WooThemes » WooCamp http://www.woothemes.com Premium WordPress Themes & Plugins Fri, 24 May 2013 21:31:10 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 A continuous journey of customer support optimization http://www.woothemes.com/2012/01/a-continuous-journey-of-customer-support-optimization/ http://www.woothemes.com/2012/01/a-continuous-journey-of-customer-support-optimization/#comments Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:26:08 +0000 Mark Forrester http://www.woothemes.com/?p=15444 Simplify. Work out the kinks. Re-focus. That’s our plan for 2012, discussed in meticulous detail over the past couple weeks during Magnus’s visit to Cape Town. Exactly what that entails remains top secret for now. What we hope will increase happiness levels amongst our users is our quest to make our support structures more efficient. ...

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]]> http://www.woothemes.com/2012/01/a-continuous-journey-of-customer-support-optimization/feed/ 41 A Lesson Learnt in Communication http://www.woothemes.com/2011/09/a-lesson-learnt-in-communication/ http://www.woothemes.com/2011/09/a-lesson-learnt-in-communication/#comments Thu, 08 Sep 2011 13:29:22 +0000 Adii Pienaar http://www.woothemes.com/?p=12636 This is the backstory… We pride ourselves on being transparent, honest and proactive when we talk to our customers. We’ve never avoided a challenging discussion and we’ll also be first in saying sorry when we have screwed up. The reality is that it doesn’t matter how awesome we are 99,9% of the time, we will have ...

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]]> http://www.woothemes.com/2011/09/a-lesson-learnt-in-communication/feed/ 25 Hackathons & Teams http://www.woothemes.com/2011/07/hackathons-and-teams/ http://www.woothemes.com/2011/07/hackathons-and-teams/#comments Mon, 11 Jul 2011 09:39:01 +0000 Adii Pienaar http://www.woothemes.com/?p=11475 In our continuous effort to improve the way we work, we’ve recently implemented two new concepts in our workflow: hackathons & teams. Before I share the details of these concepts, I need to provide some context. Basically when we started WooThemes 3+ years ago, Mark, Magnus & I did so without any type of “best ...

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]]> http://www.woothemes.com/2011/07/hackathons-and-teams/feed/ 12 Even our Headlines are Awesome http://www.woothemes.com/2011/06/even-our-headlines-are-awesome/ http://www.woothemes.com/2011/06/even-our-headlines-are-awesome/#comments Fri, 24 Jun 2011 07:48:00 +0000 Adii Pienaar http://www.woothemes.com/?p=11448 Earlier this week I was staring at my computer screen, looking at a blank WordPress post page, trying to figure out what the headline for the release post of our latest theme, Statua, would be. This was admittedly a hard task. I eventually settled for “To All Photographers: Meet Statua”, which is one of the ...

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]]> http://www.woothemes.com/2011/06/even-our-headlines-are-awesome/feed/ 25 Release When Ready? http://www.woothemes.com/2011/05/release-when-ready/ http://www.woothemes.com/2011/05/release-when-ready/#comments Mon, 16 May 2011 13:15:44 +0000 Adii Pienaar http://www.woothemes.com/?p=11160 In Getting Real, the development industry’s manifesto by 37Signals, introduces a concept of “releasing when ready”. This basically implies that date-based milestones / deadlines aren’t that important and that if you’re developing a new product, or aiming to release an updated version of your product, you should release it when it’s ready (and not give succumb to ...

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]]> http://www.woothemes.com/2011/05/release-when-ready/feed/ 29 The Best Ways to Make WooUsers Happy http://www.woothemes.com/2011/05/the-best-ways-to-make-woo-users-happy/ http://www.woothemes.com/2011/05/the-best-ways-to-make-woo-users-happy/#comments Wed, 11 May 2011 12:54:50 +0000 Ryan Ray http://www.woothemes.com/?p=11075 One of my favorite parts of working with the WooCommunity is hearing from a satisfied customer. We aren’t always able to make everyone happy, but for the most part I’d say we get the job done and have many happy WooThemes fans from it. 100% Satisfaction is always something we’re striving for, but for some people ...

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]]> http://www.woothemes.com/2011/05/the-best-ways-to-make-woo-users-happy/feed/ 16 Trusting Your Team http://www.woothemes.com/2011/04/trusting-your-team/ http://www.woothemes.com/2011/04/trusting-your-team/#comments Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:03:33 +0000 Adii Pienaar http://www.woothemes.com/?p=10660 “Personal” experiences / opinions should generally be reserved for my own blog, but I figured for this WooLessons post it’d make sense to share a recent personal experience to further illustrate the importance on one’s team (something which has actually been covered quite extensively in WooLessons since we started publishing these). So last week I ...

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]]> http://www.woothemes.com/2011/04/trusting-your-team/feed/ 6 Making The Right Investments http://www.woothemes.com/2011/04/making-the-right-investments/ http://www.woothemes.com/2011/04/making-the-right-investments/#comments Thu, 07 Apr 2011 14:15:44 +0000 Adii Pienaar http://www.woothemes.com/?p=10532 Are we making the right investments to help grow the company? How do we determine which projects we need to commit to? This question popped up recently, whilst we were scoping out some new functionality – the working title is The WooThemes Concierge for now – that we hope to add to WooThemes.com in the ...

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]]> http://www.woothemes.com/2011/04/making-the-right-investments/feed/ 15 WTF? WooVille!? http://www.woothemes.com/2011/03/wtf-wooville/ http://www.woothemes.com/2011/03/wtf-wooville/#comments Mon, 28 Mar 2011 17:16:39 +0000 Adii Pienaar http://www.woothemes.com/?p=10269 WooVille has become a really popular feature since we introduced it towards the end of last year. Initially we thought that it’d just be fun to share a bit of behind-the-scenes insight into the inner workings  of the WooTeam, whilst also generating some traffic to the site (this was probably our main motivation to start ...

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]]> http://www.woothemes.com/2011/03/wtf-wooville/feed/ 0 Two is a Couple, Three is a Crowd? http://www.woothemes.com/2011/03/two-is-a-couple-three-is-a-crowd/ http://www.woothemes.com/2011/03/two-is-a-couple-three-is-a-crowd/#comments Fri, 25 Mar 2011 13:18:44 +0000 Adii Pienaar http://www.woothemes.com/?p=10267 When we first launched WooThemes, it was only the 3 co-founders on the WooTeam, which meant that most decisions could happen pretty quickly, efficiently and without having to involve a massive team with varying opinions. 3 decision makers also seems to be a perfect situation in that no decisions will be caught up in a ...

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]]> http://www.woothemes.com/2011/03/two-is-a-couple-three-is-a-crowd/feed/ 13 Hiring Passionate People http://www.woothemes.com/2011/03/hiring-passionate-people/ http://www.woothemes.com/2011/03/hiring-passionate-people/#comments Thu, 17 Mar 2011 15:00:52 +0000 Adii Pienaar http://www.woothemes.com/?p=10297 Last week we hired Ryan to be our new Community Manager after receiving more than 30 amazing applications for the position. Generally these decisions are pretty hard to make, because comparing CV’s is probably not the most efficient way of deciding between 30-odd candidates. There was however 2 characteristics which made Ryan an obvious choice ...

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]]> http://www.woothemes.com/2011/03/hiring-passionate-people/feed/ 17 Budgets & Priorities http://www.woothemes.com/2011/03/budgets-priorities/ http://www.woothemes.com/2011/03/budgets-priorities/#comments Wed, 09 Mar 2011 14:42:34 +0000 Adii Pienaar http://www.woothemes.com/?p=10299 We have a team of 10 hard workers dotted around the world, and whilst we’re absolute ninja’s at most the things that we do, we still have one constraint: time. We realize that most of you reading this will sit there and think “Sheesh, I wish I had 10 team members to help me out” ...

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]]> http://www.woothemes.com/2011/03/budgets-priorities/feed/ 9 Developer Tools http://www.woothemes.com/2011/03/developer-tools/ http://www.woothemes.com/2011/03/developer-tools/#comments Mon, 07 Mar 2011 14:43:19 +0000 jeffikus http://www.woothemes.com/?p=10280 Developer Tools, the “batbelt” of developers everywhere, generally stirs up conversations telling you about what you should and shouldn’t use. However, I’ve always had a different take on it, I change my toolset based on the work that I’m doing. When I was a .NET developer I worked on Windows and in Visual Studio. With ...

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]]> http://www.woothemes.com/2011/03/developer-tools/feed/ 18 Using Your Own Stuff http://www.woothemes.com/2011/03/using-your-own-stuff/ http://www.woothemes.com/2011/03/using-your-own-stuff/#comments Thu, 03 Mar 2011 13:57:16 +0000 Adii Pienaar http://www.woothemes.com/?p=10263 How do you know that your products work the way they are intended? You use them yourself. We’re firm believers in using our own products, which means that exactly the same WooFramework that goes into our themes, is the one that WooThemes.com has been built on and is powered by. We believe that this best ...

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]]> http://www.woothemes.com/2011/03/using-your-own-stuff/feed/ 15 The Balance Between Specialism & Diversity http://www.woothemes.com/2011/02/the-balance-between-specialism-diversity/ http://www.woothemes.com/2011/02/the-balance-between-specialism-diversity/#comments Mon, 28 Feb 2011 07:07:58 +0000 Adii Pienaar http://www.woothemes.com/?p=9464 A while back, we wrote a blog post detailing how we’ve been successful as a team, because we’ve allowed the individuals on the team to specialize in the stuff that they’re most passionate about. This however comes with one proviso: there’s still a to-do list and all the tasks need to be completed; so everyone ...

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]]> http://www.woothemes.com/2011/02/the-balance-between-specialism-diversity/feed/ 2 Fighting Code & User-Focused Development http://www.woothemes.com/2011/02/fighting-code-user-focused-development/ http://www.woothemes.com/2011/02/fighting-code-user-focused-development/#comments Mon, 21 Feb 2011 13:29:12 +0000 Adii Pienaar http://www.woothemes.com/?p=10088 We’ve blogged about how important & valuable design is for any business before, but we’ve not yet explained how we believe that it’s even possible to design our code. Looking around the web, you’ll see that all of the most prominent platforms (i.e. the one’s with thousands / millions of users like Google, Facebook, Flickr ...

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]]> http://www.woothemes.com/2011/02/fighting-code-user-focused-development/feed/ 10 Creativity At All Costs http://www.woothemes.com/2011/02/creativity-at-all-costs/ http://www.woothemes.com/2011/02/creativity-at-all-costs/#comments Thu, 17 Feb 2011 11:28:11 +0000 Adii Pienaar http://www.woothemes.com/?p=9516 Comparing the CV’s and previous work experience of the WooTeam members, you will find we all have one thing in common: we have all worked on client projects, either by means of freelancing or working at an agency. The second truth in this regard is that, that is one of the main reasons why we ...

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]]> http://www.woothemes.com/2011/02/creativity-at-all-costs/feed/ 4 Sincere Transparency http://www.woothemes.com/2011/02/sincere-transparency/ http://www.woothemes.com/2011/02/sincere-transparency/#comments Wed, 16 Feb 2011 13:17:03 +0000 Adii Pienaar http://www.woothemes.com/?p=10045 We’ve always believed in being open and honest about the things we’re working on, the stuff that excites us, as well as the times when we’ve messed up. Sharing the good stuff is easy, but publishing about a major delay (and general crappy situations) isn’t as easy… It’s not just about publishing blog posts either; ...

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]]> http://www.woothemes.com/2011/02/sincere-transparency/feed/ 9 Judging User Happiness http://www.woothemes.com/2011/02/judging-user-happiness/ http://www.woothemes.com/2011/02/judging-user-happiness/#comments Mon, 07 Feb 2011 13:11:14 +0000 Adii Pienaar http://www.woothemes.com/?p=9484 We’re sure that – unless our customers are incredibly unique – your customers have pretty loud voices & strong opinions. Especially when they’re pissed off, right? We’ve found that our users are much better at telling us when they’re not happy with, and when we’re not doing something right, whilst the positive stuff is just ...

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]]> http://www.woothemes.com/2011/02/judging-user-happiness/feed/ 19 The Cost of Free http://www.woothemes.com/2011/01/the-cost-of-free/ http://www.woothemes.com/2011/01/the-cost-of-free/#comments Mon, 31 Jan 2011 11:54:21 +0000 Adii Pienaar http://www.woothemes.com/?p=9082 Nothing in life is ever free, right? Let’s debate that. Since the very early days of WooThemes, we’ve always focused on releasing the odd freebie, which has normally been in the form of free themes, icon-sets and more recently our WooTumblog plugin. There’s currently 12 free themes available, from our total collection of 86 themes, ...

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