My fiancée surprised me with a nice trip to the Parc Regional du Pilat, about 1 hour south of Lyon to get some fresh air and some walking. After a nice picnic we got to setup the telescope (Celestron 8SE) and starting to shoot some with the Canon 20D. The sky was clear and definitely much better than in Lyon. The night was relatively cold and the atmosphere not too noisy. I wish the tracking on the Celeston was a little bit better to be able to get more exposure for deep sky pictures but overall it was a very good night. I hope you enjoy the pics as much as I do!
“ReWork” book review
I love planes and especially long transatlantic flights. They gave me the opportunity to put my noise canceling headphones and read, quietly. On my recent trip I had the chance to read “ReWork” by the founders of 37Signals. I had read a lot of good critics about the book and this area of business management interests me particularly. This book is definitely a must read if you are starting a company or managing a software company. It shows a different vision of the usual small business management. While I agree with most of the concepts presented in the book I think some of them are not applicable to most companies and should be taken with caution. Here are some of my comments on the concepts expressed in the book.
Emulate chefs
This section of the book takes a great analogy between running a business and a chef in a restaurant. The secret of the chef is not its recipe, it’s how they cook the food, the “savoir-faire” as we say in French. For this reason, chefs have their own cooking shows, write books, publish their recipes online. Why not doing the same as a business owner?
Of course this is what 37 Signals does all the time by publishing on their blog their story. They are very transparent and customers like this (Zappos prove this fact too). To me this also relates to open-source software. At Kitware, people ask us all the time how we are successful at running a business which gives (almost) everything for free. Well, this is the same, we publish our recipes and customers come to “our restaurant”. Our recipe is the source code of the software we write as well as blog articles about our business. Open-source is all about transparency and engaging the community.
Geography just doesn’t matter anymore. Hire the best talent, regardless of where it is.
While this is true on paper, I have found that, in order to have a certain coherence in our team, we needed to have some face to face meetings and discussions. Phones, IM and other means of communication are definitely helping but you can be much more productive and effective if you are all in the same room. I believe there is a trade-of between hiring the best person and have him work remotely and having someone you can actively supervise.
Hire for the attitude, train for the skill.
This is definitely true. From my experience, I have been interviewing potential hires for the past ten years and I strongly believe that attitude is impossible much more difficult to train than skill. As most of the engineering schools in France are teaching students to be flexible and independent in their jobs, I strongly believe that when you have the right attitude you can achieve anything.
You don’t create a culture. It happens.
What the book tells us is that the culture of a company is usually deep inside the founders’ values. It makes no sense to try to change your values or what you think about your business if that’s not you, because ultimately customers see your business through its culture. By being yourself you reflect the culture on your business and employees. Again, it is all about transparency and being yourself in the first place.
Great environment shows respect for the people who do the work and how they do it.
I agree with this statement but I wanted to point out the differences between Europe (France at least) and the US. The first time I came in the US, I was amazed that a company could provide free soda, free coffee and free food to their employees. In France this would (almost) never happen. That said, I agree that a great environment is necessary to keep employees happy.
Write to read, don’t write just to write.
This part of the book is interesting because it is the key of what 37 signals is doing with its blog. Each article can be as short as a couple of lines but it goes straight to the point. No need to write just for the sake of filling a page, this is not what your readers want.
I also recommend to read the excellent article on Signal vs. Noise: “All the wrong things we did with ReWork”.
A Lovely Avenue
People who know me are probably annoyed amused by how much I like Ben Folds (yes, it’s true, my car’s CD charger is full with Ben’s discs). I had the chance to see Ben Folds at Duke University (NC, USA) about five years ago. I didn’t know him at the time but I was quickly hooked. Nowadays, I usually see Ben Folds in concert about twice a year (or more) when time permits. I also have the chance to share my passion for his music with my girlfriend so it often makes for good birthday/anniversary/Christmas presents :). I also enjoy playing his songs on the piano and with my band.
Ben’s new LP “Lovnely Avenue” in collaboration with Nick Hornby was just released a month ago and is really worth hearing. Here are personal thoughts about some of the tracks:
- Levi’s Johnston’s Blues: Hilarious song, I heard it before in concert and it was always a good time, especially the crowd singing the chorus.
- Practical Amanda: Slow piano + lyrics are probably my favorite Folds’ songs. This is one of these songs. I can’t wait for this one to be adapted for orchestra.
- Claire Ninth’s: The chorus is just well composed and arranged. The piano solo is also giving a great rhythm to the song, I love it.
- Password: makes me think about Maxwel’s music, which is a good thing!
- Belinda: Again a slow song, Ben’s romantic side, well almost, I’ll let you decide by yourself.
I could write a lot more about this LP but I’ll let you enjoy the music. Also, Ben is a great photographer and often posts his photos on twitter.
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