Thanks, Matt. 🔗 **Source:** [Thanks, Matt.](https://benandjacq.com/2025/10/thanks-matt/?fbclid=IwRlRTSANwplRleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHj2FYERD30Tk9rY8fMOKxsuegYDspjcDidpPwROAZrmJ9BpEac3hH5d20FWv_aem_MpdjQX1VAtBmIogwmubr4A) > [!note]+ Document Notes > tags: [WordPress, Technical Support, Career] > author: Ben Meredith > source: benandjacq.com > reference: [https://benandjacq.com/2025/10/thanks-matt/] > date created: 2025-10-30 00:00 > > # 🏷️ Title: Thanks, Matt. > <!-- deep-read:sections start --> ## 🧭 Table of Contents - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📚 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ### 🔗 References - Include links cited in or relevant to the article. ## 📝 Summary - What happened. - The author reflects on nine years of growth from joining GiveWP to leading Technical Support across multiple brands at Liquid Web/StellarWP, and shares he was laid off during a restructure. - Why it matters. - Shows the impact of strong leadership, mentorship, and support craft; highlights industry consolidation and career transitions. - Key stakeholders. - The author, Matt Cromwell, teams across Kadence, Iconic, Orderable, SolidWP, GiveWP, WP Business Reviews, StellarPay, StellarSites, and the Cloud One Digital portfolio. - Risks and tradeoffs. - Restructures risk talent loss and continuity; career pivots trade stability for autonomy in new ventures. - Bottom line. - Gratitude-forward exit; the author is seeking full-time roles while going “all in” on buildsustainablesupport.com. ## 📖 Main Content - Core arguments: - Mentorship changes careers: “Your promise ‘you’ll go full-time once I go on paternity leave…’ led to the best 9 years of my working life.” - Support leadership craft: coach individuals to maximize satisfaction by modeling high performance and improving communication, execution, and goal-setting. - Layoff as inflection point: proud of team outcomes; moving to productize a repeatable support system. - Context/definitions: - GiveWP: WordPress donations plugin later acquired by Liquid Web/StellarWP. - Restructure: portfolio-level reorganization under Cloud One Digital. - Uncertainties: - Specifics of Cloud One Digital’s strategy and timelines; details of the new product’s features beyond “ready-made system.” ### 🗒️ Notes - “Most unconventional HR onboarding”: first-day email that a colleague’s spouse went into labor; immediate trust and informality. - Career arc: GiveWP → acquisition by Liquid Web → Head of Support → leadership across 8 brands (Kadence, Iconic, Orderable, SolidWP, GiveWP, WP Business Reviews, StellarPay, StellarSites). - Exit: “Yesterday was my last day… laid off in the midst of a restructure.” - Leadership thesis: - Be the exemplar high-performer. - Improve daily at communication, execution, and aligned goal-setting. - Forward plan: applying for full-time roles; building buildsustainablesupport.com as a plug-in system for support teams. - Central gratitude: “Thank you so much, Matt.” ## 📚 References - GiveWP (donations for WordPress): https://givewp.com/ - Liquid Web: https://www.liquidweb.com/ - StellarWP: https://stellarwp.com/ - Kadence WP: https://www.kadencewp.com/ - Iconic WP: https://iconicwp.com/ - Orderable: https://orderable.com/ - SolidWP (formerly iThemes): https://solidwp.com/ - WP Business Reviews: https://wpbusinessreviews.com/ - Cloud One Digital (portfolio context): https://cloudonedigital.com/ - buildsustainablesupport.com (author’s venture): https://buildsustainablesupport.com/ ## 🗣️ Paraphrase - Paragraph A paraphrase. - Over nine years, the author grew from an unconventional onboarding at GiveWP into leading support for multiple brands post-acquisition, culminating in a layoff during a portfolio restructure. - Paragraph B paraphrase. - His leadership centers on modeling high performance and improving core skills daily; he’s seeking full-time work while launching a productized support system, closing with thanks to mentor Matt Cromwell. ## 📰 Newsletter - A heartfelt career note from the WordPress ecosystem: Ben Meredith reflects on nine years from GiveWP through StellarWP/Liquid Web, leading support across marquee brands like Kadence and SolidWP. He’s now exploring new roles and productizing his approach to support with buildsustainablesupport.com. If you care about sustainable support, leadership, and community-led product craft, this is a worthy read. Related resources: GiveWP’s impact on nonprofits, performance-minded theming with Kadence, and mature support ops at StellarWP. ## ✅ Action Items #### DevRel - Build a demo of the support system with sample tickets, KPIs, and coaching loops. - Publish a “support leadership playbook” with templates and quickstarts. - Run an office hours series on communication, execution, and OKR alignment. #### OSPO - Draft contribution guidelines for support tooling and playbooks. - Establish license scanning and training for shared macros/snippets. - Create intake for vulnerability reports in support workflows. #### Community - Maintainers: monthly roadmap clinics focused on support debt. - Contributors: rotate “first issue” support pairings. - Sponsors: publish impact reports tied to ticket deflection and CSAT. - Ecosystem: coordinate incident response drills across plugins. #### WordPress - Core: triage rituals and performance budgets for support-critical issues. - Core Performance: dashboard standard for support-derived perf signals. - Core AI: guardrails for AI-assisted replies; evaluation sets for accuracy. - Core Program Team: cross-team retros; dependency mapping from support data. - Mobile: offline-ready help and escalation UX. - Playground: reproducible bug labs from support cases. - Community: speaker mentorship on support excellence. - Training: lesson plans on communication and execution. - Marketing: campaigns around sustainable support stories. - Support: SLAs, knowledge base gap hunts, escalation maps. - Design: UX audits targeting support pain points. - Documentation: examples-first patterns and style guides. - Photos/TV: submission/caption standards for tutorials. - Polyglots: glossary alignment to reduce translation friction in support. - Accessibility: audit cadence tied to support reports. - Meta/CLI/Hosting/Tide/Openverse/Themes/Plugins: reliability telemetry, provenance checks, review throughput improvements. #### The WPOCC - Programs: fellowships for support maintainers; microgrants for docs. - Projects: governance clinics; release support teams. - Funding experiments: matched grants for CSAT and time-to-resolution. ### FAIR - Technical independence: signed artifacts, provenance, local metadata. - Policies: funding transparency and anti-capture covenants. - Governance artifacts: reusable charters and operator agreements. ## 🧪 Hypotheses - Coaching on communication/execution measurably increases CSAT and agent retention. - Modeling high performance by leaders reduces escalations per agent. - A productized support system decreases time-to-first-response and increases resolution rates across WordPress plugin teams. - Portfolio restructures correlate with short-term support backlog growth. ### 📊 Methodology - A/B teams on coaching cadence; measure CSAT, CES, retention. - Pre/post intervention analysis on escalation rates and TTR/TTV. - Multi-team rollout of the support system with stepped-wedge design. - Incident trend analysis before/after restructure announcements. ### ❓ Questions - Which support metrics best predict meaningful customer outcomes? - How to scale coaching without diluting quality? - What organizational signals precede healthy vs. harmful restructures? ### 🔮 Future Research - Longitudinal study linking support leadership practices to ARR/NRR. - Taxonomy for WordPress plugin support severity and routing. - Standardized evaluation sets for AI in support contexts. ### 💡 Implications - Practice: invest in leader-as-exemplar and daily skill compounding. - Policy: transparency around restructure impacts on support continuity. - Security: integrate vuln intake into support workflows. - Education: formalize curricula for support leadership in WP. - Funding: tie grants to measurable support outcomes. ### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment - Reading level estimate: Flesch-Kincaid ~8–10. #### 👀 Visual learners - Present: brand list; career arc narrative. - Improve: team org charts; KPI dashboards; playbook diagrams. #### 🔊 Aural learners - Present: narrative voice. - Improve: 3-minute audio summary or podcast clip. #### 🗣️ Verbal learners - Present: clear principles and gratitude framing. - Improve: glossary of support metrics and examples. #### 🧩 Kinesthetic learners - Present: n/a. - Improve: step-by-step coaching exercises and ticket labs. #### 🧠 Logical learners - Present: two-point leadership model. - Improve: decision trees for escalation and OKR alignment. #### 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Social learners - Present: mentorship emphasis. - Improve: cohort-based coaching and peer reviews. #### 🧘‍♀️ Solitary learners - Present: reflective tone. - Improve: journaling prompts for daily improvement. #### 🌿 Naturalistic learners - Present: n/a. - Improve: ecosystem analogies for support flows. ### 📊 Accessibility Assessment #### Screen reader semantics - Present: headings. - Improve: alt text and landmarks where applicable. #### Keyboard navigation - Present: likely simple post flow. - Improve: ensure focus states and skip links on site. #### Contrast and readability - Present: ensure 4.5:1 minimum. - Improve: check line-height and link contrast. #### Text resizing and reflow - Present: responsive theme expected. - Improve: test at 200% zoom and reduced motion. #### Media and captions - Present: text-only. - Improve: provide audio version. #### Forms and interactions - Present: n/a. - Improve: accessible contact forms if present. #### Standards reference - Map to WCAG 2.2 AA for headings, contrast, reflow, inputs. ### 🌍 DEIB Assessment #### Cultural breadth - Present: WordPress ecosystem focus. - Improve: global examples and translation links. #### Inclusive language - Present: respectful, gender-neutral. - Improve: define jargon plainly. #### Neurodiversity support - Present: consistent structure. - Improve: chunking and icon+text cues. #### Representation - Present: acknowledges many teammates. - Improve: broader role/diversity examples. #### Psychological safety - Present: gratitude-forward. - Improve: explicit community guidelines and escalation paths. ### ✅ Logical Validity #### Strong reasoning - Inductive: personal experience supports leadership model; clear, coherent. - Causal: mentorship → career growth; plausible with narrative evidence. #### Fallacies - Possible survivorship bias; mitigate by adding comparative data. #### Tone of voice - Grateful, reflective, supportive; e.g., “I’m so proud… I am a different person…” ### 🛡️ DARVO Analysis - Deny: none; acknowledges layoff directly. - Attack: none; no undermining of others. - Reverse victim/offender: none; centers gratitude and growth. ## 🎯 Conclusion - Bottom line: A gracious career reflection through acquisition and restructure, crystallizing a support leadership model and a new productized direction. - Next steps: Explore buildsustainablesupport.com, connect for roles, and adapt the two-point leadership model in your support org. ## 🧱 Refactor Appendix (append after 🎯 Conclusion) ### 📚 Literature Split Pad - Purpose: Stage Konik CEE units that become per-source Literature notes. - Split level: H3. - Include verbatim quotes under 25 words and a [view highlight] link. ### [H1] 5–10-word present-tense claim > [!quote] [Thanks, Matt.](https://benandjacq.com/2025/10/thanks-matt/) by [[Ben Meredith]] via [[benandjacq.com]]. Published 2025-10-30. Accessed 2025-10-30. > “Be the best example of a high-performer.” Two lines: leadership modeling drives performance and satisfaction; use in coaching playbook. [view highlight](https://benandjacq.com/2025/10/thanks-matt/#H1) #xref #articleseed ID:rw_[MISSING] ### [H2] 5–10-word present-tense claim > [!quote] [Thanks, Matt.](https://benandjacq.com/2025/10/thanks-matt/) > “Get better every day at communication and execution.” Two lines: daily compounding on core skills; use in OKR templates. [view highlight](https://benandjacq.com/2025/10/thanks-matt/#H2) #xref ID:rw_[MISSING] --- ### 🔖 Atomic Split Pad (Zettel Candidates) - Purpose: Promote reusable claims into Atomic notes. - Split level: H4. - Each item: one idea, present tense, specific, testable. #### [Z1] Leader modeling reduces support escalations - Condition: teams with visible leader exemplars. - Pointer: article leadership principles section. - Links: [[Support-Leadership]] [[Team-Performance]] #### [Z2] Daily skill practice improves CSAT trends - Condition: coaching cadence ≥ weekly. - Pointer: communication/execution guidance. - Links: [[Coaching]] [[Customer-Satisfaction]] --- ### ✏️ Fleeting Queue (Extract by Selection) - [F1] Draft KPI set: CSAT, TTR, Escalations, QA pass rate — https://buildsustainablesupport.com #fleeting #inbox - [F2] Write coaching script for “leader-as-exemplar” — https://benandjacq.com/2025/10/thanks-matt/ #fleeting #inbox - [F3] Design stepped-wedge rollout plan for support system — https://buildsustainablesupport.com #fleeting #inbox --- <!-- deep-read:sections end -->