Calling All Professional Bookworms!

Here at Rise we believe that you're never done learning. We're always taking new classes, attending new seminars, and basically staying at the top of our various skill-sets to ensure that our clients are always receiving the best knowledge and support possible.

We believe in the power of continuing education so much in fact that when Boys & Girls Club of America called a few weeks back to ask if we'd be interested in presenting at their annual National Keystone Conference, we couldn't let the opportunity pass by. The Keystone Conference provides a positive leadership experience for Keystone Club delegates from around the U.S to engage and socialize with peers, explore relevant issues, and develop skills to enhance their efforts in their Boys & Girls Clubs and their communities upon returning home.

Our own master of visual design, Mr. Frank Candamil, took on the challenge with gusto. Frank will be presenting an amazing career-minded presentation tomorrow, Friday, March 4, highlighting what the real world of digital design might look like for kids who decide to pursue that route as a career.

In preparation for that presentation, Frank asked the team at Rise to contribute the 3 books that helped kickstart our careers. And we figured, since we already have them compiled, we might as well share them with you here!

Here they are in no particular order:

Frank Candamil, Visual Design

• 2nd Sight by David Carson
• Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler
• Anything put out by the publishing company New Riders

Albert Volkman, Web Developer

• Pro Drupal Development
• Delivering Happiness
• Born to Run (unrelated to career but very motivational)

Ken Ingraham, Account Executive

• Why Nothing Works by Marvin Harris (About the development of modern society from an industrial economy to an information economy in the 20th Century)
• Make It So by Wess Roberts and Bill Ross (leadership lessons from a ship's captain)
• The Turnaround Kid by Steve Miller (about rescuing floundering companies from bankruptcy and decline)

Audra Montgomery, Account Executive Assistant

• The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott (New School Ad/PR)
• Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins (Old School Ad/PR)
• The Zen of Social Media Marketing by Shama Kabani
• The Copywriter's Handbook by Robert W. Bly
• The Art of Public Speaking by Dale Carnegie and J. Berg Esenwein
• How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Dawn Borglund, Brand Manager

• Lateral Thinking by Edward de Bono
• Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono
• Digital Storytelling, Second Edition: A Creator's Guide to Interactive Entertainment by Carolyn Miller
• Traction by Gino Wickman

Ian Sholtys, UX Strategist

• Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug
• Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson

Stephan Barrett, Founder and CEO

• Linchpin by Seth Godin
• Selling the Invisible by Harry Bechwith
• The E-Myth by Michael Gerber

Efrain Lugo, Lead Developer

• CSS Mastery
• How to Cheat in Flash CS3 (when flash was cool; this taught me some good animation tricks)
• Actionscript 3.0 Cookbook (made me really like code)

So ... what books helped you launch your career?