Amazon link This book is recommended by Joel (mentioned in his post on “Econ 101 Management”) so we read it recently in our book club at work. The premise is that measuring employee performance is guaranteed to distort an organization’s desired results. This assertion contradicts management mantras everywhere, such as “You can’t improve what you […]
Category: joelbooks
Books read for the Software Management Training Program at Fog Creek Software
Purple Cow, by Seth Godin
Book website After reading Survival Is Not Enough, I figured I would go ahead and pick up another of his books since it was in the office library. This was another very quick read, with one good idea. To wit, Godin suggests that it is no longer good enough to have an outstanding message or […]
The Career Programmer, by Christopher Duncan
Amazon link Another book from the Joel reading list. Subtitled Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World, this is a book by a career programmer on how to survive in the corporate world. Having spent eight years as a software developer in a variety of corporate environments, I was curious to see how much these tactics […]
The Art of Project Management, by Scott Berkun
Amazon link I first learned of Scott Berkun last year, when I followed a link to one of his essays and found it thoughtful and well-written. I started reading his blog, joined his mailing list. and kept my eyes out for new content from him. So when I saw his book, The Art of Project […]
Survival Is Not Enough, by Seth Godin
Book site Technically, this isn’t on Joel’s list, but he knows Seth, and several of Godin’s other books are on the shelf in the Fog Creek Library, so I’m counting it under a technicality. I happened to pick up this particular book a year ago in San Francisco from the discount rack in a book […]
Direct from Dell, by Michael Dell
Amazon link I was kind of skeptical of this book when Joel handed it to me, but it was surprisingly good. It doesn’t have any original ideas, and didn’t change how I think, but the book was well-written (apparently by Catherine Fredman) and did a good job of describing how Dell had taken some basic […]
Getting to Yes, by Fisher and Ury
Amazon link This is a classic book on negotiation, introducing the theory of principled negotiation. The idea is that most negotiations tend to become positional negotiations fairly quickly; I offer a book for sale for $20, you offer me $10, I go $18, you go $12, we end up at $15. Positional negotiations make sense […]
Positioning, by Ries and Trout
Amazon link This is a classic book in marketing, and therefore one of the books that Joel asked us to read. The main message of the book is that consumers have a limited mindspace. They can only pay attention to a certain number of things before they just lose track and don’t care any more. […]
How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie
Amazon link I read this book once long ago, but Joel insisted I re-read it after starting last week. So I took it home for the weekend and read it while taking breaks from unpacking. It’s a quick read, with short chapters. And it’s excellent. What’s interesting to me is that I totally didn’t appreciate […]
