Blueprint for Design

This post will contain the first official book review on blueprintfordesign.com. I’m sure this review might ruffle some feathers.

The book I chose to review is Rework by Jason Fried and Heinemeier Hansson.  These are the fellows who created Basecamp and are the founders of 37Signals. I had heard quite a bit about the book amongst the design community and was excited to read it.  Once I received the book and started reading the “reviews” from so called “famous people” my opinion began changing.  Here’s the quote that amused me most.

If given a choice between investing in someone who has read Rework or has his MBA, I’m investing in Rework every time…a must read.
- Mark Cuban, co-founder of HDNet and owner of the Dallas Mavericks

Quoting Wendy’s father from the movie Peter Pan (it’s my daughter’s favorite right now), that’s “absolute poppycock.”  If I’m going to judge this book by it’s cover, which I’m not ashamed to admit that I do, I wouldn’t have read this book. But alas, I did.

The opening to this post may have seemed a little negative.  That’s not entirely the case in my opinion of this book. I would say that I’m split in my decision if I like or dislike this book.  For me, most of the content in the book seemed kind of obvious. It was nice to be affirmed that my thought process is similar to a successful company such as 37Signals.

The book is simple and short. It reads like a bunch of emails or short blog posts that have been compiled into book form. This mildly annoyed me. They claim to be writing in a conversational style (just like this blog post I guess). They also claim in the book that they cut thousands of words during the final edit. Due to the shortness and the lack of much explanation on their various topics, I felt like maybe they cut out too much. I actually think more would have been better in this case.

Much of the content in the book is their views on how to be a successful “starter” (their word for entrepreneur) in this postmodern business world we live in. I can think of a few of my past colleagues and bosses who are the antithesis of the concepts in Rework. There is talk of how meetings are toxic, business plans are rubbish, and that resumes are useless. They also write about the negatives of being a workaholic. This, I agree with wholeheartedly. Companies that expect you to work insane hours all the time and have unrealistic expectations of their employees annoy me, too. Recently, I was offered a job in which the person who recruited me informed me that my hours are 8am – 5pm. BUT, I would NEVER leave work before 6pm and that most likely I would work till 7pm each night. Who do they think they are? They are the kind of people who would keel over if they read this book.

Some good quotes from Rework.

• What do you really learn from mistakes? You learn what not to do again, but how valuable is that? You still don’t know what you should do next. (pg. 16)
• Interruption is not collaboration, it’s just interruption. And when you’re interrupted, you’re not getting work done. (pg. 104)
• They often include at least one moron who inevitably gets his turn to waste everyone’s time with nonsense. (pg. 108 – talking about meetings.)
• When good enough get’s the job done, go for it. (pg. 113)
• If you merely replicate competitors, there’s no point to your existence. (pg. 149)
• Accounting is a department. Marketing isn’t. (pg. 193)
• A lot of companies post help-wanted ads seeking “rock stars” or “ninjas.” Lame. (pg. 253)
• Inspiration is a now thing. If it grabs you, grab it right back and put it to work. (pg. 271)

If you’re looking for a quick read that may inspire you some as a business owner, check out Rework. It might not be earth shattering, but it’s certainly worth checking out.