Getting Real with 37 Signals

Borrowed a copy of ‘Getting Real‘ by 37 Signals from Les Cochrane recently. It’s billed as the smarter, faster, easier way to build a successful web application but there are lots of lessons that can be applied to business and life in general.

The main one that they focus on is to just get on and do it. Too many times people come up with ideas and then don’t follow through, if you’re a person that delivers you’re going to succeed. This doesn’t just apply to web apps, it’s everything – if you say you’re going to do something, you damn well need to do it.

The book covers:

• how to start out and attract funding
• how to stay lean and avoid the corporate bloat
• how to prioritise and what’s really important when working on a project
• how to select what should be part of your service/application/product
• how the processes should run within your organisation
• how the organisation should be in its outlook
• how you should recruit and select staff, and what people you need
• how to design
• how to code successfully
• how to write the best words that help sell your service/product/app
• how to price and how to increase the amount of people signing up and getting involved
• how to promote your service/product/app in a web 2.0 world
• how to support people once they have your service/product/app
• how to keep the buzz going after you’ve launched

One of the key things that 37 Signals point out is that you should always hire good writers. I think this is vital in any organisation, because people who can write and speak properly will be able to communicate better – not just with customers but also internally with co-workers. A well-worded email with clear instructions is priceless, a quick conference call and good notes from it can make all the difference. Plus, when you do have people with good writing skills communicating with customers it will show. I’m convinced that sloppy grammar can sometimes lose you a sale.

The 37 Signals book is definitely worth a read, even if you’re not in the web app business, as the lessons they impart can be applied to plenty of other circumstances. The way 37 Signals run their business and their ethos, well bits of it, are what I would like to apply to Blog Local as we start out into the business world.

Image credit to Move The Cloud’s

Not sharing means not caring in the digital world

Had a read of Chris Brogan’s excellent post about how business’ need to start sharing or they are going to be in trouble.

He’s right, everything needs to be accessible and the old barriers within business’ need to disappear or it will be the business’ themselves who disappear. The very nature of the web is to share, I’m writing this blog post now and I’m sharing something with you. Someone tags this in delicious and shares it with their network, someone else emails it to a friend. It’s easy to share online.

That’s why it’s important that organisations, even the smaller ones like I work for, get their house in order and get everyone sharing. The flow of information around an organisation is almost as important as the flow of information from the organisation. I work for an organisation, a Students’ Union, who are a very sharing and caring kind of organisation, but there has to be a putting aside of old issues and a realisation that if the organisation is to move forward then information, best practice and most importantly ideas are not discussed behind closed doors but are passed around to be added to, taken away and made better.

While people hide behind job titles, department names and bottom lines then nothing will move forward. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, if you’re not sharing with your colleagues ideas then things won’t happen. For public organisations there are definitely loads of ideas floating around about how to make things better, how to improve what’s already there – I’ve had many of them while developing the Union’s new website – but they never go anywhere other than into a pad to be thought about next year. What if that pad was online? You scribble a note, and everyone can see it an contribute. The staff intranet shouldn’t be a boring list of when the next fire inspection is, it should be a buzzing community of everyone having their say about the next big idea.

And if there’s not enough people to fulfil all the ideas, as inevitably with public organisations there aren’t, then share them with others. You’re not in competition, you’re all working towards a common goal. As Chris Brogan says:

Sharing is a new business tool. And it’s not really obvious. You have to think about the ways you can share, the ways you can’t. You have to weigh whether you’re giving away the best part, or if there’s plenty to go around (so often, the answer is B).

So there we go, how is this sharing going to happen? If the people at the top see the possibilities that social media can have the opportunities for innovation that are bubbling underneath them.