ADWS 2017 | A Day with Shopify in Brooklyn

We're in Brooklyn today at #ADWS2017!

We'll update this post as the day goes on. Here is a quick look into the event so far.

The day started with a quick stop at the post office to pick up new polos, freshly embroidered by Creative Services team at INTHECLOUDS. Thanks for making us look good! We hit the train, hopped some stops (ditching our buttondowns and blazers), and huffed it over to Greenpoint Loft.

When we walked in we were greeted with a swag bag. Shirt, Coffee Mug, .... stuff. After grabbing a quick breakfast, and several cups of coffee, we grabbed a seat for the Keynote. Matty Bastin-Millar gave an inside look into the performance-driven approach to Shopify's own customer service teams. Using lean principles, the team built in the same build-measure-learn feedback loop into its customer support team, going so far as to pull their agents out of their day to day for weeks at a time (fully paid) to go through coding bootcamps! This makes their Gurus highly specialised to Shopify and efficient as the first line for service issues, keeping the development team away from simple issues. He's also really into rockets...

Next up with Kurt Elster of Ethercycle. He summed his presentation up in three key bullets, but the most important takeaway was "do you, booboo." Kurt has figured out how to work 4 days a week: by letting clients know he doesn't answer emails on Friday - Sunday unless you want to pay $500 /hr. To my clients that are reading this, don't worry... I'll only be charging $400.