Review: Think Like Zuck: The Five Business Secrets of Facebook’s Improbably Brilliant CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Think Like Zuck

Think Like Zuck: The Five Business Secrets of Facebook’s Improbably Brilliant CEO Mark Zuckerberg by Ekaterina Walter is from McGraw Hill, 2013. The book was a surprise in many ways. The biggest reason was the way Ekaterina Walter explained all the things about Facebook that felt annoying over the years and painted them as part of Mark Zuckerberg’s brilliance. The book is about business, not technology, and talks about the vision, passion and principles that have driven Facebook’s growth. The lessons Walter learned from watching Zuckerberg she then discussed in relation to other businesses such as Zappos, Amazon, TOMS, Apple, Threadless, and College Humor.

Walter discusses the “Five P’s” of Zuckerberg’s business style and Facebook’s day to day operations. She organizes the book around these concepts and her examples explain them. They are:

  • Passion: Zuckerberg’s passion is to connect people through technology in a way that is authentic and transparent.
  • Purpose: Facebook’s purpose is “to make the world more open and connected.”
  • People: Zuck has found great people to execute his vision.
  • Product: You have to build something great.
  • Partnerships: No one person can make a dream into a reality.

We’ve seen the results of Zuck’s passion for using the Internet to connect people around the world – using real names. There are a billion people using Facebook, creating a worldwide web of relationships and conversations that gives new meaning to the term worldwide web. The web of connection facilitated by Facebook has created global change. That change is a revolution started by a college dropout who had a vision for how to connect people and executed it from his dorm room when he was 19 years old. It’s remarkable that Zuckerberg stuck to his vision through all the growth, through all the offers to sell, and through all the criticism from outside his burgeoning company.

Facebook’s purpose is “to make the world more open and connected.” To make that happen, the culture within Facebook encourages risk, hacking, and moving fast with boldness. This is all part of the dedication to give Facebook users more ways to connect with friends. Many of the things I’ve written about in complaining tones in the past about Facebook are explained by the the Facebook working culture: the constant changes, the frequent additions to the interface, e.g., the Wall, the News Feed, the Timeline. Much as I may have whined about each new change, I have to admit that they quickly became the thing about Facebook that I most depended on to stay connected.

Mark Zuckerberg is first to give credit to the team that builds Facebook. The people who work there have to believe in the value and importance of Zuck’s dream. They must be dedicated to the execution of that dream. People are hired for attitude rather than skills.

Facebook places people and their connections at the center of its product. Facebook is a technology company but it isn’t about technology or content – it’s about people and their social needs. The passion, the purpose, and the people combine into a product that became part of people’s everyday lives.

The partnership with Sheryl Sandberg explains much about Facebook’s success. Walter talked about how Sheryl Sandberg was a perfect business person to team with Zuckerberg. Walter calls them the Visionary and the Builder or the dream architect and the value architect. Walter pointed to teams at other companies with equally effective but differing skill sets. Examples from Warner Bros., Disney, Hewlett Packard and other businesses are included in the discussion.

I learned a great deal about Facebook from this book. I learned a lot about Mark Zuckerberg and why he’s a phenomenal success. More importantly, I learned about how business culture and attitude can make or break a company. You can read the book to learn about Zuckerberg in the same way that you read the biography of Steve Jobs, but I suggest you read the book to absorb the lessons about “the Five P’s” and apply them to your own business efforts.

Summary: Business owners, tech innovators and entrepreneurs of all stripes can learn valuable principles from this book.

A review by Virginia DeBolt of Think Like Zuck: The Five Business Secrets of Facebook’s Improbably Brilliant CEO Mark Zuckerberg (rating: 5 stars).

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book, but my opinions are my own.

Syndicated on BlogHer.com

Useful links: SEO Your Facebook, Responsive Images, CSS Gradients

SEO Your Facebook Page: 5 Tips for Education Institutions is from .eduguru.

This is interesting. Focal-Point: CSS-Framework Scales Down Images in Responsive Designs Intelligently.  You can get focal-point on GitHub.

“As usual, there was no source that gives clear, concise, accurate information about the three syntaxes and the four rendering engines, so I decided to write it myself.” Quirksmode has a compatibiity table and an explanation of what’s going on with gradient CSS.

Thanks for the Input Types (and curses upon them what ain’t)

Are you using HTML 5 and the new form input types with the form elements on your sites and apps? Especially on your mobile apps? If you are, then I say THANK YOU!

If you are not, and I am attempting to fill in your form on my smart phone, I’m probably cursing your name.

A Primer for Those Who Need It

What are input types? I’m sure you’ve used them if you’ve built a form. Before HTML5, most input types were text. <input type=”text”> New input types that came along with HTML5 are

  • search
  • email
  • website
  • phone
  • range
  • number
  • date
  • time
  • color

When you use the proper input type, a mobile device will display a screen or keyboard intended to help you complete your task. For example, if you use <input type=”search”> you get a search box automatically.

FirefoxScreenSnapz001

If you use <input type=”email”> You get a keyboard with an @ sign and a dot (.) right on top.

FirefoxScreenSnapz002

Similar keyboard goodies happen with the other input types: phone gives you a number pad, date gives you a calendar, and so on.

If you haven’t started using the new form input types yet, why the hell aren’t you?

Useful links: Foursquare, Design details, Crowdsourcing a book (Video)

Foursquare users may want to check their privacy settings. I wrote all about it on BlogHer.

40 Excellent Examples of Attention to Details that Fill Us with Delight. It’s the little things that make a difference. From Betterment.

I know Guy Kawasaki is a huge name in the social media business, and this method would not apply to a relative unknown. But I find it fascinating that he did this and that it worked so well.

Useful links: Flexbox, Top 20 Talks, Accessibility, Data Vis

Absolute must reading defines this excellent explanation of flexbox. Dive into Flexbox is from Greg Smith at bocoup. I think you’re going to read this more than once or at least refer to it often.

The Top 20 Conference Talks of 2012. This is at .net magazine. Twenty talks – only one by a woman. I think this reflects the fact that they mostly asked men to name great talks.

Learning about Section 508 for the first time? Demystifying Accessibility describes a first encounter with it and lessons learned.

data visualization is editorial is an interesting post about converting data to visual displays. Be sure to click through to the d3.js site for info on how you can get started with this.

10 Rules of Minimalist Design

creativity must not end

Minimalist design gets a lot of hype; a quick Google search will yield dozens of lists boasting outstanding examples of minimalist design.  But what criteria do those lists use?  Is minimalist design subjective?  Is it simply a design without a lot of elements?  Is it easy to create a minimalist design?

The fact is, there’s more to good minimalist design than meets the eye; great minimalist design can take more time, effort and skill than more traditional designs.  The best minimalist designers painstakingly ply their craft to ensure their designs have purpose, and most minimalist designs incorporate the following 10 rules of minimalist designs.

White space is paramount

White space is key to a great minimalist design because the absence of clutter helps viewers focus on the content.

Purposeful design

Every graphic, image, and content element should have a clearly defined purpose.  It’s important to understand the goal of your design before you create it, so you can ensure that only those elements that serve your end-goal survive.

Cut until it breaks

Never settle on your first draft; instead, cut elements one-by-one until your design no longer meets its goal.  Remember that minimalist designs uses the fewest elements possible to achieve its goal.

The usability factor

Your minimalist design should feature a layout that makes it easy for users to find the information they want at a glance.

Grid it

Designing to a grid isn’t absolutely necessary, but it makes for a clean, natural layout that’s easy to follow; and it also makes crafting a minimalist design all the easier.

Color for impact

Accordingly, minimalist design incorporates minimal use of color.  Colors should be used to draw attention to specific words or design elements, either to help convey a mood or motivate a response.

Content is king

One of my friends is an incredible drummer, but when he plays with his band he does little more than keep time.  When I asked him why, he said the role of the drummer is to make the rest of the band sound better, not to show off.  Minimalist design works the same way; its role is to make the content more appealing, rather than steal the show.

Less is more

The less text and fewer design elements you need, the more impact your minimalist design will have.  A more focused design motivates greater response.

Typography tells a story

Big, bold typography is a hallmark of minimalist design.  Font choice, positioning, color, textures, and other features work together to stir emotions, brand a company and motivate response.  Your typography tells the story of your design, both textually and visually.

Take risks

These rules are not absolute, but rather guidelines to get you started.  Don’t be afraid to take risks with your design.  Doing so will undoubtedly reveal cool new ways to craft a compelling design that achieves its goal.

Writer Brian Morris writes for the PsPrint Design & Printing Blog. PsPrint is an online commercial printing company. Follow PsPrint on Twitter @PsPrint and Facebook.