James Kemp

Helping to shape the future of ecommerce at Woo. Technology enthusiast, photographer, and advocate for seamless user experiences.

  • No comments on It’s Not Too Late to Start Using AI as a Product Manager

    It’s Not Too Late to Start Using AI as a Product Manager

    Every few weeks, a new AI tool launches.

    Every few days, someone posts about their AI-powered workflow on X or LinkedIn.

    And if you’re anything like me, there’s this nagging feeling that you should be doing more. Using these tools better. Learning faster.

    I use Claude Desktop with AutoMem for the majority of my work as a Product Manager at WooCommerce now. I’ve got integrations with Linear for issue management, GitHub for triage context, Enterpret’s Wisdom for user feedback synthesis. I can execute faster and more effectively than I could previously, when I was manually opening dozens of browser tabs to analyse feedback patterns.

    And I still feel like there’s more I could be doing.

    If that resonates with you, good. That means you’re paying attention.

    But here’s what I want you to understand: that feeling shows you’re aware, not behind. Awareness is the first step to actually using these tools in a way that transforms how you work.

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  • 1 comment on Launch WooCommerce Playground Sites with a Single Keystroke

    Launch WooCommerce Playground Sites with a Single Keystroke

    If you’ve ever triaged bugs, you know the drill. Someone reports an issue, and your first question is: can I reproduce this on a clean install?

    For WordPress, that used to mean spinning up a site in LocalWP or WordPress Studio. Enter a title, choose your settings, wait for it to provision, then manually install WooCommerce, then install Query Monitor, then maybe a few other plugins. LocalWP has blueprints, but they’re snapshots of existing sites, so they go stale as soon as plugins release updates. And you end up with dozens of unused local installs cluttering your machine.

    Those tools are great for persistent testing sites or local development. But for quick, throwaway bug reproduction, they’re overkill.

    WordPress Playground changed this. Sites are ephemeral (not persistent, just temporary). Use it once and close the tab. No cleanup, no clutter. But the blueprint URLs are long and the JSON syntax is hard to remember.

    So I made a Raycast script that launches a fully configured WooCommerce Playground site in about two seconds. Type “Woo”, hit enter, and you’re in.

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  • No comments on 2025: My Year in Review

    2025: My Year in Review

    Think back to how WooCommerce looked at the start of 2025. The accessibility landscape was uncertain, AI felt like a distant promise, and the idea of bringing more features into core was still taking shape. A lot has changed since then.

    This year has been one of the most rewarding of my career, both professionally and personally. I want to share the highlights: what we accomplished as a team and what happened in my life outside of work.

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