Sooo we did it !

We participated in Atlassian Summit 2018 in Barcelona last week! This was our debut in those international technological fairs (I think I can name the event this way). We can establish the beginning of our preparations at late May, so we already had 3 months of hard work behind. Our team created for this purpose 3 compatible with Jira platform addons. The tempo was crazy! Once again SolDevelo team members confirmed that time doesn’t matter, when you have great programming specialists around. During the Summit we did a lot of work, we gained a lot of experience, we participated in many events and what is the best- we have great memories!

Wanna know more? Let the Atlassian and Barcelona memories come out!

Coming to Barcelona

I will not bore you with the details of our our journey from Gdańsk airport to Barcelona thus let me go straight to the best part of our 1st day in Spain- Sunday’s afternoon, after checking-in at the hotel. First thing that we noticed was the climate- the weather felt like in July (in Poland) before the rain (heavy, still air, high temperature).

We explored Fira Barcelona before Summit (one of the most important trade fair institution in Europe). Just to be sure and not panic in the morning, because registration started at 7 am.

Of course, our superior goals, MUST BE or rather MUST EAT were places with local tapas (many types of appetizers) and spanish most popular wine- Sangria. We found them, but it wasn’t so easy. A place where we ate first was hidden between blocks in a square and as you can suppose – we came there by accident.

We ordered: Patatas Fritas (kind of chips with cheese sauce), Queso (consisting of grilled baguette topped with olive and rubbed with tomatoes), burgers and some kind of chicken for conservative people 🙂 Local beer isn’t much different in flavour, just mostly light. We also had the opportunity to try real Sangria – wine with fresh fruit, a little diluted with water. Great, fresh, light drink for such hot night!

Additionally we received olives – here we felt the difference. We aren’t big fans of olives, but those were great!

Atlassian Summit : Day 1

Early in the morning we had registration in Fira Barcelona. There were so many people from all over the world! We received Atlassian’s starter pack which included a backpack, a leash with your ID card and QR code, pins, t-shirts, kind of board game and voucher for refreshment water in an Atlassian plastic bottle and a Bash band.

Then we prepared our stand: spread brochures, took out gadgets, checked if the tv on the stand works properly and loaded demo videos regarding our products (which you can see on our website, marketplace or YouTube).

What was surprising? That was almost the end of Atlassian’s day 1!

This day was just for preparing for the next two days of the Summit… After setting up the stand we had a break till 5pm when the event was supposed to start. Thus, we took the opportunity and went exploring. We explored Barcelona as much as we could. Legs hurt, kilometers were walked, hundreds of photos taken, first souvenirs bought.

Additionally, I must admit that the Mediterranean Sea is soooo warm and clear! Perfect to swim, besides that beach is stony, so not very comfortable to walk through.

So we finally came back to the starting event.

The welcoming performance was very modern, surprising and spectacular! A mix of Spanish Flamenco and contemporary hip-hop dance (sometimes breakdance) induced chills!

It was also a great pleasure to see and listen to the Co-founder and Co-CEO of Atlassian : Scott Farquhar. He seemed like a very kind person and most importantly- very concrete and clever.

His speech officially opened Atlassian Summit 2018. His speech revolved around and how Atlassian’s mission is to empower teams around the world. He also talked about the Atlassian Foundation and the impact of their ‘Pledge 1%’ program.

There was also a guest speaker involved – Shane Snow – who talked about the importance of empathy and diversity in teams.

After that, we had free time to spend on getting to know each other: teams, companies, attendees, clients, vendors- everyone that had the great opportunity to be here!

And the last point from 1st day- Sangria! 🙂 That’s how first day ended.

Atlassian Summit: Day 2

We were ready for a challenge after yesterday’s evening- all day talking with stand visitors, interessants, a lot of new friends, improvement ideas, feedbacks regarding our products.

All suggestions were very significant! It was a “school of life” for our products and team members, who did the best to present our offer on the highest level.

In the meantime many sessions took place, also keynotes, trainings, workshops and other improving qualifications events. You can find more technical details and information- below.

We also explored many over-Summit activities such like billiards, foosball, relaxing on lazy bags…

But the most important was this year’s Summit keynote: TEAM. And they are right- TEAM is the key to success. This is basic point in every company, every project. If we don’t have integrated and cooperative teams, we won’t reach the success! Atlassian’s organizers presented the TEAM in many ways and mentioned it on every step emphasizing the great role of teams!

(TEAM from donuts)

(TEAM wall to write on)

Atlassian Summit: Day 3.

Unfortunately, the last day of Atlassian Summit in this great place (which should feel like work, but it didn’t) came relentlessly. This day was similar to the previous one, but had one point that we all were waiting for: THE BASH! But first things first…

After the conference day, after all of the Atlassian Summit events, we were invited to ‘Ship IT’. This was a kind of summary and prelude to the last part of the Summit.

Disco Joe introduced us to the amusing and comical world with overgrown things and unicorns! Quarterly, Atlassian gives employees 24 hours to work on anything that relates to their products, and deliver it during Ship IT.

We met 4 Atlassian teams that presented their innovative features for Atlassian and which competed with each other. At the end of Ship IT one team won, thanks to the vote of the viewers. After that we had to clean up our stand, take staff from booth and… prepare to Bash!

Bash is the Atlassian Summit’s official ending event. This time it took place in 3 clubs by the sea and Barcelona’s beach. Every club had its own atmosphere, food, and music compatible with clubs’ profiles. Each of them prepared music surprises: local guitar men, sexy saxophonist, glowing violinist, energizing drum guys. It was great fun!

Take a look!

Atlas Camp: Days 4 & 5

After a busy but wonderful time at the Atlassian Summit, the time has come to attend the Atlas Camp – the largest conference for Atlassian app developers. It was a great opportunity to enhance skills, learn about the latest trends and network with other developers. The SolDevelo team could not miss this chance and therefore our lead developers attended the Atlas Camp as well! The event took place at the beautiful Hotel Porta Fira.

The Atlas Camp started with a keynote of Atlassian’s platform CTO – Sri Viswanath. He began with a high-level overview of the agenda for this year’s Atlas Camp, announcing 42 sessions spread across those two days in three tracks – “The Atlassian Platform for Developers”, “Advanced Atlassian Development” and “Code and Beyond”.

If that wasn’t enough, Atlas Camp also brought Fire Pit discussions, that were small conferences where all attendees could talk and exchange knowledge about specific topics, including building, deploying and running apps, privacy, security and more. Finally, it was also possible to schedule one-on-ones with Atlassian experts to have an opportunity to talk face to face about development issues or running a business in the Atlassian Ecosystem.

The keynote was also a chance to hear about some exciting news from the Atlassian world! We got to know about the upcoming changes to the Marketplace, new Atlassian Partner structure and Top Vendor programme or Atlassian developer experience improvements! Atlassian has also revealed that they are in the process of acquiring OpsGenie, which is a platform for incident management.

In addition to that, a start of new Atlassian product was announced as well – Jira Ops. We were also happy to hear that Jira and Confluence cloud had increased the maximal number of supported users to 5000! The keynote sure brought a lot of exciting information to us.

After a great lunch at Porta Fira, it was a time for us to join the afternoon sessions. Several technical difficulties had delayed the start of some of them, but it was worth the wait! This year, not only the Atlassian team led the sessions, but also community guests and vendors were invited to give talks about their experiences.

It was awesome to be able to hear from them about some of their struggles, problems and the way they approached resolving them. Since many of those talks were happening simultaneously, the SolDevelo team spread to attend as many of those interesting ones as possible.

At the end of the first day of Atlas Camp, we also appeared at the Happy Hour to have a drink and chat with Atlassians and fellow developers!

We have used the time at the Atlassian Camp to maximum! We have attended many sessions led by Atlassian experts and other vendors. We got to hear about the new features of Atlassian Platform for developers. We listened to success stories told by vendors and how they respond to major incidents. We attended sessions on building fast and performant apps and also expanded our knowledge on user experience. Finally, we also participated in Fire Pit discussions. It was great to be a part of this and we look forward to using all that knowledge in practice now!

Why we took part in Atlassian Summit  and Atlas Camp 2018 in Barcelona?

This was our first time, so we could only read about it. Despite this, we wanted to try our team power, skills and preparation for presenting our products in real life. During the Atlassian Summit we also expected to hear keynotes with exclusive announcements and various product-specific presentations from high-ranking Atlassian employees, partners and customers. A large number of developers were to be there be there to present their Atlassian apps and solutions.

But the most valuable point was the individual discussions, exchange of ideas, and great networking opportunities – with other participants, with app developers representatives and of course with the Atlassian crew. That makes it worthwhile to attend the Atlassian’s Summit – it’s where you come across the most productive and useful insights.

Source of header image: https://www.atlassian.com/company/events/summit-europe