As you will see elsewhere on this site, I’m a big fan of BaseCamp, the online project management solution from 37 Signals.

The team behind 37 are obviously darn clever guys, and a while ago they wrote a book called Getting Real, which is all about their philosophy behind creating simple, useable web applications (like BaseCamp). Although aimed at a different audience than my line of work there were several pertinent chapters that apply to anybody running a business or developing products, be that code or bicycles.

Being the Web 2.0 savvy guys that they are, they have three distribution models; analogue (a real book), digital (a downloadable PDF of said book) and also a somewhat scrappy, but free, preview on their website. I have to admit to being too tight to pay them for either the book or the PDF (though I do give them in excess of $100 a month in licence fees…) and I’ve read through the entire book, and back again, for inspiration and sage words.

A few days ago I spotted a twitter posting from Jason Fried, one of the 37 founders and somewhat of a internet guru, about a new book in the pipeline. Going by the working title of “Unconform“, it gives an indication already of the direction they are heading in. If it does for simplified business thinking, with a sharp commercial edge, for what their previous tome did for coding, then it will be an essential read when it appears in airport bookshops somewhere towards the end of 2009.

BTW: You can follow Jason on Twitter, he’s a very interesting guy: @jasonfried

Advertisement