge areas in writing and research.
Please be mindful that some books may be out of print, have more current editions, or are available in digital formats.
As a working cybersecurity professional, every attempt is made to separate professional and personal endeavors in a manner consistent with reducing conflicts of interest and maintaining ethics. Statements contained within this site are the explicit and implicit goals, objectives, endorsements, and educated opinion of the author of this site and not those of current or former employers.
