Like Gordon Gekko once said “Because everyone is drinking the same Kool Aid“, and just because everybody in the business (the web business i mean) is drinking “Rework” by 37 Signals, i also drinked it too…. so what’s my taste of this book?
It’s a complex taste book, not because it digs deep the rabbit-hole, but because it (tries to) speak all things about the business universe, it goes from (unordered list) planning, to meetings, to time management, customer management, task prioritization, hiring and firing, office policies, marketing, product building, product minimalism, workaholism, by-products, productivity, startups, etc, etc….
It’s filled with common sense (is not so common) and Lapalissades, witch makes one feel smart:
«Failure is not a prerequisite of success.» – I knew that
«Forgoing sleep is a bad ideia.» – I also knew that
«Other people’s failures are just that: other people’s failures» – Duhh
«Revenue in, expenses out, Turn a profit or wind up gone.» – Heck, even the tavern owner where i go for cheap drinks knows this
«If you want to get someones attention, it’s silly to do exactly the same thing as everyone else.» – I rest my case
But in the other hand, you are always making reality checks, comparing your own practices with the ones described in the book, and this review is obviously good.
Anyway, the work smart not hard philosophy makes sense, there are some good marketing tips, i really liked the teach and spread your secrets of the trade approach. It also makes a strong point about minimalistic products, those products that you strip down to the core, make them easier, cheaper, maintainable. Likewise, they don’t like guys throwed in suits (about#hate) and useless meetings (about#hate) ….. ahhhh…that was good for my ego.
The final balance is positive, everyone can get good ideias out of it, but is not the “fabulous”, “best book in my life and afterlife” hype that you read in Amazon reviews.
Here some of my favorite quotes:
«When you treat people like children, you get children’s work»
«And when everything is high priority, nothing is»
«Business are usually paranoid and secretive. They think they have proprietary this and competitive advantage that. Maybe a rare few do, but most don’t»
«Having the idea for eBay has nothing to do with actually creating eBay»
«The worst interruptions of all are meetings»
«How long someone’s been doing it is overrated. What matters is how well they’ve been doing it»