The "Bookshelf": what and how to read in LinguaLeo

Lifehacker.ru and Publishing "Mann, Ivanov and Ferber"Continue to explore the bookshelves IT-companies. And today, an unusual report.

Firstly, we did not come in a huge corporation and a small LinguaLeo successful startup, which makes service and application for learning English.

Secondly, we are not just examined and photographed the bookshelves, but to find out from the children, how the book helped them in life and work. People who do best educational project, are able to apply knowledge in practice!

But first, we still asked the public relations manager Tanya show us bookcase.

History bookshelves in LinguaLeo usual: creator of the project Aynur Abdulnasyrov somehow brought to the office of the book in English. Then someone brought the Spanish textbook, tutorial Esperanto... eventually scored a whole shelf of books in foreign languages.

But LinguaLeo work not only polyglots and linguists. The team is now about 45 employees, all have different interests. Therefore, there is a book on the development of "

Pragmatic Programmer"Hunt and Thomas"code Complete"McConnell"Igrotehnichesky management"Panfilova.

There are success stories - "A breakthrough in the spirit of the times"About the formation of Google. There is a guideline for a start-up business, such as "Professional games in Silicon Valley».

A lot of different-sized volumes about marketing. For example, "Marketing without a budget"Where tools are free to attract customers. Such knowledge is useful in all projects, regardless of whether they invested Runa Capital or not.

Another popular book about the free tools of promotion - "Facebook: how to find the 100,000 friends to your business for free». Tanya says that with this book LinguaLeo started almost all experts on promotion.

But when we went to talk with the project team, it appears that marketing a book is read not only "prodvizhentsy".

Ilya Kurylev on game mechanics specialist (former game designer and producer): how the book has helped to build a career

Ilya told how the book Tom Peters "Turn yourself into a brand"Helped him turn from a beginner game designer in a professional. "Peters offers a view of man as a commercial brand. To brand was sold, it must be unique. For a game designer, this unique - the only way not to stand in the common queue of experts. "

Okay, but how the book has helped to get into the most promising Russian startups?

"I started to invest in their brand. Do yourself a website, I began to conduct a professional blog. My uniqueness was that I understood in the design and psychology. So I stopped being an ordinary game designer. "

Ilya Krasinski, head of the development of mobile and desktop products: each book - plus the inner result

Everyone who reads the book, faced with this: even the most attractive methods are difficult to apply in practice. Lazy hands do not reach, out of my head flew... And Ilya read books so that each book read gaining knowledge and skills.

"Admission is simple: read - try to practice. As soon as I find in the book of advice that I can apply in my life, I save the book. I go, I try, at this time I read something else. As soon as it turns out, I make conclusions and come back to this book. "

Ilya speaks of "domestic result" - developments in themselves that help to change and the outside world. The greatest return he brought novels Eliyahu Goldratt "Purpose" and "Purpose-2." This business stories about how the change in thinking allows the head to pull business from anywhere in the pit.

"Everyone I recommend" The goal, "then resorted to enthusiastic shouts. Another very useful CoveyIt gives the foundation of how an adult should think. "

Ilya order books intact boxes. True, they say, mobile developers LinguaLeo More like ebooks. But also read out the paper in the closet. even here sometimes so:

Well, well, we do not communicate with the main value LinguaLeo - language specialists. What they read?

Olga Tarasova, linguist, product manager: book inspires learning many languages

Like many colleagues, Olga loves books like "Goals" and authors like Covey. But the books for her serve in the first inspiration, a source of motivation. Now it reads "The phenomenon of polyglots"- about how people learn dozens of foreign languages.

"This book - like a movie about superheroes. I read about a man who knows the 20-30 languages, and most want. I know English, Spanish, Serbian. Slowly mastering the Turkish and Portuguese, can barely read in the Old Slavonic. So, this book inspired me to sit down again for study. "

Yakov Filippenko, Technical Director: books taught to do!

"As usual, we learn foreign languages? Let us first you learn a bunch of theory, and then begin to apply, - Jacob says. - But you can in a different way, in LinguaLeo: just take and read the text, talk. " Jacob tells his life experience - the best proof of the truthfulness of the book, Richard Branson "Beris and do it."

Richard Branson - the creator of a unique multi-brand Virgin. His approach to business can be found in the book "Business style Virgin"And on the approach to life in general - in the book"To hell with all of it! Beris and do». On this edition and tells us CTO LinguaLeo: «The people around always need guidance, a theory in which it is necessary to believe, and then they start to act. And the moral of the book is simple - do not need to theorize and invent the concept. Just do it. Everything that is written in this book confirmed my experience. "

Yakov cites the example of the people who go to the workshops and the Agile Scrum, thoroughly understand the theory of these techniques, but I have never tried them in combat. What is the use of this knowledge?

We were impressed how tenderly in LinguaLeo refer to books. They learn, inspire, get the knowledge to change themselves... It is not surprising that the top shelf of the book LinguaLeo closet lined with awards and certificates that the project has received at numerous competitions startups.

We said goodbye to the hospitable team LinguaLeo and thought: after all, not everyone can like this to put knowledge into practice. Do you work? Tell us about the most useful book of advice that you've used in my life and have been happy with the result!

By the way, it is still going on our competition! The story about your business can appear under the heading "Bookshelf" on Lifehacker.ru, and if he will be impressed readers, the publishing house "Mann, Ivanov and Ferber" happy to present to you on New Year's twenty outstanding books your choice! Conditions of the competition - Publishers website.

Photos of Christina Yatkovsky