Month: December 2015

Support Ops Hangout

I joined Chase, Carolyn, and Jeff on the Support Ops podcast yesterday afternoon. We talked about goals for 2016 and how to make the most of the new year.

With the Happiness team at Automattic we set some OKR-like goals for the second half of 2015 and made a lot more progress than we did in prior times. If that interests you I’d highly recommend this Google Ventures video about OKRs.

The audio version is live as well as the video recording. It was a lot of fun to join the podcast and I think it turned out well.

Managers, Developers, and the In Between. The first post in a series that looks at how to improve career path definitions for developers. Looking forward to reading the rest.

Being Customer Supportive. Great collection of practical customer support advice from Elizabeth Galle.

SupConf

I’ve worked in customer support for almost 9 years. When I started it was just something I enjoyed doing. I liked tinkering with technology and figured, why not use my experience to help others? Pretty quickly I realized I would be very happy if I could find a way to do this for a long, long time. Customer support is my career.

That’s why I’m beyond thrilled to help Scott and others plan SupConf, a conference for folks who want to build a career in support.

I’ve written before about how customer support, when done well, is a career. SupConf is about how to make that happen.

The event is May 23rd and 24th. It’s two full days of well-considered talks that will impart lessons for you to take back to your day-to-day work. Plus, we’re designing the event with conversations and opportunities to meet others in mind. Speakers are important, but they aren’t the whole event.

If that sounds interesting, I’d highly recommend signing up for the newsletter. In the meantime, you can read about some of the themes we’re looking to cover.

It’s time we think about support as more than just an entry-level job. Support is a career, a craft, and something to be proud of.