Office for iPad

Today Microsoft announced the release of their anticipated Office for iPad suite, which includes Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Speculation around this announcement has been circulating for quite some time, so it’s nice to finally see the release. I imagine this will signal the end of the PC for many Office users, as they’re now able …

OmniFocus 2 beta is back

I’ve been a fan of OmniFocus for quite some time, and while I’ve strayed away occasionally to try other tools, I always end up coming back to OmniFocus when there’s a new update or feature announcement. The OmniGroup recently announced that the beta for OmniFocus 2 for Mac is being resurrected after several months off. I …

Writing the Internet You Want to Read

This is something I’ve been hearing lately, especially from Shawn Blanc on his members-only podcast Shawn Today. The Internet is full of writers and blogs each trying to push their ideas or opinions. Many times these writers are writing to make money. This leads to some not-so-great content being published every day. Then there are those …

My Task Management Conundrum

Productivity is something that’s very important to me, so I’m constantly reading and researching the best techniques and apps available to help me stay productive. There are so many methods out there that claim to be the best, that it’s hard to decide which one will actually help you be productive. Sometimes I spend more time …

Quick Thoughts on iOS 7.1

So far so good with iOS 7.1. I’ve been very pleased with this latest update to iOS 7. Previously I experienced lots of full iOS crashes and reboots, but this seems to have brought a lot more stability to the platform. It really seems like 7.1 was what should’ve been released at 7.0, but because of …

Focus on New Users

Who are arguably the most vital customers your company or product has? Your “new” users. If they don’t feel supported and cared for, it’s not likely that they’ll stick around and spend money on your product. Currently at Automattic, we’re focusing our live chat support efforts on our new users, defined as those users whose …

Asynchronous vs. Synchronous Customer Support

A few days ago I posted an article detailing the live chat initiative we’re working on at Automattic. One of the big things we’re finding is that the synchronous nature of live chat support is one of the biggest benefits to our customers. I think there are many reasons for this, which I’d like to …

Support Driven Episode 7: Andrew Spittle

Support Driven Episode 7: Andrew Spittle → This episode of the Support Driven podcast features none other than my team lead, Andrew Spittle. If you’re interested in learning more about how Automattic provides support to its many users, I would highly recommend listening. The podcast goes into detail about how our teams are structured, hiring, …

Live Chat Support at Automattic

I’ve had the opportunity to begin leading a new live chat initiative at Automattic with a few other awesome Happiness Engineers and thought it might be worthwhile to post some thoughts. Live chat support is a big push within Automattic this year as we strive to give our customers the best and fastest method of …