In the iLab, several of us aren’t just geeks, we’re book nerds too. So I thought it might be fun to share our thoughts on what we’ve been reading from time to time. The latest from my geeky reading stack is Anne Truitt Zelenka and Judi Sohn’s Connect! A Guide to a New Way of Working. [The ISBN is 9780470223987 -- sorry, I went to library school, and the urge to include that metadata is overwhelming.]

I tend to be suspicious of books on web topics. The internet moves much faster than book publishing, so I worry that web books will seem stale when I read them. I think Zelenka’s book will have staying power beyond the current incarnations of facebook or twitter though, because she gets deeper and presents ideas that reach beyond any individual link or resource that might rot or transform or disappear.

Three themes in the book really resonated with me:

• Bursty vs busy working styles: It’s still about getting things done, but not adhering to 9 to 5 thinking to make it happen
• Focus on authenticity: Are you what you do? Do you want to be?
• Work-life blend instead of balance: Mix (remixing?) your “yes it’s work” and your “of course it’s personal” stuff goes with the web work territory

Zelenka and Sohn acknowledge risks inherent in new ways of working:

“There are no guarantees that your bursty experiments will always or ever succeed and you may lose credibility if you become known for one crazy scheme after another”

“You need to take care not to use too much of your attention on ideas and information that don’t pay off in increased satisfaction, knowledge, and insight”

These are risks that can be present in non-web work, but I think the low barrier to entry, infinitely connected nature of the web encourages experimentation and invites idea surfing. It’s also creates fertile ground for innovation:

“innovation comes from making connections across different ideas and fields of thought, not necessarily from coming up with ideas from scratch”

I should note that you are getting all this from my perspective as web worker who has embraced the work/life blend, and can be found on twitter, del.icio.us and facebook and as well as my personal blogs. This doesn’t mean I agree with everything they say. For example, my “sarcastic blog posts” aren’t getting deleted any time soon. (Probably never: I prefer to think of them as my archives.)

I do agree there is power in letting people get to know you via “multiple channels and multiple interactions” because it’s my experience that it enriches professional relationships. Yes, it can also make for a fuzzy line between professional and personal, and not everyone will be comfortable with that. I think that is okay, but Zelenka and Sohn are clearly writing for folks who are at least open to finding out how comfortable with fuzziness they really are.

If you’ve been in the web working camp for awhile this book probably isn’t going to provide you with anything earth-shatteringly new. You’ll probably harvest some worthwhile tips (online sharing of goals will help keep you motivated to actually get things done, orienteering is a more productive way to approach search when you need to learn as well as find), but many of the pointers go to familiar URLs, such as the obvious Web Worker Daily. If nothing else, it’s worth reading for the reinforcing, manifesto-like bits such as, “today’s web is about individual possibility, not standard operating procedures.”

If you are not yet but aspire to be a web worker (freelance or as employee), I highly recommend this book. Managers of remote workers and distributed teams will also probably get a lot out of it. (I slapped a post-it note on the cover and gave it to Tara I was done reading it.)

How about you, read anything good lately?

tagged: bookreview