A Review of The Year Without Pants

The Year Without Pants by Scott Berkun is fascinating. Berkun, a former Microsoft program manager, does an incredible job of documenting the strengths and weaknesses of WordPress.com’s culture and organizational model. He also describes his team’s creative journey as they build social media features for bloggers and the popular “Jetpack” extension. It's not a guide for how to how to implement a work from home program. Rather, it describes from an insider’s perspective how WordPress.com has managed to build one of the most popular and highly trafficked web properties by pushing control into the hands of those who make the product. It’s also a book about the concept of work itself, demonstrating how work can be something of deep meaning and value rather than a source of dread and frustration.