Real Social Dynamics - Audio <--- audio seminar on picking up girls
ARTICLES FORUM - Real Social Dynamics Community<--- articles by tyler on picking up girls
This is a PUA (Pickup artist) site, but even if you're not interested particularly in picking up girls (I'm not for example), there is a tremendous amount of practical content there. The whole idea of of being unreactive versus reactive could come straight from a Stephen Covey book. It sounds similar to Ayn Rand in tone concerning taking responsibility and not being a sheep. I just skip over all his stuff about escalation and sexual attraction, but I pay attention to tyler's thoughts on being 'alpha.' If you don't agree with it morally, you can't deny the man's results. I find the stuff fascinating for the fact that it works.
But of course the best way to build social skills is just to break out of your shell. Find someone who interacts the way you want to interact and 'take notes' Then just practice like crazy without caring about the outcome. You focus on just practicing and not on whether some person who you have no control over likes you or not. Do this consistently and you'll have good results. Also, trying to stay conscious of a ton of tips and pointers only hurts you. Folks using NLP tell you the same thing.