10up is joining forces with Kinsta for a free webinar focused on optimizing the work from home experience. Featured on the webinar will be our own Brad Miller, a Vice President who has worked from home for several years.
Happening on April 15 at 12:30 pm Eastern time, the webinar will cover:
Tips for setting up an at-home workspace
Ways to eliminate distractions
How to create opportunities to casually connect with colleagues (and talk about something other than work)
How to prioritize time effectively
Insights on finding work-life balance when work and home are the same place
I was excited (but not surprised) to see Tim Wright featured this week as Smashing Magazine’s “Person of the Week.” In his role as Director of Front End Engineering, we’ve had first-hand experience with his commitment to knowledge sharing and mentoring, especially with respect to web accessibility.
In response to COVID-19, many people are working from home for the first time. Recently, I shared insights from my experience working at home and leading a remote agency with one of our clients, T-Mobile. My tips are featured alongside some other perspectives in their story, Pants or No Pants? That Is the Question! For the record, I am team “yes, pants.”
WordPress 5.4 was released this week, featuring new and better blocks, a cleaner block editor UI, improved user data privacy features, and a handful of under the hood performance and developer improvements. Seven 10uppers helped make this release possible, including myself, who was recognized as a Noteworthy Contributor.
Thank you for helping make WordPress: Ben Greeley, Fabian Kaegy, Felipe Elia, John Watkins, Ryan Welcher, and Tung Du!
Consumers have become accustomed to optimized mobile experiences. Billions use popular apps — WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Gmail, and Twitter — to perform small acts of publishing, like sharing content, editing photos, uploading videos, and inserting URLs. These applications deliver carefully constructed user experiences focused on a narrow set of specific content creation tasks.
But what does the mobile experience look like for those managing website content?
10up conducted a user experience study to understand how consumers are creating, publishing, and managing website content from mobile devices. The study included live user interviews and a survey of 148 qualified participants from 30 countries about their individual experiences using website admin dashboards on smartphones.
ClassifAI — our plugin that augments WordPress-powered websites with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technology — was released last year. As a connector to cloud-based services like IBM Watson and Microsoft Azure AI, ClassifAI introduced the automatic tagging and classification of content as well as the assignment of descriptive alt text to images to WordPress.
Since that time, 10up has shipped the 1.4 and 1.5 releases, representing a substantial ongoing investment in ClassifAI and our commitment to driving applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning technology forward in the content management and open source industries. Highlights of ClassifAI’s recent releases include automated image tagging, smart focal point cropping of images, bulk scanning of existing content, and other vital enhancements.
When I joined 10up two and a half years ago to lead our strategic and commercial growth across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), I was not only starting a new position, I was beginning an entirely new remote work experience. Inspired by companies like Automattic and Basecamp, and fueled by the explosion in video conferencing and digital collaboration tools, 10up was founded as a fully distributed digital agency: our entire team, now 200 full-time team members, works from home or in some cases, co working spaces, around the globe.
As a social person who enjoys collaborating with others, I didn’t know what to expect from a work-at-home culture and I wondered how I would be able to collaborate effectively with colleagues located around the world. Thankfully, my nerves were laid to rest quickly as I learned that a remote work culture can operate and even feel very similar to an in-office culture.
Faced with global health concerns and efforts to contain a rapidly spreading virus, many traditional in-office workforces are asking employees to work from home. For many professionals, this will be their first time navigating a remote work lifestyle. With that mind, I thought it might help to share some of the ways we approach remote work, foster meaningful connections, and cultivate a vibrant team culture.
In 1994, the first website banner ad appeared on HotWired.com, boasting a 44% clickthrough rate. Since then, publishers have been investing in monetization strategies like direct display advertising and sponsored content to boost revenues. Today, distracted consumers, increased competition, banner blindness, and ad blocking tools make website monetization an increasing challenge for publishers.
This February, 10up wrapped its ninth year with much to celebrate. The company saw continued team and financial growth, with our most significant expansions across our European division, productized Managed Services offerings, and strategic Audience & Revenue consulting services. We also doubled down on our contributions to a broader open web community, and team culture.
The result: We continued to expand our client roster with some of our most impressive wins to date. In 2019, we welcomed some of the most respected brands and organizations in the world into our portfolio, and expanded existing relationships with industry leading clients like Google and Microsoft.
Consistent Revenue And Team Growth
10up’s eighth anniversary celebrated significant financial and team growth, which continued into our ninth year. We achieved 18% revenue growth and gained 48 new clients across verticals including healthcare, publishing, government, high tech, architecture, and financial services. We’re especially pleased by the increased diversification of that revenue across pillar accounts, which we see as vital to a healthy, sustainable workplace in the services sector. While in 2018, 20% of our revenue came from a single client, 2019 included five seven-figure clients, with the largest accounting for only 9% of company-wide revenue.
The growth of our client portfolio along with our commitment to exceptional client delivery drove the expansion of Team10up to 200 full-timers. This includes two full-time, in-house recruiters and 10uppers spread across six continents and twenty-four countries (tell Antarctica we’re hiring). The executive team also expanded, as we welcomed our first full time Chief Financial Officer, Chuck Barlett, and made three internal promotions:
Today WordPress powers 35% of the web, yet there are still many myths and misconceptions about using the WordPress as an enterprise-level content management system.
10up is one of four enterprise agency partners featured in the new ebook, Faster, Smarter, Safer WordPress for Enterprise, by Pantheon, a WebOps platform for open-source Drupal and WordPress websites. The ebook shares valuable insights on how enterprises can best leverage WordPress and work with an agency partner. It also addresses common myths and misconceptions about the capability, security, and scalability of WordPress as a platform.
John Eckman
Chris Wallace
Jeff Paul
Gabe Karp
Katie Wilkerson
Jake Goldman
