The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work

What happens when an old-school management guru leaves the books and lectures behind to lead a young team at a revolutionary company, with no email, no offices, and no rules? Automattic, Inc., runs WordPress.com, the 15th most popular website on the planet, and is the leading organization behind WordPress, the software that powers 20 percent of the entire web—60 million sites and counting.

Their success is based on challenging our biggest assumptions about how work is done:

  • Employees work remotely, from wherever in the world they wish.
  • No one uses email, preferring customized blogs and online chat.
  • There are no schedules, few meetings, and fewer rules.
  • Workers launch new ideas and features dozens of times a day.

Scott Berkun reports on his challenging year working at WordPress.com as the leader of one of its most important teams. His tale is filled with great advice for managers, executives, and employees alike about how great work is done and what Automattic’s success means for the rest of us.

With the unique perspective of a seasoned outsider-turned-insider, you will hear insights on the ways leadership, productivity, and work are evolving on business’s brave new frontier.

Speaker Details

Berkun is the best-selling author of Making Things Happen, The Myths of Innovation, Confessions of a Public Speaker, and Mindfire: Big Ideas for Curious Minds. He worked at Microsoft from 1994 to 2003 on Internet Explorer 1.0 to 5.0, Windows, and MSN, and as team lead at WordPress.com from 2010 to 2012. He now works full time as an author and speaker and his work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Wired Magazine, Forbes, the Economist and other media. He has contributed to Harvard Business Review and BusinessWeek, and appears frequently on CNBC, MSNBC, CNN, and NPR for his expertise on various subjects.

Date:
Speakers:
Scott Berkun
Affiliation:
Author

    • Portrait of Jeff Running

      Jeff Running