Thanks again to everyone who joined us in Santa Rosa for AtlasCamp (our three day developer-only conference) this past September. The event was a huge success and I absolutely can't wait for next year.
For those of you who were there, you might have noticed that we were taping the presentations. If you weren't able to make it, I hope this footage will show you a little of what went on - and of course convince you to come to AtlasCamp 2009! Sadly - what you miss out on from the videos are the networking, discussions, problem solving and Werewolf playing that also went on.
This first video is my keynote from the event. The video covers where Atlassian is, where we are going, and some insider knowledge of what's to come. My apologies in advance for the quality - something we'll definitely work on improving next year - but you can at least hear the audio and read the slides!
Enjoy and keep your eye out for the rest of the presentations here shortly.
Update! Of course, if you liked the video above - please consider coming to the bigger & better Atlassian Summit from May 31st - June 2nd this year.
This is going to be a long post but I promise it'll be worth your while. Grab a cup of joe, sit back, relax and read on matey!
The Background
Historically at Atlassian, there are 3 big staff events at Atlassian during the year - Christmas, Melbourne Cup (or Superbowl if you're on the other side of the Pacific) and the End of Financial Year bash.
Last year for the EFY the Sydney office went on "Mission: Atlassian" - our spy themed adventure race around Sydney. It was a massive success, beyond what anyone had expected. (If you haven't, watch the introductory video and see the photos) Everyone had a complete blast and kept asking for more... so this year's secret party planning committee had it's work cut out.
(Oh - the fact we had less planners, twice the staff, a new office and a small acquisition to complete just added to the challenge)
We've done a lot of different events. Over the years we've drunk & eaten far too much, raced go karts, shot paintballs, sailed yachts, rafted the white water and all manner of other things... so what next?
Search For A Theme
Now what does one do for a theme?
One of my favourite Steve Jobs quotes (along with Real Artists Ship) is "It's better to be a pirate than join the Navy" (read Pirate Flag).
Come on... who didn't always want to be a pirate?
And thus, Cutlassian was born.
Cutlassian Begins...
So what exactly happened? Let me give a brief overview:
Breakfast: To start the day in Aussie traditional style, we had a BBQ breakfast on the deck of our new office - bacon and egg rolls for all.
Introduction: Once everyone was present and well fed, the volume was silently raised and the introduction video started on a giant screen in our staff area.
(Do watch it - it's our best video ever - thanks to Rob for whipping it together. Simply brilliant!)
Now doesn't that music just make you want to strap on a cutlas and run around like a mad man? Argg!!
Fight! Now, all good action movies have an introductory action sequence - so we needed a fight. Luckily, a few professional fighting pirates happened to appear on the deck at that very minute - staging a raging sword fight back and forth.
Captains: Once the fighting died down, captains (like Nick "Rum Lord Snugglebunny" Menere) were chosen and sent to find their Captain's Instructions in treasure chests hidden around the office.
Crew: The sword fighters then read out the crews for the day - dividing staff into groups of 8, who then scattered madly around the offices to find their captain. By this time the stunned surprise had worn off and the pirate theme had truly kicked in with many a loud "Yarr!" heard from charging staff.
About now I knew it was going to be a fantastic day.
Each crew were decked out like true pirates with bandanas, cutlasses, eye patches, jolly rogers and the traditional Atlassian event t-shirt.
(FYI Piratlas is a worthy, kick-ass addition to the Atlas family - if not the best ever - isn't he cute? Huge kudos to our in house designer Jason for nailing it!)
Pirate Training
A last minute addition to last year's Mission was the photo clues, which proved to be the hugest success. Simply - to get points a team had to get a photo of an object or the team performing a task. Sounds easy? Ahh, but that's because you don't have evil people planning the clues.
This year a photo treasure hunt was destined but we wanted to expand and push the boundaries a further.
Last year a few clues were thrown in with the thought... "I wonder if anyone will actually do that?" - but almost every single clue was completed by every team. Clearly we did not set the bar high enough - or we just employ a lot of true pirates.
Besides harder clues, this year we added video clues which required small digital camera videos of the teams performing various silly challenges.
I'll cover some highlights (including photos and videos) later in the post, but for anyone interested here's this year's list of clues.
The crews then left the office (amid much loud Yarrr'ing!) at pace to scatter across the city and start snapping clues.
Treasure Hunt On The High Seas
After a morning of pirates scaring strangers with cameras, all crews managed to get themselves to the Maritime Museum docks (come on - could you pick a more perfect location?).
From here, each crew boarded their ships and embarked on a sailing treasure hunt around Sydney harbour.
Uncharacteristically for Sydney, it rained for most of the sailing hunt and the wind was breathless - but that didn't seem to dent any pirate spirits.
There were two types of clues - clues about Atlassian (download 'em
if you're interested - I'll be hugely impressed if non-staff members can answer them!) and location clues.
The location clues directed crews to sail to various locations around the harbour in search of treasure, which was eventually found by the Rum Smugglers buried in a far flung beach in Chowder Bay.
Teams then sailed for home against the setting sun, returning to the office for a photo and video slideshow, scoring of the clues and of course - for the truly hardy - the consumption of much beer and rum at the pub, whilst retelling all the day's seafaring stories.
Cutlassian Highlights
Over 1300 photos were taken on the day, so pulling out the best ones is a challenge in itself. That said, there are some definite stand outs.
Here are my favourites, in no particular order.
What Be The Time?
The best highlight of the day would have to be the "Ask a stranger for the time, as a pirate" video clue for sheer hilarity.
Matt Quail (of Fisheye fame) accosted two council workers and then reacted with perfect comic timing:
More amusingly, Brendan misinterpreted the clue and managed to ask a poor lass for a good time, instead of the time:
The Police
The clue was to get a photo posing with a member of the NSW Police force - oh and there were bonus points if you could convince them to dress as a pirate. Would anyone get this done? Turns out - it's easier than you think.
We had a few standardshots of the police with pirates and my cheeky road run to pose with a few motorcycle cops but quite a few teams actually got the cops to put on bandanas or eye patches like these guys:
Sharing Food
How about convincing a stranger to take a photo sharing the same piece of food as you? Well, easier than you think:
Extra bonus points to Nick's team for combining clues to take a photo sharing a piece of food with a police man:
Job Application
Taking a photo of yourself applying for a job at any fast food restaurant seemed amusing - until the day when we discovered that most of them now take applicants online. How's that for irony?
Great amusement was found in McDonald's form though. Position applied for? Crew! Yarr!
Side note: how many people answer "Subway" to the question 'Restaurant name you want to work at?', and do they get jobs at Macca's? One can only wonder.
Two special categories of strangers deserve a mention though.
The pirate "hugging a man in a suit" caused much amusement and was well "done" but none better than Mandy who makes the poor bloke look so uncomfortable:
Men in suits is one thing though. Babies is another. The "youngest pirate" category had many, manyfantasticentries but this one is my favourite - look at that mean pirate glare:
Man Overboard
Plenty of menwentoverboard but only Peter actually hit the water, kudos for that effort:
The End
Phew - well that was a mammoth post, for those still reading - thanks! I hope you can join us next year.
Thanks to all the Atlassian pirates for being good sports and participating!
Update - If you want to watch the full video of the day (8 mins) including all the hijinks from the mad rush at the start right through to finding treasure on a beach, it's on YouTube
Welcome to the October edition of the Atlassian newsletter!
This month we're getting closer to the highly anticipated launch of JIRA 2.5 (big news!) with the release of JIRA 2.5 BETA 2, we also have a JIRA customer case study with one of Australia's great success stories for you, some more tips for JIRA users, an update on our JIRA Partner Program and some of our charitable contributions and of course our blog of the month (is it yours?).
We hope you enjoy reading this, and we'd love any feedback you have.
Announcements
JIRA 2.5 beta 2 released!
JIRA 2.5 BETA 2 has been released in both Professional and Enterprise editions.
New features include: internationalised interface, customisable columns, issues can now be assigned at any time - assignment has been decoupled from the workflow, greatly improved field management, bulk editing has arrived!, configurable default assignee, developer workload report ,"Assign to me" shortcut.
JIRA ENTERPRISE users will also be happy as there's also a lot of good stuff for them, including: field layout schemes, component leads and project categories.
Stay tuned for the final release of JIRA 2.5 which will be coming out in early November! :)
If you haven't kept up with recent releases, why not take a look at what the new features are in 2.4, 2.3, 2.2 and 2.1.
The survey is your opportunity to give us feedback on all aspects of JIRA and play a major role in its future. It's your chance to share thoughts on JIRA's functionality, Atlassian's service, pricing and anything else we've done that you have loved or hated.
The survey will allow us to gain an insight into how you are using JIRA, and will play a big part in helping us to improve it in the future.
As our way of saying thanks, we're also giving participants the chance to win one of 4 x $50 Amazon gift vouchers! :)
It won't take more than a few minutes of your time, and we promise it won't hurt a bit. You can find the survey online here.
JIRA Partner Program
We've had some great success with 9 new partners coming on board since we last spoke to you. Our partners are working with us to increase the awareness and usage of JIRA in the marketplace as well as providing continual feedback to improve JIRA even more!
If you are or know someone who might be interested in finding out more about our partner program please let our sales team know by emailing our sales team.
JIRA Customer Case Study
Cochlear with Software Project Manager, Victor Rodrigues
The maker of the Australian-invented Nucleus cochlear implant system, Cochlear reached a global milestone in July 2003, delivering hearing technology to 50,000 people globally. An in-house team of 35 software developers in Sydney, Australia and at the Belgium based Cochlear Technology Centre Europe develop the software, code-named R126, which essentially configures the speech processor within the Nucleus implant to the needs of a recipient.
Victor Rodrigues finds the Road Map within JIRA indispensable when assessing the big picture. "I spend a lot of time managing workflow via the Road Map. JIRA is the only product that has such an advanced feature and it's fantastic - I wonder how I ever made do without it. From a productivity point of view, Cochlear claims to have met a return on investment many times over. Time spent on the code review process alone has been reduced by between 50 and 80 per cent.
If you think your organisation would make for a good JIRA case study please contact us.
Atlassian Open Source & Non-Profit Contributions
Since our last newsletter we've granted 21 JIRA open source or non-profit licenses to various organisations around the world as our way of giving something back. It all adds up!
Do you know a good Open Source or non-profit project that could benefit from JIRA? Let us know!
Tips of the Month
Tip #1 Add a filter to the dashboard
Tired of clicking around in 'Find Issues' to set up the same search you did yesterday? With dashboard portlets, you can now see the results of any search the moment you log in!
To set up a dashboard filter, first go to 'Find Issues' and search for issues you'd like to see. Then click 'Save as a filter' to save the search with a relevant name. Now click 'Home' to get to the dashboard, and click 'Configure your dashboard'. The portlets currently forming your dashboard will be shown. Click 'Add', select 'Saved Filter', and add your saved filter. From now on the search results will appear in a pane on your dashboard. Too easy!
Tip #2 Upgrade to 2.5 :)
Although JIRA 2.5 BETA 2 is already quite stable, if you haven't installed JIRA 2.5 BETA make sure you do upgrade to JIRA 2.5 when the final version is released and experience some major improvements :)
This month we feature one of the stalwarts of the Java blogging scene, Erik Thauvin and his blog, The Truth is out There.
The biggest thing that stands out about Erik's blog is the sheer volume of content he puts up. On any given day there can be between 20 and 50 links, all of excellent quality. This blog is truly a labour of love!
Erik's topics of choice range across all aspects of Java and J2EE, mobile devices, Apple, Open Source software and some general technology news for good measure.
If you only read one blog every day - make it Erik's. He can usually find the 'good stuff' better than anyone we know!
Recommended Reading
Some sites that might be of interest to readers:
FastCompany - Our favourite technology/business magazine - and one of the only magazines to survive the crash. Why? It has good solid content. The only magazine we read cover to cover every month.
Project Management Institute - Looking to learn more about the intricacies of project management? This is a great place to start.
Well that's it for now - we hope you enjoyed reading this, and we'd love any
Welcome to the August edition of the Atlassian newsletter!
This month we have some new JIRA announcements, an interview with Matt Tucker, the CTO of Jive Software, opensource.atlassian.com releases, JIRA tips, recommended reading sites and even a blog of the month.
New features include: graphical statistics portlets, Jelly support, configure field order, support for hidden fields and built in bug reporting. Fixes and improvements include an improved dashboard, improved MS Excel view, anonymous email support and much, much more.
You can see the full description of all new features and the full list of fixes and improvements here
If you haven't kept up with recent releases, why not take a look at what the new features are in 2.3, 2.2 and 2.1
JIRA Partner Program
We are making steps towards launching a new JIRA partner program for resellers, software consultants and system integrators.
If you are interested in finding out more about our partner program please let our sales team know by emailing sales@atlassian.com.
Customer Interview
Interview with Matt Tucker, CTO - Jive Software
As the first of a series of customer interviews, I had the pleasure of interviewing one of our favourite customers, Matt Tucker - the CTO of Jive Software about their company, their unique development process and how they use JIRA. Here is an excerpt:
ATLASSIAN: I see you've integrated JIRA with your website. How does that work? Was it hard to do?JIVE: Smack is an Open Source XMPP client library we develop. Most of our JIRA projects are internal only, but we wanted to make the Smack issues public. So, we used JIRA's RSS feature to display the latest issues on the Smack website (using the Open Symphony OSCache and transform taglibs). This is a great way to give users a snapshot of what's happening in the latest releases. We're planning to do further integration work in the near future, such as integrating the JIRA and Jive user and authentication systems, and creating a Jive Forums filter so that JIRA issues can be automatically linked with syntax such as [issue]forums-56[/issue].
We also released our new Open Source website this week, to help share components that we have released as Open Source.
Atlassian strongly believes in Open Source software and the benefits of it for business. We support and contribute to the Open Source community in a number of ways - from supplying our own code, to supporting other projects. Our staff write lots of Open Source code, both on their free time and on company time.
We also released two modules on the site, which you may want to look at:
Seraph - a J2EE web application security framework
Profiling - a run-time profiling library for enterprise Java applications
Tips of the Month
Tip #1 History Feature
Have you ever expended considerable effort searching for an issue, and wish you could get back to it later on without having to dig for it again? You will be pleased to know that you can get a convenient list of links to all the issues that you have viewed recently.
Tip #2 Shared Filters
Ever wished you could share a really useful filter (particularly project related ones) with colleagues without having to manually set it up for them? Now you can with the new "shared filters" feature in JIRA. All you need to do is to get an administrator to provide your group with global "Create Shared Filter" permissions. To share a filter, simply click on the "All" link in Issue Navigator, and then the "Share" link beside the filter you wish to share.
Tip #3 Dashboard Config
Is the default dashboard getting too big? Too many projects on the dashboard? As of JIRA 2.2, you can edit the default dashboard, as well as being able to edit your own individual dashboard.
For more information on these tips please refer to our documentation.
Each month we feature one notable Java weblog from javablogs.com in this section, and where better to start than the BileBlog ?
Love it or hate it, the Bile Blog has certainly made a name for itself in the last 3 months of publishing with it's acerbic, piercing style. Whether you agree with the points being made or not, it's amusing reading either way. He even managed to Bile JIRA at one point, so for that alone he gets our new 'Blog of the Month' award.
Our advice? Don't take it too seriously, just enjoy it for what it is.
http://www.javablogs.com - OK, so we built the site, and therefore we're biased, but javablogs is a great resource for java developers. More up to date than The Server Side and more relevant than javalobby - have a look today.
Well that's all for this month - we hope you enjoyed reading this, and we'd love any feedback you have.
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