Summit/Teams - You're (I was)/They're Doing it Wrong

[#1]

Tl;dr (by request):

• "Networking" reasons + tips on HOWTO.
• QR scanner in app=awesome.
• Sessions=not technical enough.
• Braindates=good, too short, loud nearby. 
• Maybe make our own technical user-run Summit like TrelloCon did?

(Sorry I didn't write this before teams. Maybe bookmark it for next year, eh?)

Almost all of the prior Summit and Teams I went to, I would find a spot in the back of of keynotes and sessions, half-pay attention, and RARELY there'd be something technical or interesting and maybe I'd ask a question or two, but generally it was just me on my laptop remote working all day.

Expos were strictly about getting swag although I would patiently listen to pitches so that I could get my thing.

I say I'm an introverted extrovert, but that's not quite right. I will absolutely talk your ear off and it's awfully annoying, I'm sure. But it's the "getting started" that I'm so intimidated by.

You cannot find a better place to get over that "I hate small talk" problem than at a conference like this.

1. The people you talk to are HOPEFULLY nerds like you or at least nerd-adjacent, so you will speak the same language
2. The small talk is _always_ (as I learned observing @Matt Doar), "So what do you use Atlassian for?" and we're off to the races.
3. Bonus points - people use Jira and Confluence for EVERYTHING. So you get to hear about of course the usual uses, but in places and businesses and industries and foundations and of course huge name-brand companies and a tiny mom-and-pop shop, but everybody there is using Atlassian and so you get to see the amazing breadth of opportunities for JOBS. And just of people. And like things people do. And well, I'm getting a little teary eyed thinking about it. Ah shit, have I drunk the Atlassian Kool-Aid? I think I'm just exhausted. My throat is certainly sore from talking more in the past 5 days than I probably talk in say, a month.

So, do I wish there were more technical sessions for me and the many, many, many admins, managers, users, and basically NOT the suits and fancy shoe wearers who are DOING THE WORK and DON'T have the money to hire a partner, consultant or "just buy this app"? ABSOfuckingLUTELY.

DO I begrudge Atlassian for prioritizing their shareholders by instead creating more revenue streams? Well, a little bit.

Do I think you can still have a good Team regardless? Yeah. See below.

Should we push Atlassian (and I have the smallest of levers as an "online" Community Leader, er, Champion) to help the people upon whose backs all this stuff actually _works_? Ah, yeah. LFG.

[Darryl Lee]

OH OH, and one of the points I originally wanted to make was, I really really liked the work @Lauren Wolf and team did to add the QR Code Scanner to the top of the main page so that not only were we just a potential lead to vendors and partners, WE could be making connections to people (without having to remember their names/read scribbling in a notebook/fumble around while both people figure out the LinkedIn thing).

Again, sorry, I should've posted this before Team, and hopefully this was covered in the session about making your Maximizing Team, but yeah. I don't think I understood the value of networking but TURNS OUT (in my old age I'm finding out) it's not just about salespeople finding customers (although trust me there is no shortage of that out there), but it's ALSO about finding people running into the same problems you are, and then being able to FIND them again.

And my brain is absolutely craptastic at doing that by itself, so again, kudos to the App team for their work on this. I'm actually going to connect a couple of different tolks I met separately who are WORKING on the same thing.

OH! And another thing - I did another Braindate, and I guess this is Atlassian throwing us a bone. "You want to talk about technical stuff? Fine talk about it here. With 6 people (AUGH). In sessions that get overlapped with a bunch of other stuff and drowned out by the nearby expo theater (really Atlassian?) and *SOMEBODY* covering Queen from their booth. (Thanks a lot Rob - I mean he sounded great, but _REALLY_?)

Maybe we need to take a page from @Brittany Joiner and @Daydreamer Mike and make our own conference, as they did with TrelloCon .

Maybe to make the point we should just call it Summit. Or Return of the Summit. Or Community Summit. Or Champion Summit.

Hrm, accepting suggestions. I should go take a nap now.

[Darryl Lee]

OOF, I keep missing the point. Yes. Braindates are awesome. But they're small. PUT THESE ON THE BIG STAGE.

I hosted a Braindate and it was awesome. Deep technical dives, people sharing excellent not even "hacks" but like production-ready implementations of using Assets in JSM for managing Jira and Confluence configurations with Automation and like how is this not a session already? Amirite @Paulo Ramalho and @Putri Nur Dayana Kamarudin ?

Like why are there not countless sessions about Automation?

I attended @Celina Kuziemko and @Josh Golosinskiy EXCELLENT and innovative "Jira Escape Room: Unlock with Automation" and we had so. much. fun.

[Howard Eberhart]

This is right on the money!  Thanks for writing, even if its after Team.  lol

[Dave Liao]

Next Team I'll explicitly focus on networking - intentions, yo! - maybe I'll pull a @Kit Friend @Kit Friend (I see two of them!) and try to collect everyone, Pokemon-style. 😆 

I swear the above isn't AI-generated!

[Darryl Lee]

But @Dave Liao don't you already know everyone? Everytime I hang out with you it certainly seems that way! 😆 

[Bryan Guffey]

• Maybe make our own technical user-run Summit like TrelloCon did?

Already on it, my friend. Stay tuned! 

Seriously, Atlassian has a user base that is too large for its own events to solve for all the different user personas. That doesn’t mean they’re doing it wrong, it simply means there’s opportunity. 

I’m in conversation with a bunch of partners to put together the first Atlassian AdminCon later this year! 

I’ll have a site up soon for folks to ensure they get all the information they need! 

[Darryl Lee]

@Bryan Guffey I dunno man. Call me pessimistic (HA), but...

I skim the descriptions of sessions in my handy-dandy spreadsheet view, and it's a very heavy on pitches for case studies about additional add-ons (oh I'm sorry, Apps), like: Compass, Focus, Align, Rovo (sure sure, free, but for how long), Jira Product Discovery, Guard Premium, Loom, or third-party add-ons (I'm sorry, Marketplace/Connected Apps).

Somebody who's better at data analysis (ohai @Dileep Bhat) can have a go at coming up with exact numbers:

• Team 25 Sessions - UNOFFICIAL (see Notes tab) 

My point being - this week, I met tons of folks in the same boat as me. We continue to pay for the privilege (or spend many hours volunteering as Community Leaders Champions) to come to a conference that yes, has amazing networking opportunities, but less and less of the nitty gritty sessions that will help you get your day-to-day job done.

That's probably why something practical like @Alex Ortiz 's "Jira Plans (Advanced Roadmaps) for Project Management" sold out. Why the Forge trainings (a bargain at $50!) @Caterina Curti's team's "Intermediate Forge Development" was also packed!

Atlassian only has one Summit Teams and yeah it's hard to be "all things to all people", but if "all people" means "people that we want to sell stuff to", well, I dunno man.

I love that you're talking to Partners. But partners need to make money too, and the way they do that is getting hired. So I guess yes, MAYBE they'd willing to share some of the secrets of how they do what they do (proprietary migration scripts? custom Automations their clients hire them to configure); or pay everyday people who want to talk about that. But how is that in their best interest of getting paid to do that? Again, color me skeptical.

But I'd be stoked to be proven wrong. AdminCon sounds amazing. But I can't help but think we'd need to do it ourselves. And ugh, some of us have day jobs.

[Bryan Guffey]

@Darryl Lee -

every migration script I have in my toolkit was a gift from a partner. 

nearly every partner I’ve worked with is staffed with people who were originally admins inside companies.

Either way, the purpose of Marketplace Partners (who are the people I’m talking to) is to sell their apps, and you don’t sell apps without getting past admins. I have been an admin for most of my life and I make it clear to anyone I know that if you want to sell your app, you better make it worthwhile to the admin, whose job is ultimately to deliver value to their end users.

Nearly every Marketplace partner I’ve talked to is thrilled about AdminCon and before you get confused, *I’m* running the thing, not the partners. The reason they want to be involved is because many of them make tools for admins or they recognize the unique value admins bring to every organization.

i mean, I’m literally the person who wrote a rant on LinkedIn about how admins should be paid way more because the average Atlassian admin is an admin, business analyst, project manager, program manager, developer, system engineer, and architect rolled into one. 

But let’s face it: the person who decides to purchase Jira or Confluence isn’t the admin anymore - it’s a business user, and that’s normal. In fact, there will always be more business users than admins or technical folks using Atlassian products for the rest of time, this is how it works when companies get larger and have a larger market to sell to and larger customers with more complex commitments. 

I’ve been in the Atlassian ecosystem since 2007. My first Summit was 2010. I was an original AUG leader. I’ve seen it all. And while you might not like the way things are changing, it would also be pretty unfair to 3500 of the 5000 attendees of Team if the majority of the sessions were highly technical when they aren’t.

The purpose of Atlassian tools have always been to get work done, and let the tools fade into the background. We admins aren’t the focus of these products or the conferences, nor should we be, IMO. The purpose of our jobs is to remove any friction we can from our users, and their job is to use the tools to get the work of the business done. Maybe it’s because I’ve been in the business of empowering users since day one in IT (started off in an IT help desk) but two things are always true in my opinion:

1) Everyone says they don’t have money to buy an app or hire a partner

2) Suddenly they have that money when the right person in the business decides it’s a priority. 

Companies never want to spend money, but it’s rarely because they don’t have it (I know where you work; Roku’s ad revenue is *quite* good), it’s because they’ve decided they can force IT to do more with less. That doesn’t change the fact that users don’t care whether it’s a fancy script or an app that solves their problem - they just want it solved so they can finish their brief or do their forecast or whatever. 

Our whole job has always been to squeeze water from stone and achieve leverage unheard of in order to justify our paychecks. It’s annoying, but it’s definitely IT. 

Atlassian’s major conferences will never be that, but 95% of partners out there are small, scrappy, and trying to also squeeze water from a stone, so they know what it takes, and that’s why AdminCon will happen and be successful! 

[Bryan Guffey]

I should just say that your passion is what I appreciate about you @Darryl Lee - I learn so much from you! And if I could have my way, would we have an ENTIRE technical track for deeply technical and nerdy stuff? HELL YES. I’m the weirdo hacking together solutions to problems right there with you. 

But I wouldn’t give up the business sessions. Those show real people how real problems of coordination, communication, and collaboration have been solved using Atlassian tools in order to unlock value for a business’ customers, which is the only reason any of our companies has the money to pay us! Maybe it’s because I’ve had the experience of leading a midsize nonprofit with a significantly large and annoyingly invested membership and having to balance this exact issue (on a much, much, MUCH smaller scale) that I’m a bit more empathetic to what Atlassian is doing and needs to do. 

but that’s why we build our own stuff, too!!!

[Kit Friend]

Next Team I'll explicitly focus on networking - intentions, yo! - maybe I'll pull a @Kit Friend @Kit Friend (I see two of them!) and try to collect everyone, Pokemon-style. 😆 

It started as a bit of a joke but I actually found my quest to 'catch them all' was a fun way to say hello to people 😂 - I loved the camaraderie from @Dave Liao @John Funk @Amanda Barber and others. 

I really really liked the work @Lauren Wolf and team did to add the QR Code Scanner to the top of  main page

I also really like the QR code scanner in app, though one key request I'd have is to rejig things so you can just scan using the native camera app and then launch the contact app. I saw LOADS of people get confused why scanning the passes with their native camera app seemed to generate a weird phone number. If this is impossible, I would workaround for now by having a little "Scan with your Team App" icon on the passes for the next outing. 10/10 for enabling you to keep an easy record of who you met though... maybe v3 could include prompting you to add a Loom with a note of how you connected? 😝

...and on the multiple identities... I smell a bug, maybe from the new profile merging? There seems to be about 4 of everyone 😂 

[Dave Liao]

I have a ticket open to merge my identities! And I forgot about that one errant ID... 👀 

I won't say which is errant.

[Kit Friend]

+1 for the concept of a "technical track" at Team @Darryl Lee

Personally, I really like the vibe of Team and this was my best ever - both from a personal, community, and work lens as a partner (I've really struggled to have quality 'client leads' in any quantity from previous Teams - but had loads this time. This is really key for me because I have to be able to display ROI on attending and it's a fair ask of my company tbh). I'd love for those looking for deeper technical sessions to be served well, but then keep us all together for the keynotes, bash, community etc though - as our world expands and attendance attracts a broader audience we shouldn't lose touch with the stalwarts that made our community what it is. 

I had my first brain date ever, with @Chris Cooke and really really enjoyed it - I actually liked the 5-6 people vibe for how different it was vs a larger session, but I'd pick different topics to explore in each. It was a bit like the sort of chat you'd have a (awesomely geeky) bar after the day, but with the added benefit of people being guided towards it. Have 2-3 across the event will be on my to-do list for my next Team. 

[Darryl Lee]

I am, in fact, my own worst editor, or rather, man, I need an editor. Here's I hope a "boiling down" of kind of what went on up there. WHEW. 

In my buzzing, frazzled, exhausted state after I had literally just gotten off the plane from Team, I started out wanting to share how I was actually really excited about and proud of how much "networking" I had done at the conference, since historically that has not been my thing.

I met so many new people (in addition to all of the Community Leaders that I've gotten to know through past Teams as well as our Slack), that had so many different backgrounds - companies big and small, countries near and far, etc. 

I wanted to recognize how this was thanks to improvements in the app (@Lauren Wolf), years of observing mentors like @Matt Doar, and I guess just getting older, and getting over myself.

And that this is a HUGE part of what made and makes Team so worthwhile. The people.

But I then started thinking about so many of the conversations that I did had, including during the excellent Braindates, like my own "What's your favorite Jira or Confluence Hack? Workarounds/Unofficial APIs - let's hear it!", as well as the "Jira Escape Room: Unlock with Automation" from https://gryd.io/

And I couldn't help but think about Summits of yore, where not only were there more technical talks, but also PM-centric stuff like like @Alex Ortiz 's "Jira Plans (Advanced Roadmaps) for Project Management", and really so many sessions now read more like sales pitches.

And so that's where I went down the rabbit hole of "Make Summit Technical Again", which is something that's been kicking around in my head for years. And I wanted to give props to @Brittany Joiner and @Dreamsuite Mike creating their own conference with TrelloCon. And yes @Bryan Guffey AdminCon sounds amazing, or as @Kit Friend suggests a Technical Track.

If you already figured out what my brain did here, then props to you. If not, hopefully this gives you a better picture.

Some extra reading, because I always have extra reading:

Man, check out these sessions from 2014: Summit 2014 agenda - Sessions and training and beer, oh my!

[John Funk]

@Darryl Lee  - Alright dude, let's make this happen. Not sure how we get space to host something - maybe we call it an ACE event and get Atlassian to cover the cost of room rental? Or piggyback off a partner like Revyz how rents out a room for a couple of days but doesn't completely fill the time? 

But I am looking at technical talks at beginner, medium, and advanced Administrator. What apps do I use as an Admin and why? Top 10 Automation rules, with links to a website (other than the playground) with full examples and details, etc. 

Call it Atlassian Admin Summit - just Admin Summit if we have to place the copyright rule. 

Who else is in - no fence sitters - you have to be committed BEFORE adding your name.