WordPress
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1–2 minutes
Tackling commerce emails
Jon and I are enhancing the understanding of transactional emails in WooCommerce. Two of our logged-related pull requests have been merged for WooCommerce 10.9, enabling merchants to see logs for sent and unsent emails. This improvement will provide clearer information and warnings for email-related issues. Excited for the upcoming announcement.
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1–2 minutes
Applying coaching lessons
Using AI has transformed my coaching experience, making discussions more impactful and actionable. With the help of Claude, I can prepare for and debrief meetings effectively, allowing me to implement feedback quickly. This support system helps my growth as a leader.
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2–3 minutes
Chat to your mom, and to us
At Automattic, we prioritise respectful, customer-centred support, blending AI with human interactions. Unlike Zendesk’s approach, we aim to enhance, not eliminate, human connection. Our AI assistant, Odie, in some cases provides the best help, but it’s also learnt to identify when to straight away send a customer to a Happiness Engineer. Our ultimate focus is…
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1–2 minutes
Creating a local test environment has never been easier
I set up a local Woo environment with our Studio app and got help from Claude Code. I shared a GitHub repo, and Claude installed the dev setup for me. In no time, I had a dev environment running with sample data specifically to test our focus.
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1–2 minutes
Radical Speed Month at Automattic
At Automattic, we’re kicking off a month-long experiment where teams team up to tackle problems. I teamed up with Jon to fix the annoying issue of Woo emails landing in spam folders. We’ve got plans for better logging, alerts for unsent emails, and helping merchants choose reliable delivery services.
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2–3 minutes
Everyone in support will become a team lead
In the evolving landscape of support jobs, the emphasis is shifting towards leadership skills. As AI continues to advance, support professionals will not only use AI tools but lead them. The future will reward those who harness AI effectively, becoming team leaders who guide their agents towards successful outcomes. Embrace this exciting change!
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1–2 minutes
I made an app
So, even though I’m no developer, I was blown away by how AI tools can help. As a runner, I was tired of constantly checking shoe prices, so I used Claude to whip up an app to do it for me. It’s not perfect, but it’s been a blast creating it and tweaking along the…
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1–2 minutes
Museum connections
So, the CEO at Automattic suggested a museum visit, and I took my kids to the National Gallery in Cape Town. We tried a fun guessing game about each other’s favourite artworks, which helped make the art experience more relatable and personal. Even the youngest joined in by expressing his likes!
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1–2 minutes
Constructive rejections
In a large team, when vacancies arise, I respond to all applicants with constructive feedback. Instead of vague rejections, I focus on areas for improvement and emphasize growth opportunities. This approach encourages enthusiasm and career development, enabling applicants to better their skills with guidance from their leads for future success.
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2–4 minutes
New website design
Each year, I redesign my website to utilise new WordPress features. This year’s attempt focused on full-site editing and a bold graphic style, though AI tools fell short in originality. Key innovations included a unique duotone cover block, creative grid layouts using query offsets, and a custom blur effect from a custom plugin.
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1–2 minutes
Near-perfect website performance
The mobile performance score for this website is 99, my desktop performance score is 100. Nearly perfect. So how did this happen? My website has always been quite smoothly running. A big part of that is the smoothness of the Twenty Twenty-Five theme and the block editor. There is not a single bit of custom…
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1–2 minutes
Strasbourg
Last July, I visited Strasbourg for the first time in the context of a work trip. While the weather wasn’t great, Strasbourg was the perfect context for a meetup with my team: very walkable, great food options, and a hotel that had the coziness of a bnb with the advantages of a hotel. The city…
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2–3 minutes
Lessons about work from the movie Speed
In the action movie Speed — can we call it a cult classic? — Annie (Sandra Bullock) and Jack (Keanu Reeves) end up together after a rather thrilling bus ride. With prophetic words, Jack admonishes Annie: I have to warn you, I’ve heard relationships based on intense experiences never work. The movie clearly shows they…
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3–4 minutes
Featured images with ChatGPT
For years, I’ve used photos from Unsplash and similar platforms to add as featured images to blog posts I’ve written. When sharing a link or when creating an archive page for my posts, I prefer having a visual element to work with. With stock images though, I find myself either spending too much time or…
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2–4 minutes
10 years at Automattic
In May 2015, WooThemes announced that Automattic had acquired it. I had been working for Woo since October 2014 — so just under 8 months — and in July 2015 we officially started as Automatticians. That’s a decade ago this month. 🤯 Ownership The time has gone incredibly fast, and I cannot emphasise enough how…
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2–4 minutes
Change my mind
The piece emphasizes the importance of being open to changing one’s mind in leadership, drawing on Hannah Arendt’s philosophy of shared understanding. Effective leaders invite early feedback, focus on arguments rather than opinions, and encourage exploration of diverse viewpoints to foster stronger strategies and collaborative decision-making, ultimately enhancing organizational outcomes.
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1–2 minutes
WordCamp Europe in Turin
Even though I’ve attended several WordCamps and have been part of the WordPress community for almost 20 years now—of which more than a decade professionally—I’d only attended one flagship WordCamp: Paris. Since our family was going to be in Europe in June, I signed up for WordCamp Europe in Turin. Here are some of the…
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1–2 minutes
Diversity in speaker line-up: Podcast recommendation
Two weeks ago, I wrote a post on diversity in speaker line-up. Since then, two WordPress community members,Michelle and Allie, have hosted a podcast on this very topic that I would highly recommend listening to: One of the comments Michelle makes shows exactly how complex and contextual talking about diversity is. In the U.S., the…
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6–9 minutes
Diversity in conference speaker line-up
Yesterday, WordCamp Europe (WCEU) — one of the biggest WordPress events in the world — announced its fifth round of speakers. WordPress community member Michelle Frechette rightly so made the observation that there were only 25% women so far, and only 15% non-white people. This was met with some fairly snarky remarks, including by an…
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4–6 minutes
Running WooCommerce on job.blog
Note: I’ve removed WooCommerce again (July ’25, so almost 3y after writing this post). It was unnecessarily distracting on my personal site. I’ve been working with and for WooCommerce for over eight years now, but I’ve never sold something with the most popular eCommerce software in the world. I honestly had no idea what to…