Lifehacker.ru and the publishing house "Mann, Ivanov and Ferber" continue to study the bookshelves of IT companies. And today is an unusual report.
Firstly, we did not come to a huge corporation, but to a small successful startup LinguaLeo, where they make a service and applications for learning English.
Secondly, we not only examined and photographed the bookshelves, but also found out from the guys exactly how books help them in life and work. People who make an advanced educational project are able to apply knowledge in practice!
But to begin with, we still asked the PR manager Tanya to show us the bookcase.
The history of bookshelves in LinguaLeo is common: the creator of the project, Ainur Abdulnasyrov, once brought a book in English to the office. Then someone brought a Spanish textbook, an Esperanto tutorial… As a result, there was a whole shelf of books on foreign languages.
But LinguaLeo employs not only polyglots and linguists. The team now has about 45 employees, all have different interests. Therefore, there are books on development: "Programmer-pragmatist" by Hunt and Thomas, "Perfect Code" by McConnell, "Game Management" by Panfilova.
There are success stories — a "Breakthrough in the spirit of the times" about the formation of Google. There are guidelines for startup business, like "Professional Silicon Valley Games".
There are many different volumes about marketing. For example, "Marketing without a budget", where tools are given to attract customers for free. Such knowledge is useful for all projects, regardless of whether Runa Capital has invested in them or not.
Another popular book about free promotion tools is "Facebook*: how to find 100,000 friends for your business for free." Tanya says that almost all promotion specialists started with this book at LinguaLeo.
But when we went to communicate with the project team, it turned out that marketing books are read not only by "promoters".
Ilya Kurylev, game mechanics specialist (formerly a game designer and producer): how the book helped build a career
Ilya told how Tom Peters' book "Turn Yourself into a Brand" helped him turn from a novice game designer into a professional. "Peters suggests looking at a person as a commercial brand. In order for a brand to be sold, it must be unique. For a game designer, this uniqueness is the only way not to stand in the general queue of specialists."
Okay, but how did the book help to get into the most promising Russian startup?
"I started investing in my brand. I made a website for myself, started a professional blog. My uniqueness was that I understood design and psychology. So I stopped being an ordinary game designer."
Ilya Krasinsky, Head of Mobile and desktop product development: every book is a plus to the internal result
Everyone who reads books has come across this: even the most attractive techniques are difficult to put into practice. Laziness, hands do not reach, it flew out of my head… And Ilya reads books in such a way that every book he reads adds knowledge and skills.
"The technique is simple: read it — try it in practice. As soon as I find advice in a book that I can apply in life, I put the book down. I go, I try, at this time I read something else. As soon as it turns out, I draw conclusions and return to this book."
Ilya talks about the "inner result" — changes in oneself that help to change the external world. The novels of Eliyahu Goldratt "Goal" and "Goal-2" brought him the greatest return. These are business novels about how changing the mindset of a manager allows you to pull a business out of any hole.
"Everyone to whom I advise "Goal", then come running with enthusiastic shouts. Covey is also very useful, it provides a foundation for how an adult should think."
Ilya orders books in whole boxes. However, they say that mobile developers in LinguaLeo like e-books more. But the paper ones in the closet are also read out. Sometimes even like this:
Well, well, we haven't talked to LinguaLeo's main value - language specialists. What are they reading?
Olga Tarasova, linguist, product manager: the book inspires to learn many languages
Like many colleagues, Olya loves books like "Goals" and authors like Covey. But books for her serve primarily as inspiration, a source of motivation. Now she is reading "The Phenomenon of Polyglots" — about how people master dozens of foreign languages.
"This book is like a superhero movie. You read about a person who knows 20-30 languages, and you want to. I know English, Spanish, Serbian well. I'm slowly learning Turkish and Portuguese, I can read a little bit in Old Slavonic. So, this book inspired me to start studying again."
Yakov Filippenko, Technical Director: books are taught to do!
"How do we usually teach foreign languages? Let's first learn a bunch of theory, and then start applying it," says Yakov. — But it's possible in a different way, as in LinguaLeo: just take and read the texts, talk." Yakov says that his life experience is the best proof of the veracity of Richard Branson's book "Take it and Do It."
Richard Branson is the creator of the unique Virgin multi—brand. You can read about his approach to business in the book "Business in the style of Virgin", and about his approach to life in general — in the book "To hell with everything! Take it and do it." The technical director of LinguaLeo tells us about this publication: "People around always need guidelines, theories to believe in, and only then they begin to act. And the moral of the book is simple — no need to theorize and invent concepts. Just do it. Everything that is written in this book is confirmed by my experience."
Yakov gives an example of people who attend Scrum and Agile seminars, thoroughly know the theory of these techniques, but have never tried them in combat conditions. What is the use of this knowledge?
We were impressed by how reverently LinguaLeo treats books. They learn from them, get inspired, gain knowledge to change themselves ... It is not surprising that the top shelf above the bookcase at LinguaLeo is lined with awards and diplomas that the project has received at numerous startup competitions.
We said goodbye to the hospitable LinguaLeo team and thought: after all, not everyone can put knowledge into practice like this. Are you doing well? Tell us about the most useful book, the tips from which you used in your life and were satisfied with the result!
By the way, our contest is still going on! The story about your company may be in the "Bookshelf" category on Lifehacker.ru and if he impresses readers, the publishing house "Mann, Ivanov and Ferber" will be happy to give you twenty wonderful books of your choice for the New Year! The terms of the contest are available on the publisher's website.
Photos of Kristina Yatkovskaya
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