I couldn't see his point through the smog of ad hominem.
Management today review of 37signal's "Rework"
51–60 of 68 posts
Re: Management today review of 37signal's "Rework"
#52I'm currently reading the book, and he amusingly left out the stats supporting their conclusions or the rest of the sentence which tempers the strong advice. This is obviously intentional. They say "Don't make plans" and end the sentence with "Before you start, you don't know anything then". They say "learn from successes, not failures" and back it up with stats about how people who failed at a prior business endeavo…
I think approaching your work from the standpoint of "Learn from success, not failure" is a sure path to succumbing to confirmation bias and becoming a one-trick pony.
The 37s guys have done some wonderful work. But to me they are pretty much the embodiment of what I think of when I remember Paul Buchheit's great quote:
"Limited Life Experience + Overgeneralization = Advice"
Re: Management today review of 37signal's "Rework"
#53"I am not sure these guys are real businesspeople." What exactly are "real businesspeople"?
Parsed charitably, he means that they aren't serial businesspeople — they ["don't want to", "won't", "can't"] start new independent businesses. It's a variant of the lifestyle business epithet.
That sounds like a "serial entrepreneur", not a serial businessperson: a "business person" doesn't necessarily ever start a new business, let alone a string of them.
Re: Management today review of 37signal's "Rework"
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
No doubt. But what the what the OP is trying to do is weasel away from a critique of the book by saying 'Well, it's really mostly about 37 signals. If you don't like it/doesn't work for you, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man'. I imagine you wrote the book with the notion that it is broadly (not universally) applicable, just like most books in the genre. And it's perfectly sensible to review it in those terms…
I do think a lot of our ideas can apply to a very broad spectrum of businesses. I've personally heard from thousands of business owners in just about every industry who've told me many of the ideas we espouse work beautifully for them in their businesses. But, no of course I don't believe any idea applies to everyone.
Jason, maybe you should just link to this page every time this same kind of issue pops up and save yourself some time: http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch01_Caveats_disclaimers_an...
Re: Management today review of 37signal's "Rework"
#55"In reality, good meetings are good and bad meetings are not good". Yeah, because we'd rather read a book of tautologies than some actual points.
I think you're missing his point. He's saying it would be more helpful if the authors explained what it is about bad meetings that makes them bad, rather than issuing a blanket condemnation on all meetings.
Re: Management today review of 37signal's "Rework"
#56I think that in their last podcast, where they talk about Rework, the guys at 37s say that this book is written with entrepreneurs in mind.
Maybe that's why old "real" enterprisey business persons can't understand it.
http://37signals.com/podcast/#episode9 (wow! that's a lousy permalink)
Re: Management today review of 37signal's "Rework"
#57Seriously, this is a rather typical old-economy response to a well understood concept at this point: Simple works. Coming from the inside of the enterprise web publishing world I'd suggest it's not 37signals that is missing something. Of course the author (of the review) did found a chain of restaurants...
Did you read his conclusion?
The book is rescued by a thread of ideas that focus on one theme - that less ambitious, more straightforward products can often beat 'better' products. And, this time, they give good examples - of the recent uptake of simple fixed-gear bikes, and the popularity of the flip phone
Re: Management today review of 37signal's "Rework"
#58I'm currently reading the book, and he amusingly left out the stats supporting their conclusions or the rest of the sentence which tempers the strong advice. This is obviously intentional. They say "Don't make plans" and end the sentence with "Before you start, you don't know anything then". They say "learn from successes, not failures" and back it up with stats about how people who failed at a prior business endeavo…
I think approaching your work from the standpoint of "Learn from success, not failure" is a sure path to succumbing to confirmation bias and becoming a one-trick pony. The 37s guys have done some wonderful work. But to me they are pretty much the embodiment of what I think of when I remember Paul Buchheit's great quote: "Limited Life Experience + Overgeneralization = Advice"
I think approaching your work from the standpoint of "Learn
from success, not failure" is a sure path to succumbing to
confirmation bias and becoming a one-trick pony.
Re: Management today review of 37signal's "Rework"
#59from article "I have the pleasure of working with real businesspeople who care about doing a good job, not talking about doing a good job." Well, I don't know if he did research about the software that 37Signals has made, but I consider Ruby on Rails a "good job". I haven't used any of their other products (Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, Campfire), but I would bet that the 3 million people using them would consider th…
Yes, by the review author's logic, no one should ever write a business book, because they are too busy doing a good job.
Funny enough, there is a place in "Rework" which talks about how good job has side-products which can be sold. "Getting real" and "Rework" are exactly such products.
Re: Management today review of 37signal's "Rework"
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Meetings are toxic" was in their last book. It's a hyperbolic title, but the content is more subtle. http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch07_Meetings_Are_Toxic.php "Fire workaholics" was a blog post. http://37signals.com/svn/posts/902-fire-the-workaholics The review was defensive, because 37signals prove that many typical management techniques are not necessary for success. This is a status risk for the review author,…
Sorry, but I just absolutely detest this sort of writing, where you make outlandish claims, then fallback to a ridiculously obvious position. It's a bait+switch, and it's used way too often. You don't get any real insight, you just read what you already know. Meetings Are Toxic Don't have meetings For those times when you absolutely must have a meeting (this should be a rare event), stick to these simple rules: And t…
And the advice is just ridiculously obvious to anyone with
a brain. "Never have a meeting without a clear agenda."