Are you having fun @ work ?

Most of us are great at what we do in our jobs, either working for some firm or working on our own ventures. But, big question is do we all enjoy what we do and have fun doing it.

One of the criticisms we hear quite often is about the lack of freedom to be creative at enterprises. Its not at all unusual for someone working in an enterprise to say this (we often hear it), but it appears this happens in even smaller businesses too.   37signals seems to be no exception.

It’s interesting to think about how when a project is a hobby, it frees our mind up somehow to show more personality—to be more playful. Then when it’s time for “professional” work everything gets buttoned up and grayed out.

- “Personality vs Professionalism”, Ryan, 37signals

As the organization grows bigger, it appears that it implicitly imposes certain boundaries on free and personal expression towards more ‘professional’ or formal expression, which could  be totally boring at some point.

On a related note, talking about having fun at what we do or enjoy doing it, like my father says, most of the criticism about corporate/work life by entrepreneurs and independent consultants have something to do with ownership. Because ownership changes the whole perspective of looking at things. 

Its not about Technology. Its about Elegant Solutions.

“Mention innovation, and people immediately think, technology. The truth is that business innovation is about value, not gadgetry. But the pace of technological progress sweeps us off our feet and we get all caught up in the gizmo, losing sight of the why behind the what. People don’t want products and services. They want solutions to problems. That’s value. And when it come to solutions, simple is better. Elegant is better still.

Great innovation requires understanding and appreciating the concept of elegance as it relates to solving important problems. Oliver Wendell Holmes once said: I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the  simplicity on the other side of complexity.

Elegance is the simplicity found on the far side of complexity. An elegant solution is one in which the optimal outcome is achieved with the minimal expenditure of effort and expense.

Elegant solutions embrace an overarching philosophy of doing far more with much less, a notion that has become synonymous with Toyota and is present to this day in all of their operations, from design and engineering to manufacturing and distribution to sales and marketing.

An elegant solution is recognized by its juxtaposition of simplicity and power. The most challenging games have the fewest rules, as do the most dynamic organizations. The most memorable films have a simple message with complex meaning, touching a universal chord while allowing multiple interpretations.

An elegant solution is quite often a single tiny aha! idea that changes everything.  Finally, elegant solutions aren’t obvious, except, of course, in retrospect.”

Excerpt from Elegant Solutions: Breakthrough Thinking the Toyota Way

ASP.NET Vs Ruby On Rails (RoR) : Now You Know ASP.NET MVC

Listen to this wonderful conversation between Scott Hanselman, Martin Fowler and David Heinemeier Hansson happened back in 2007 before we ever heard of ASP.NET MVC. Transcript here.

Scott sits down with Martin Fowler of Thoughtworks and David Heinemeier Hansson of 37 signals and talks about beauty, making developers happen, the death (or life) of HTML, the future of Microsoft, and asks if we should care about Rich Internet Applications. DHH is the creator of the Ruby on Rails framework, and Martin Fowler is the Chief Scientist at ThoughtWorks, well-known systems architect and Extreme Programming expert.

--- Hansel Minutes 

So delighted to see such a bold and open discussion between passionate developers with completely different backgrounds and ideas.

Some how, this podcast explains a lots of things that were introduced in ASP.NET after 2007. Not suggesting that this has anything to do with that, but probably things must have been already moving in that direction, part of that led to an open discussion like this.

It is totally surprising to see no comments on this podcast. But this is one of the best of conversations out there.