Planet Automattic: April 2014
One WordPress.com staffer challenged the others to a month-long blogging challenge… and you’ll never guess what happened next! (Spoiler: we blogged a lot.)
At Automattic, we don’t just make WordPress.com — we use it. A lot. All of us have at least one blog on WordPress.com, and many have more than one, where we write and publish photos regularly. Even Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic, has an active blog on WordPress.com.
This month, our colleague Justin, a developer from Ohio, decided to post every single day in April — and challenged his friends to do the same. More than a dozen Automatticians picked up the gauntlet he threw down, publishing posts on everything from cheese to school picture day to the importance of glue.
Justin led the charge on his blog, BinarySmash:
He’s in the midst of a cross-country move, and Binary Smash gives him a place to mull over the changes. In “The Journey is Usually Worth It,” he reflects on life lessons learned from a frustrating-turned-relaxing trip to see the California redwoods.
Brandon Kraft is a Happiness Engineer from Austin, Texas, who happens to share a last name — and a Twitter handle — with a pretty famous cheese:
It could be sticky being constantly mistaken for an internationally-known brand. Luckily, Kraft the man and Kraft the cheese have managed to create a beautiful friendship based on trust, humor, and free cheese, as he explains in “Kraft and Kraft Cheese: Friends Forever.”
Of course, we do sometimes write about WordPress. Another Austin-based Happiness Engineer, Jackie Dana, is a WordCamp organizer. WordCamp Austin took place last weekend, and Jackie reflects on the process, highlights, and post-WordCamp glow in “That’s a Wrap!”
Due north, mobile developer Aaron Douglas of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, penned (keyboarded?) “On the Importance of Glue” to explain how the work that goes into the back end of a mobile application is like adhesive — you might not see it, but it keeps everything together.
Automatticians with self-hosted blogs use tools of their own making, too. Theme Wrangler Caroline Moore writes her eponymous blog using a theme she created, Circa:
We loved this heartwarming post on the happy accident that results when parents forget that it’s school picture day.
(If you like Circa, it’s a free theme available on WordPress.com.)
Here are a few more of our favorite from Justin’s April blogging challenge:
- Albuquerque, New Mexico, Happiness Engineer Karen Arnold put her house-envy in perspective.
- HR Lead Lori McLeese wrote a love letter to her hometown — San Francisco, California.
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based Business Engineer Anthony Bubel shared daily photos, including this perfect shot of the Blue Angels in formation.
- Robyn Okrant, a new Happiness Engineer hailing from Chicago, Illinois, shared an unedited piece of fiction each day — including this darkly comic tale about a family at war.
If you’d like to be a part of this motley crew, we’re hiring!
- April 30, 2014
- Automattic, behind the scenes, Community
WordPress.com News 
Reblogged this on Automattically Kraft and commented:
Automatticans are fun people. Read about some of our postings (including my friendship with Kraft Cheese) on today’s en.blog post!
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A great post about cool people at an awesome company. I absolutely love that you have added such a genuine human element to your company. Everyone who posts seems so approachable, and you practice what you preach… and those are just two of many reasons that I love blogging and WordPress so much.
Thanks guys and gals! 🙂
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Reblogged this on Peter Slutsky.
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Reblogged this on BinarySmash and commented:
A feature on the blogging challenge. Shows some of the top posts by my friends and colleagues over at WordPress.com.
My own analysis post is coming tomorrow – including winners. I forgot that I need to wait for everyone to post today’s post before picking winners :). I already have a script ready to do it though.
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Y’all are so cute!!! Thanks for the warm fuzzies and the BIG smiles!
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Happiness Engineer. Hahahaha, I love it 😀
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Reblogged this on a fiend of awesome and commented:
My little ol’ blog got a mention on the WordPress.com blog today! Check it out! 🙂
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I have sooo many blog post in my head that I can’t make myself sit down and write and create. I would love to challenge myself to do this, but problem is I also have to accept the challenge!
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The best way to start is to take it one post at a time 🙂
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Always good to see what Automatticians are up to in front of the scenes. 🙂
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I just had to go and see the school photo of Caroline Moore’s daughter, so cute. And talk about prolific, she’s created so many themes. I’m really enjoying using sorbet.
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I’m new here, but the more I see the more I like. People seem earnest and genuine, this post further confirms it.
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Now THAT is a fabulously fun & explosively creative work environment!!
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WordPress has the planet’s greatest “geeks”!
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