An oldie but goodie is Phil Meyer's Precision Journalism, the title of which by all rights should have been the term we adopted instead of "computer-assisted reporting."

The original book came out 30 years ago this year, with the subtitle "a reporter's introduction to social science methods."

My favorite quote, which I think first appeared in the 1991 edition and which I've put on many a syllabus for a computer-assisted reporting course: "They are raising the ante on what it takes to become a journalist."

Phil's take on the book, looking back from 2008:

http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=showcase.view&showcaseid=0076

Phil started using computers for data analysis in ... 1967!!

Rich Gordon

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This is such a huge question. At the risk of not giving you the answer you were looking for, what's most shaped my thinking is talking people who are doing what I think are interesting things to solve problems, address real needs, and create new markets.

I spent a number of years working outside the journalism industry, most significantly in medical manufacturing, transportation manufacturing and law. The way engineers, technical writers and attorneys approach their work has definitely influenced the way I approach mine.

When it comes to reading sources that everyone can link to, I'd have to say:

Ted Talks.
Especially the ones about design.

Cyberpunk/dystopian future fiction/sci fi.
So what if the stories themselves are kind of fluffy (take for example, "Jennifer Government" and the online game it spawned, NationStates) or slanted (see Orson Scott Card).

Many of the plots take you through a problem-solving process or, at least, make you think differently about things we're already familiar with. The Thursday Next series by British author Jasper Fforde refers to books as "Imagino-Transference Technology." Fantastic metaphor, IMHO.

In a more serious vein, read "Snow Crash" and "Cryptonomicon" by Neal Stephenson. Both are great works. Cryptonomicon has chapters that are math-heavy, and its literary structure took me a while to get the hang of, but it had the effect of making me experience a time shift similar to what the protagonist was going through.

Economics books and blogs.
Economics is a lot of modeling, prediction, puzzle-solving and lately, much "where the hell did we go wrong" analysis. Though I'm not as faithful a reader as I should be, I like James Surowiecki's blog, The Balance Sheet. I also like Planet Money's approach, which at its root, involves a lot of problem-solving.

Developer and Infoviz blogs
There are so many ... here are a few I haven't seen referenced on this site yet:
Alex Payne
Tecznotes by Michal Migurski of Stamen
Good's Transparency infographics
Datavisualization.ch
Inside Ruby

Chrys Wu

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