Three Years at Automattic
Previously: Year One. Today marks my three year anniversary with Automattic. I didn’t write about my second anniversary, but I’ve sure grown immensely since my first. The past year has been filled...
View ArticleDrucker on an Effective Decision Process
I’m currently finishing up The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker. Those of you aware of my love for goal setting, decisions, and productivity won’t be surprised, but I’m thoroughly enjoying the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Monthly Review: October 2016
I publish a monthly review of habits, work, etc. You’ll be able to find them all here. October starts my favorite time of year. We’ve had a relatively warm October thus far, but I still had my fair...
View ArticleWrite Code Every Day
This was a cool experiment to read about by John Resig and something I’ve definitely struggled with myself: There were a few major problems with how I was working on my side projects. I was primarily...
View ArticleKnow Thy Time
Although the title of this post is influenced by Drucker (again), I actually want to share two articles I’ve come across recently on time management and “time reflection” (if that’s a phrase). The...
View ArticleWhat makes us feel good about our work?
Back in the routine of video Friday. This time around, we have Dan Ariely giving a TED talk on what motivates knowledge workers. When we think about labor, we usually think about motivation and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
My Winding Path to Customer Support
This is part of the 2016 Support Driven writing challenge. Here’s the prompt: “History: Our history shapes us — what path led you to Support? Was it a planned career? Or did you happen upon it?” I just...
View ArticleBots versus humans in support
There’s a lot of talk about using computer bots for customer support at the moment. Bots and A.I. are the new thing and garnering quite a bit of media attention. This article from Paul Adams on...
View ArticleHow I’ve Managed to Grow My Career Without Managing People
So I kind of just made it up as I went along. Instead of trying to map out a career path and worrying about where I was going to be in five or ten years, I followed my interests and tried not to worry...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tools I Use to Manage My Time
This week’s Support Driven writing challenge is all about productivity. The prompt: “What tools do you use to manage your tasks and time?” I’m a productivity nerd. I’ll admit it. I spend far too much...
View ArticleThe way we think about charity is dead wrong
Working with Drink for Pink and Cancer League of Colorado has me thinking a lot about nonprofits, specifically about the lack of transparency into how the funds are spent. This video from Dan Pallotta...
View ArticleGive Them a Chance to Disappoint You
There are two ways to approach a team. First, you can assume everyone is out to do as little as possible. The relationship is built on low trust. They’re going to do the bare minimum to make everything...
View ArticleManagement in Ten Tweets
Mark Hedlund dropped some thoughts on Twitter that I’ve seen re-shared quite a bit. It’s titled Management in Ten Tweets and contains a lot of awesome, actionable pieces for leaders. Reiterating the...
View ArticleHow Can You Make Developers Care About the End-User?
I’m in the middle of reading Switch: How to Change When Change is Hard (highly recommend) is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath. It’s a really great read about behavior change. A key piece to behavior change...
View ArticleJeff Vincent on solving customer problems
If your a support pro, this Intercom interview with Jeff Vincent is worth your time. Lots of notes on connecting product and support. As a sidenote, I’ve been digging for some awesome new podcasts to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Day Zero: A new way to define customer success
Day Zero is the minimum set of tasks a user must complete before they realize the full value of your product. Customers that don’t reach Day Zero are more likely to churn because it is harder for them...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Our Thanksgiving Day Celebration
Excuse this interruption in the normal leadership and customer service focused posts. We’re celebrating Thanksgiving a few days early this year. Instead of roasting a turkey, we’re actually cooking a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hierarchy of Engagement
I recently came across a presentation from Sarah Tavel at Greylock Partners titled The Hierarchy of Engagement. It’s a talk she gave at the Habit Summit. The purpose of the hierarchy is simple: As...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Receiving Feedback as a Team Lead
I recently read a pretty kickass article by Mercer on Kayako’s blog, How to Invite and Acknowledge Feedback as a Manager. Feedback is critical to your performance as a lead/manager. Over the past year...
View ArticleThe Irrational User
Alvin Hsia breaks down some of the most popular cognitive biases and how they can play into product development: Cognitive biases arise when a mental shortcut generates an incomplete or inaccurate...
View Article