Our team, the Sky Innovations Team, has recently fallen in love with a new book Rework, as described by the publisher its a new book about business ‘…how to start one, build one, and grow — or not grow — one. It’s about getting back to the basics, making things easier not harder, and focusing on what really matters.’

The advice in the book is based on 37Signal’s successfully proven principles. However this is not just another ‘business book’ it is more than that – the book is filled with everyday business insight that leads you to question your methods, objectives and ultimately improve your productivity. Or to quote William C. Taylor, founder of Fast Company Magazine says ‘The brilliance of Rework is that it inspires you to rethink everything you thought you knew about strategy, customers, and getting things done.’

The book is a fast and easy read as the content has been broken down into short sections, at most a couple of pages long, and these sections are summarized by a memorable strapline / headline and illustration highlighting the key idea. These key statements are bold, and sometimes contradict what you have read previously, but the messages do make sense and are backed by real world examples, not only from 37Signals but Amazon, Zappos and others.

Rework’s authors are the founders of 37Signals a former web consultancy that also make a a suite of popular productivity web apps, Jason Fried, co founder and president, and David Heinemeier Hansson, partner and the creator of Ruby on Rails. Reader’s of their company blog, Signal vs Noise, will find the same honestly that they use when writing about the way they work and what has inspired their success.

And in true transparent 37Signal’s style, they are even happy for you to download extracts of the book, so you can get a taste of it contents.

I would recommend this book, even if your not interested in starting your own business, as the messages are simply great advice on increasing productivity and questioning the status-quo.