What happens when an old-school management guru leaves the books and lectures behind to lead a young team at a revolutionary company, with no email, no offices, and no rules? The answer is an amazing and entertaining book about the future of work.
60 million websites and counting, or 20% of the entire web, use WordPress software. The force behind WordPress.com is a convention-defying company where employees can work from wherever they wish, barely use email and launch improvements to their products dozens of times a day – all with a fraction of the resources of Google, Amazon or Facebook. How is this possible?
To find out, former Microsoft veteran Scott Berkun worked as a manager at WordPress.com from 2010 to 2012, leading a team of programmers to make WordPress even more successful. In his new book, The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work (Jossey-Bass; 978-1-118-66063-8; September 2013; $26.95; e-book available), Berkun provides a behind-the-scenes look at the innovative firm driving WordPress.com’s phenomenal success and the challenges he faced while leading one of its most important teams.
This bold and entertaining tale is filled with how great work is done regardless of where you are and what Automattic’s success means for the rest of us. What makes Automattic such a success is how it challenges our biggest assumptions of how work should be done, including:
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Employees work remotely, from wherever in the world they wish
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No one uses email, preferring customized blogs and online chat
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There are no schedules, few meetings, and fewer rules
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Workers launch new ideas and features dozens of times a day
With his legendary humor and the unique perspective of a seasoned outsider-turned-insider, The Year Without Pants is the best book you will read on the ways leadership, productivity, and work are evolving on business’s brave new frontier. Berkun challenges people like Marissa Meyer and other conservative leader’s old-fashioned notions about how work gets done creatively and effectively!
About the Author:
Scott Berkun is the author of four popular books, Making Things Happen, The Myths of Innovation, Confessions of a Public Speaker and Mindfire: Big Ideas for Curious Minds. His work as a writer and speaker have appeared in the The Washington Post, the New York Times, Wired, the Economist, Fast Company, Forbes, CNBC, MSNBC, CNN, National Public Radio and other media. His many popular essays and entertaining lectures can be found for free on his blog at www.scottberkun.com, and he tweets at @berkun.
THE YEAR WITHOUT PANTS
By Scott Berkun
Jossey-Bass; September 2013; $26.95
978-1-118-66063-8; Cloth and all e-reader formats