Just as I write each day, I read as well. I feel it is imperative to continue to challenge my mind by exploring new topics and articulating my findings as they relate to the business world. I feel inspired by the most recent book I just finished- The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the future of work by Scott Berkun.
As the title suggests, and as you can imagine, WordPress.com is a very forward thinking company with non-traditional styles of work collaboration that would throw most of us into a tailspin even before we got started. WordPress.com hosts a majority of the world’s blogs and is constantly pushing the boundaries of what is possible plus the entire company works remotely. They have offices but they are rarely used and the preferred method of communication is written; one may go months before they ever hear someone else in the companies’ voice, much less talk to them face to face. This style works great for them and although the book is not dedicated to remote work, it does challenge the status quo for many companies on that issue as well as employee autonomy and collaboration methods.
The book is told from Scott Berkun’s first person perspective and he gives in depth feedback on how teams (new to the company at the time) operate, lessons they learned, and and what he did to push the boundaries of the organization. He was hired to work as a team lead, not having prior experience at the company and having to mix into a new culture. This first person perspective gives the book life and a story line as it infuses business lessons in easy to comprehend formats, I will be finding some more work by Berkun soon.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I finished it in 9 days (about 230 pages), and as I said, it is a much easier read than many business books because of the story line Berkun created. I would highly recommend this to book. The lessons are easily transferable, and I feel strongly that the more technology influences our lives, the more remote work will be done. The faster we adapt to this notion and embrace it, the more we can get ahead of the pack to see what’s coming.
The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work
