150 WORD BOOK REVIEW: The year without pants by Scott Berkun – a book about WordPress

Year without pants coverOver 20% of the websites currently online are powered in one way or another by WordPress yet only 120 full time staffers work for its parent company, Automattic. There’s no central office. Staff work remotely – from pretty much every continent on Earth.

The year without pants is based on Scott Berkun’s experience of working with Automattic and their distributed workforce and centres around trying to figure out if and how it works. It does.

It makes for fascinating reading if, like me, you think that office working serves a purpose, but should not be the default setting for organisations. Berkun is an engaging author, and the book gives lots of examples of the processes that WordPress use to overcome any issues that arise from not having physical interactions on an ongoing basis. There are lots of lessons here – not just from Automattic/Wordpress, but also from Berkun’s time at Microsoft. Well worth a look.

Eamonn Carey (14 Posts)

I like to make things people use. MD at Techstars. Board member at Lingvist, Motivii and others. Investor in Spatch, Neardesk, GamesGRABR and two yet to be released projects. I read a lot.