Jason Fried’s new book Rework comes out today, and I’m delighted that we managed to talk just a week ago in the lead up to its launch. Now here’s a quote to kick us off. It’s from Seth Godin, and he says (and I’m paraphrasing), “Make everything a project – and run it through 37Signals’ Basecamp.” Jason is the one of the founders of 37Signals. They design useful software to help people work better – connect with people, run projects, managing stuff. (I know, because I use it!)
And what’s cool is they haven’t done it by practising business as usual, but by practising business as unusual. In this interview Jason shares some of his successful and counter-intutive approaches to how to get stuff done. We talk about:
- The evolution of 37Signals – and why where you start is not where you finish
- The value of introducing “done enough” as a measure of success
- The problem with meetings – and what to do about it
- Why planning is highly overrated
- And a bunch more…
You can pick up the new book on Amazon , follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonFried, and learn more about 37 Signals’ products at their website.
(And by the way, Jason’s surname is pronounced “Freed” – Apologies to Jason, and please ignore my mistake at the start of the interview!)
Posted on March 9, 2010
“It’s not about ideas, it’s about making ideas happen.”
I love that statement. I know from my time teaching and consulting on innovation and creativity that actually having ideas, when you know how, is pretty easy. But actually executing ideas – ahh, that’s a different matter. Scott Belsky is the CEO and founder of Behance and what he stands for is making ideas happen. Behance operates the leading online platform for creative professionals – which means, helping creatives find a place to get together and to think about, how do we make our ideas happen? Scott and Behance also run the 99% Blog and the 99% Conference.
In this interview we talk about:
- Why looking to the short-term can be a powerful execution strategy
- How to overcome the tragedy that most ideas are born and lost in isolation
- And why ‘acting without conviction” is a handy strategy for keeping things going
You can follow Scott on Twitter@behance, on the Behance website and on the 99% Blog.
Posted on January 22, 2010
Roger Martin who is the Dean of the Rotman School of Management here in Toronto and the author of three great books on business. The first is The Responsibility Virus which talks about the power of building true partnerships. The second is The Opposable Mind which talks about ‘integrative thinking’ and his most recent is The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage.
In this interview we take on:
- The journey ideas take – from ‘mystery’ to ‘heuristic’ to ‘algorithm’
- Why ‘design thinking’ could be considered a counter-cultural act
- How the beginning of change lies in changing the way we think
- Why the burden of proof can be impossible to meet (and what the implications of that might be)
- The power of projectization – and a company that’s showing just how powerful that can be.
You can find out more about Roger and his work and get access to a range of great material at www.RogerLMartin.com.
Posted on January 21, 2010
Garr Reynold and Nancy Duarte are the two people who’ve done the most to change how presentations work in organizations today. Garr’s book Presentation Zen and his excellent blog help to champion a style of presentation that is to the point, elegant, has an impact and is beautiful to boot. A selection of his interests – and I love this list – includes: “beautiful design, philosophy, branding, great presentations (and doing my part to help rid the world of boring, ineffective, ridiculously bad, amateurish PowerPoint presentations) Zen in daily life, the Blues, playing the drums, Japanese pop music (save SMAP and Ayumi Hamasaki, of course), Japanese traditional music, Okinawa music, Plato, American college football (especially Oregon State Univ.), Earth Wind & Fire, early morning coffee, reading or working in a downtown café and learning something new everyday.” Garr lives in Japan and is the Associate Professor of Management at Kansai Gaidai University.
In this interview we chat about:
- The paradox of restrictions as a form of liberation
- Why “Failure is not an option”
- The strategy of “plus alpha” to help do more Great Work
- Why pen and paper can often trump using a computer
- And the role of elegance in design
You can follow Garr on Twitter at @PresentationZen and on his blog at Presentation Zen.com
If you enjoyed this interview, you’ll also enjoy my conversations with:
- Nancy Duarte, author of Slide:ology
- Dan Roam, author of Back of a Napkin
- “Mr Simplicity” Bill Jensen, author of The Simplicity Survival Handbook
Posted on January 20, 2010
