Automattic

  • 1–2 minutes

    Whistler

    Just like last year, we had our annual company meetup in Whistler, Canada. I wanted to travel light, so I only took my 50mm lens, but I luckily was able to borrow a wide-angle lens from one of my colleagues for the night photography. And this year again, I saw a black bear. Unfortunately, this year’s…

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  • 1–2 minutes

    The Quest for 666

    Every year at the Grand Meetup, when our whole company gathers in the same physical space, we give flash talks: 4-minute talks about any topic. Two months before the 2016 Grand Meetup, we sat in an Ethiopian restaurant in Berlin with a few of the WooCommerce team and we chatted about all sorts of things,…

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  • 1–2 minutes

    Getting Sassy with WordPress 4.7 and Jetpack

    I’m not a WordPress developer, I’m a WordPress site builder. I don’t develop the blocks to create a website, I use those that others have created. Those blocks are themes and plugins. Tweaking designs However, the styling and design will not always look exactly like you want. You’re happy with the majority of it, but…

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  • 2–4 minutes

    WordPress: A 💖 Story

    Below is a summary of my keynote at CMS Africa Summit 2017, a community summit in Africa. I love working with WordPress. I’m not a web developer, but I’ve tried a lot of different solutions for making websites. My first proper site was built with Flash, and though it was cool back then to have…

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  • 2–3 minutes

    Swag at Automattic: Ethical sourcing

    One aspect of our travels to Vietnam and Cambodia over the Christmas holidays was that Kim and I both struggled a lot with how cheap clothing was. If a shirt costs $1, there is no way everyone in the supply chain got a fair wage out of that, even if the cost of living is cheaper…

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  • 1–2 minutes

    Whistler

    Once a year, our entire company meets in person. Last month, 500 Automatticians travelled to Whistler, Canada, for a week of working together and having lots of fun. I went for a few hikes, did a photo tour during which we saw a black bear, drank some nice alcohol at the Whistler Beer Festival. Whistler was…

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  • 1–2 minutes

    Dublin

    My team consists out of people spread over three continents and several times zones. Once a year, we meet, and in 2016 we opted to go to Dublin, a city neither of us had been to before. The time together was great, and Dublin was a good scene for the event. The city has a…

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  • 1–2 minutes

    Berlin

    Last July, we went to Berlin with the whole Woo team. It was great staying in the heart of this beautiful city. My first time visiting Berlin was amazing; the city is vibrant, diverse, colourful. Definitely worth another visit. Highlights were taking the stairs up the Berliner Dom, seeing Protest the Hero live, and the Museum…

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  • 1–2 minutes

    ScaleConf 2016: Scaling Support by Education Customers

    A few months ago, I spoke at ScaleConf 2016, which was quite intimidating. It’s a developer conference, and I’m not a developer. I posted my slides a while ago, but now you can also watch the video as well. I hope you like it! I really enjoyed infusing Thomas Kuhn’s theory of paradigm shifts I learnt…

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  • 1–2 minutes

    Scaling Support by Educating Customers

    At ScaleConf 2016 in Cape Town, I was invited to speak in front of a large audience of developers. I focused on one of the biggest passions of most developers (not): support. However, while devs might not get excited about support, they all understand the importance of it. With having WooCommerce active on 1+ million…

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  • 1–2 minutes

    Purpose-Driven Website: What on Earth Is Your Website Here for?

    Follow along with the workshop I gave at WordCamp Cape Town last September.

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  • 1–2 minutes

    Night Photography (Park City, UT)

    During the last Grand Meetup with our company, Automattic, my colleague Marcus Kazmierczak gave a workshop on night photography. Having never done this, I was excited to join in. Here are the results of my first attempt at this type of photography.

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  • 3–4 minutes

    My WooNiversary: One Year at WooThemes

    Today I’m starting my second year at WooThemes. What a crazy, but awesome year it has been. Let me walk you through some (selected) highlights and challenges; it’s no surprise that those often are very related. Remote FTW Though I’ve never had fixed hours with any of my previous jobs, working remotely definitely adds another…

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  • 2–3 minutes

    Why I Use Mailbox App for Work

    I’ve changed mail clients quite a few times in my life. From using Outlook when i was still on Windows to Mail on Mac and have trialled AirMail 2, Outlook for Mac, Inky, Postbox, and Unibox. After comparing pros and cons again while changing to my Automattic mail, I’ve reviewed all of them again and…

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  • 2–3 minutes

    Why I Loved Doing Live-Chat at Automattic

    Everyone who joins Automattic starts with a three-week support rotation on WordPress.com. Including everyone at WooThemes now that our company has joined the team. The past three weeks I was on rotation. I could talk a lot about why I think this initial rotation (that is repeated annually) is great, but in this post, I…

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