This book, unlike most business books, is quite short. Basicly it is a manifesto for doing work differently. The authors, Jason and David blow up many of the workplace norms you find in most companies big and small. Jason and David have figured out how to run a wildly successful business in the new media, internet-based world we live in without the negative aspects that people normally think of like long hours, ineffective bureaucracy, and cutthroat tactics. Their company, 37 signals, has only 16 employees. But they have a big impact with over 3 million people using their products.
Below are the titles of the various articles featured in the book. They give you an idea of how new and revolutionary the author's view of their work place is.
TAKEDOWNS
Ignore the real world.
Learning from mistakes is overrated.
Planning is guessing.
Why grow?
Workaholism
Enough with "entrepreneurs"
GO
Make a dent in the universe
Scratch your own itch
Start making something
No time is no excuse (This is the short article that we read at the Bake-Off)
Draw a line in the sand
Mission statement impossible
Outside money is Plan Z
You need less than you think
Start a business, not a start-up
Building to flip is building to flop
Less mass.
PROGRESS
Embrace constraints
Build half, not half-ass
Start at the epicenter
Ignore the details early on
Making the call is making progress
Be a curator
Throw less at the problem
Focus on what won't change
Tone is in your fingers
Sell your by-products
Launch now
PRODUCTIVITY
Illusions of agreement
Reasons to quit
Interruption is the enemy of productivity
Meetings are toxic
Good enough is fine
Quick wins
Don't be a hero
Go to sleep
Your estimates suck
Long lists don't get done
Many tiny decisions
COMPETITORS
Don't copy
Decommodize your product
Pick a fight
Underdo your competition
Who care what they're doing?
EVOLUTION
Say no by default
Let your customers outgrow you
Don't confuse enthusism with priority
Be at-home good
Don't write it down
PROMOTION
Welcome obscurity
Build an audience
Out-teach your competition
Emulate chefs
Go behind the scenes
Nobody likes plastic flowers
Press releases are spam
Forget about the Wall Street Journal
Drug dealers get it right
Marketing is not a department
The myth of the overnight sensation
HIRING
Do it yourself first
Hire when it hurts
Pass on great people
Strangers at a cocktail party
Resumes are ridiculous
Years of irrelevance
Forget about formal education
Everybody works
Hire managers of one
Hire great writers
The best are everywhere
Test-drive employees
DAMAGE CONTROL
Own your bad news
Speed changes everything
How to say you're sorry
Put everyone on the front lines
Take a deep breath
CULTURE
You don't creat a culture
Decisions are temporary
Skp the rock stars
They're not thirteen
Send people home at 5:00
Don't scar on the first cut
Sound like you
Four-letter words
ASAP is poison
CONCLUSION
Inspiration is perishable
The authors live by the credo 'keep it simple, stupid' and REWORK possesses the same intelligence -- and irreverence -- of that simple adage.
Their Blog, Signal vs. Noise is very popular. Backpack is one of their products.
"Doctor Heal Thyself" This is a personal essay in a recent newspaper that we discussed, about doctors being patients themselves. There is a discussion of how doctor's unhealthy and stressful lifestyles including no sleep, exposures to contagions, and stress contribute to ill health for the doctors themselves. The article maintains that it is a privilege to work such long and stressful hours taking care of patients and even though exposed to stress and contagion, doctors will all still do their work. But certainly these exposures and stress are a reason that even doctors do get very sick. There is a mistaken idea that doctors know something magic and can avoid getting ill themselves, but this is obviously not the case. Paul commented that missing from this article is the citation of the knowledge that stress is an immune suppressant. This may contribute strongly to illness in doctors.
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