Seven school WhatsApp groups, 700 parents, tons of information of which the vast majority is not that relevant for me. How I set up an assistant to read them and post only what concerns our daughter — no coding, about half an hour.

Earlier this year, we went for a few long weekends away. We had been to Wellington and Hermanus before, but added a relaxed visit to Stanford to the mix as well. Here are some pictures of those trips.

At Automattic, our organisation is run much more like a jazz band than a classical orchestra. In this post, I explain why that understanding has been so helpful for me to grow.

For the next eight months, I will serve as chief customer experience officer at Automattic, focusing on improving support through proactive communication and a tighter feedback loop. I'm committed to enhancing our customer partnerships and utilising AI to provide better experiences, ensuring our products evolve in line with customer needs.

Last June, we finally took the kids to Kruger National Park, a place I used to visit yearly with my father-in-law.

When I started running in 2020, I started with a 2k. It was rough. Two years later, I did my first half marathon, and already back then I was toying with the idea of once doing a marathon. Just once, just to have done it. I like number alignments, so the idea of doing 42km before I turned 42 seemed like the right challenge. I turn 42 today. And I would've never guessed in 2020 that I would ever do a marathon, nor would I have guessed in 2022 that I would have done three of them by today, let alone that two of those would have been sub 4h marathons. Yet here I am. Life is unexpected. Up to the next 42 (both kilometers and years, although I hope the former comes faster).

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.

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 a great customer experience, not fewer interactions.

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.

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.

Belgium's away shirts for major tournaments have creatively drawn inspiration from the country's identity over the past decade. Designs included influences from road cycling, Tomorrowland, Tintin, and René Magritte. While some past designs have faltered, these shirts have fostered national pride amidst Belgium's complex history.

So, a brand manager was puzzled by why folks mix and match brands while exercising. I've run my second marathon and realised comfort trumps brand loyalty. I wear what works best. Businesses should rem...

Woo uses AI in the support experience and behind the scenes. Here are five changes we've made with insight from our AI implementations.

Our Easter weekend was pretty horrible: all four of us were sick somehow. Yesterday morning, we took our kids to the GP. When going over the medicine we had used, Kim burst out laughing. She couldn…

In Belgium, when you order an abbey beer, tradition takes over. The waiter carefully finds the right glass, placing both bottle and glass with the label facing to you. Then, with a precision most B…

I consider myself a fairly avid reader, but parenting an infant for most of 2024 resulted in me being in a constant state of tiredness. In the first part, I barely read because I simply couldn&#821…

Every year, WordPress releases a new theme. Most years, I try to update my site to use this theme. I find this a great way to explore WordPress—the software I work with professionally on a da…