A few years ago I hit a creative block. Now, I know this is nothing new. Whether it’s a short block specific to a project or a longer period of burnout, everyone has those times where they’re feeling uninspired. I’ve certainly had my share of times where I felt it since then, but this particular … Continue reading Finding inspiration in the mundane
This post was originally published on the new Automattic design blog. Have you ever signed up for a new site or product, forgotten about it, only to remember later when you check your inbox and see the welcome email? What if that email looked nothing like the service you signed up for? It would lead … Continue reading Don’t forget the emails
Last week, 467 developers, designers, and happiness engineers descended upon Whistler, Canada. Every Automattician that could make it joined together near Vancouver for the eleventh annual Automattic Grand Meetup. The 2-hour drive from Vancouver airport to Whistler Village was beautiful. We traveled up the coast through winding roads, sandwiched between gorgeous Pacific Ocean and mountain … Continue reading Automattic Grand Meetup 2016
A big perk of working for Automattic is the meetups. A couple times a year each Automattician gets the chance to meet up with colleagues in various places around the world. The location can be anywhere from Utah to Hawaii to Cyprus.
At the time of writing, I’m sitting on a flight returning from the annual Akismet team meetup. This year we chose Destin, FL as the location. Over the past week we have spent time invaluable time together, and I wanted to share some thoughts and experiences on what makes these weeks so special.
Our story starts in March 2014. Akismet needed some stickers to hand out at a spam conference. So I took an earlier concept by my partner in swag, Nick, and updated the design. What I designed would subsequently create an entire world where good and evil robots battle for victory over the Internet. Ok, so … Continue reading Akisbot lives!
This week I decided to start writing my first WordPress plugin. It’s a pretty simple functionality, but it’s been a lot of fun so far. When a reader of your site highlights text on an article, a small tooltip pops up asking if they want to post to Twitter. If the reader clicks it, a … Continue reading Writing a plugin
This past week was the annual Automattic Grand Meetup in Park City, Utah. The mountain views were incredible, and every single one of the people I met were just as amazing. I got to spend the week working on a project with colleagues I don’t normally work with which was really fun. There were also plenty … Continue reading Park City, Utah
I’m laying in bed, unable to sleep due to both excitement and nerves, thinking about the events of tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll get on a plane and fly to Park City, Utah, to meet about 250 colleagues I’ve been working with for nearly a year but haven’t met. Every year the entire company gets together … Continue reading Meeting hundreds of people at once
For a while now, my colleague Nick Hamze and I have been in cohorts developing ideas for Akismet swag (aka promotional items). Mostly stickers on our own dime and one-off things he makes in his home created with my designs. All for fun. About two months ago Nick came to me excitedly saying we were … Continue reading Akismet Goodies
After getting an email the other day from IFTTT about the Heartbleed OpenSSL Bug I realized I had nearly forgotten about the service. I decided to check it out again. What is IFTTT? For those who don’t know, IFTTT is “a service that lets you create powerful connections with one simple statement: if this then that”. The idea is … Continue reading What did you do today?
Dan Hauk 