Michael D. Watkins wrote about the seven seismic shifts of perspective and responsibility required for how managers become leaders in his piece for Harvard Business Review by the same name. In this article, he shares that “all of the shifts a function head must make when first becoming an enterprise leader involve learning new skills…

There’s nothing quite like finding out you’re wrong. I’ve shared previously about the research I was able to take part in as a designer at Automattic. Meeting Small Business Owners from across the United States on video calls, learning about their lives, their fears, their challenges, and the kind of work they do. I pored…

This quote from a WordPress.com customer caught my eye recently: It just really helped me to solidify what I really want my business to be. I don’t need this big huge gigantic “American dream” of the million-dollar business. It made me really realize what I want for my business — which is I always want…

We’ve been thinking about making the WordPress.com experience more attractive to small business owners for a while. But recently we’ve been learning things that made us question some of the ideas we had about how to do it, and helped us come up with some new ones. We started talking to actual small business owners.…

I’ve never run a business of my own —since I started working for a living, I’ve always done it for other people. Of course I’ve had personal projects, but it never got to the point that I had to deal with the difficulties and challenges of running a business, an actual company. Probably because of…

As a foodie, I’m always on the hunt for the next best food spot in town. I’ve bookmarked a bunch of places and have subscribed to local magazines to make sure I don’t miss new foodie spot announcements and food festivals in my area. The first thing I do before making a reservation or driving…

Websites are important to me. Not only because they’re how I make a living — though that’s a major factor! But they’re also an invaluable tool for me when I’m faced with tackling the unknown. Two years ago now, I bought my first house. Home ownership forced me to navigate information and services that were…

The purpose isn’t to shock and awe you. You may even guess what will happen next. Or at least, you won’t be surprised. This is okay! It doesn’t mean it was a waste of time. Recently, I was part of two foundational research studies, each for different products. In both, I heard different co-workers say…

Tinkering on websites has been a thing for me since the late ‘90s. The first site I made was an Angelfire powered, unsanctioned site for the local ski hill. (Corel draw, java applets, and embedded weather gifs, oh my!) Over the years I’ve continued to tinker, creating new sites for myself, and friends. Learning new…