I’m fascinated by what happens to books after they’re bought. Are they put on shelves, never even cracked open? Or are dog-earned, coffee-stained and highlighted until the cover falls off? Do they live on as doorstops or part of a makeshift shelf, or lie on the floor collecting dust.
I used to think books should be treated with care and kept in perfect condition, but as I’ve gotten older I find more appeal in signs of use. Nothing honors a thing more than using it well and it should show (Roughly the Japanese idea of wabi-sabi).
Over the last year a few folks have sent me photos of what they’ve really done with the artofpm book. Some are funny, some are sad, but it’s all honest and I love it.
Here are some, but I’d love to see yours: where is the book now? what funny things have you done with it? Post a photo or comment.
In the unexplainable department: I have a copy of the artofpm in my office that’s already been personally signed for someone named Edward. I have no idea at this point who Edward was or why I signed a copy for him.
As it’s not much good to the largely non-Edward named population I don’t really know what to do with it. So:
The first person named Edward that leaves a comment gets it sent to them.
(This is offer is closed – thanks for playing)
Are you, or is someone you know, currently working full time at a start-up company? Do you like free copies of bestselling books? Then read on.
I’m trying to learn if anything I said in the art of project management applies well to start-up environments. While some chapters don’t work as well as others, my hypothesis is that much of it holds together for any kind of organization. Decisions, leadership, and chaos are part of all projects, startup or not.
But I want to test the hypothesis instead of pretending I’m right.
I have 5 copies of the book ready to go – if you want one, here’s how you qualify:
1. Leave a comment with your name, or contact me here.
2. Include a link to your start-up’s website. No website, no book.
3. Give me an address to send the book.
4. Swear on your favorite person that you’ll read 4 or more chapters in the next month and send some feedback.
That’s it. I’ll sign each one personally for you and send it on it’s way.
Of couse if you’ve read the book already and work at a start-up, I’d love to hear what you have to say. Depending on what I learn, perhaps there’s an “artofpm for startups” edition in the future.
My first book was published almost a year ago – While no one can predict book sales, that hasn’t stopped people, especially writers, from trying.
Below you’ll find a year’s worth of amazon.com sales data for The art of project management (provided by rankforest.com) with notes on my activities (This starts 4 weeks after the book was in stores because I didn’t know about rankforest until then). There are problems with amazon rankings, but they’re an easy indicator to track.
Here is the promotion rundown from 5/1/2005 to today:
O’Reilly promoted the book in their catalog, website and bestseller list (once it got there), and invited me to write a few pieces for their website. They posted a sample chapter and allowed slashdot to excerpt another. Kathryn Barrett, publicist for O’Reilly, was fantastic, generously sending out reviewer copies to folks willing to write reviews for websites and magazines.
This blog generates good traffic but most peaks in web traffic were driven by new essays.
Who knows if these efforts help – plenty of books do well without things like this, and many with big promotion budgets do poorly. It’s complex and a topic for another post.
However it happened, the book has been a big success. Thanks to all of you for visiting, reading, buying and spreading the word about the book. Every sale motivates me to work that much harder and write that much more.
The pairing of writing books and being for hire as a trainer/consultant feeds off each other: people who like the book often hire me and people who hire me often buy the book. So for any would-be writers out there, this is a great approach for a first book.
I’m doing well and have signed to write a second book for O’Reilly – I’m on track to put another dent in that shelf.
For fun, comparative data is listed for Malcom Gladwell’s book “Blink”. Not sure what happened to him on 10/16, but it looks like he survived his largest rank-drop: from the teens down to 57.
The nominations are in: The art of project management is a finalist for the 2006 Jolt Awards, sponsored by CMP.
Here are the General book nominations:
Ambient Findability: What We Find Changes Who We Become by Peter
Morville (O’Reilly)
Best Software Writing by Joel Spolsky (Apress)
Innovation Happens Elsewhere: Open Source as Business Strategy by Ron
Goldman and Richard P. Gabriel (Morgan Kaufmann)
Prefactoring by Ken Pugh (O’Reilly)
Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software
Project by Karl Fogel (O’Reilly)
The Art of Project Management by Scott Berkun (O’Reilly)
The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by
Thomas L. Friedman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
This is a really great book and ought to have a permanent place on any manager’s (not just project managers) desk. Highly recommended for managers of all experience levels.
Still seeing some reviews come in which I’m grateful for, 5 months after the book has been out. Most folks don’t know it but the window for books is small: if it’s not picked up in reviews soon after publication, odds are slim anyone will ever even hear about it.
My own interests aside, any time you write a blog post or amazon review for a book, it makes a huge difference to us authors. Even if sales don’t follow, it’s super validating to any author to hear the book meant something to someone. I hope to write more book reviews myself here.
Scott gives you project management concepts in simple steps, using lots of examples of successes and failures from his own experiences, and he is always considering the “people” factor. With all the emphasis on tools and process that we have today, it’s refreshing to see a book on project management that spends as much time on human factors as it does on technical tools and metrics.
This book is a candid and honest piece of work written by someone who has really been there, done that, and is willing to share.
This is a comprehensive, how-to book devoid of jargon and theory. The author gives direct advice from his own experience. The real value of this book, though, is that it is not about a single methodology for project management, nor is it just for project managers. Instead, Berkun is able to speak about project management at its highest-level without filtering it through a given approach. It is deep enough to keep seasoned project managers reading, but also appealing to non-project managers. I’d recommend this book to anyone looking to improve general project skills.
Well, that was fast. The fine folks at CMP and Dr. Dobbs Journal have made this talk available online in under 24hrs.
The original event was broadcast on:
Date: Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Time: 11:00 AM PDT
Duration: 60-minutes
Description: During the session, Scott will present perspectives and techniques for project management from his recently-published book that has already sold over 20,000 copies. Learn from this veteran manager of software and web development how to plan, manage and lead projects. Scott goes beyond the book, talking about the fine print of leadership, attention/intuition/conviction, and tactics for working with others.
Just wanted to thank everyone that watched the broadcast online – thanks for tuning in. I had fun and hopefully kept you awake, if not entertained. We had almost 500 people, which I’m told is a record.
John Furrier of the infotalk podcast series just posted segment 2 of our interview. This one is about managing start-ups and leadership challenges. It’s another short, fun 10 minute interview.
Leon from Lifehacker.org interviewed me about the book, my career, mistakes and leadership. Check it out.
Dr. Dobbs Journal Magazine will be broadcasting a live netcast by yours truly on the art of project management. This is the first netcast of their brand new Great Writer’s series.
Date: Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Time: 11:00 AM PT / 1:00 PM CT / 2:00 PM ET
Duration: 60 minutes
Register here. If you sign up you’ll get another reminder before the event.
I’ll be going beyond the content in the book, talking about:
What they don’t tell you
Attention/Intuition/Conviction
the difference between the art and science of everything
Plus Q&A from the audience
Hope to see you online next week.
I’m planning part 2 of the book tour for the Art of project management for early this fall – and I need your help. The book has been recieved great reviews and I’m trying to help it along and use its success to meet lots of people. This could be you.
I’m compiling a list of companies/organizations that might have me in to speak – once I have that list I’ll figure out how many cities or venues I can afford to hit: I have a budget, but it ain’t much 🙂
So if you have an idea for a venue, here’s how you can help:
Tell me what the venue is, where it is, how many people there might be
The text is light on theory and full of plain talk guidelines, tips and tricks grounded in and illustrated by Berkun’s years of experience leading product teams at Microsoft… A must-read for anyone officially or unofficially in charge of corralling folks together to meet a common goal
I often tell others that if I go to a meeting or read a book and I learn one thing or get one idea from the experience, then it is worth the money and the time spent. Knowledge is valuable and is our coin of the trade. There is a lot to learn in this book. Berkun brings intelligence, insight, thoughtful commentary and experiences learned from difficult Microsoft projects. It is like learning from and discussing the experiences of a peer or, for new project managers, learning theory and practice from a young master . – Thomas V. Kappel, Kickstart news
I would go so far as to say this. If you are in this role at a software company, and have been doing it for less than 3 years, this book should be your text book. Nothing will matter more in your career than having a good grasp and mastery of many of the skills highlighted in the book. If you are an old timer, then this book will be an interesting read to say the least, if not help you with a situation you might be facing today (or tomorrow).
If you find other reviews let me know. And of course if you’re willing to review the book for a magazine, website or busy blog, contact me. I can get you a reviewer copy of the book.
Thanks to everyone that’s helped get these reviews out there and to everyone that’s actually bought the book 🙂
I’ve had a half dozen people point me to the personal mba website in the last week. It’s a group of folks convinced you can educate yourself effectively for less than a quarter of the time and money spent in most MBA programs – great idea.
Well today, there’s a new twist. The art of project management has made their updated list of must read books: The PMBA 40 . (Thanks Keith)
They’re forming web-based reading discussion groups to work together on covering all 40. If you’re interested you can sign up now.
Dr. Dobbs Journal Magazine will be broadcasting a live netcast by yours truly on the art of project management. Registration is free and you can watch/listen right from your desktop. This is the first netcast of their brand new Great Writer’s series.
Date: Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Time: 11:00 AM PT / 1:00 PM CT / 2:00 PM ET
Duration: 60 minutes
Register here. If you sign up you’ll get reminders before the event. Spread the word!
I’ll be at OSCON tommorow (Wed) – If anyone’s around and want’s to meet up, comment here. I will be at the O’Reilly author event in the evening signing books.
Which one of these doesn’t belong: George Gilder, Mark Cuban, John Markoff (NYTimes), David Hills (Looksmart CEO), Chris Andersion (Editor in Chief of Wired Magazine) and Scott Berkun?
Well somehow I snuck my way onto the infotalk podcast program, hosted by John Furrier – he recently interviewed me about the book, virtual teams, leadership and things that go wrong. It’s a short fun 10 minute interview.
Update: ArtofPM, the book described below, was released in an updated edition called Making Things Happen that you should buy instead, as Art of PM is no longer published
The book the art of project management just hit #2 on amazon.com’s best seller list for Computer and Internet books. And in related news O’Reilly informed me that the book is now in its 3rd printing. There must be a mass shortage of expensive doorstops somewhere. And BlogCritics.org now has their review up.
“I’ve been working professionally as a software engineer for several years and I learned more in the first 100 pages of this book than from my years of experience in the industry. Scott Berkun provides examples from real world experiences so you don’t have to make the same mistakes to learn what you should and shouldn’t do….”
And