💫A Community where nobody is left behind: My adventure as a Community Champion
Hello, my name is María Ferreño and I would like to share a little story with you 😇
I have known the Atlassian ecosystem since 2016. The tech company I worked for used Jira and Confluence as the Roadmap to guide the entire organization, from the idea, design, product development, HR, marketing, customer support… And yes, from that moment I was clear that I didn't want to organize projects with an Excel sheet anymore, ot have to create documents that no one would update, and to not have a real visibility of what my team was working on 😇 That's why, in every place I worked afterward, I made sure to be annoying enough for everyone to use Atlassian, not because I was a big fan, but because I truly believed in how much it could help us all.
In 2021, things got serious when I joined TecnoFor, the first Atlassian Solution Partner I met. Everything I had learned by my own, through YouTube videos, Atlassian University courses, and watching other colleagues, finally made much more sense. From the first minute, my team took it upon themselves to teach me everything I hadn't discovered yet and to guide me in an ecosystem that was growing at a high speed 😅 And for me, who always liked the idea of "sharing is living," I started to share it as much as I could: in training sessions, internal talks, LinkedIn posts, articles in our knowledge base, in the corporate blog… because the more you share, the more you receive and learn.
By that point, I already knew the Atlassian community, but the truth is I only entered to consult and read what others had posted. I didn't consider that I had enough knowledge to answer the questions others were asking or to add my opinion to any of the threads created to help improve some features 😥. The same went for in person events: it's hard to see your place when people have known each other for years, the speakers have been giving talks for half their lives, and they have already lived through hundreds of different projects. But in 2022, I was also invited to collaborate in some meetups and events where I had a chance to share my vision, my experience, and my reality.
In 2023, I had the opportunity to attend an in person event organized by Atlassian for the first time, the High Velocity ITSM in Barcelona. And yes, in an in person event is where you really feel what it is to be part of the Atlassian Community 💙. At the end of the year, my colleague @Estrella Lendínez forwarded me an email. Hey, there's a program called Atlassian Creators that I think is for you. A program by Atlassian designed for content creators who share their knowledge and spread news about Atlassian in the ecosystem. And the adventure began 🚀
The community of the community was created, where @Loren Siegel took care of supporting us, guiding us, bringing us together, giving us resources, support, ideas (also many surprises 🎁), and making sure that a group of about 50 people, had a shared connection and a common dream despite being spread out all over the world.
I thought I knew the Atlassian community, but I didn't know even 20% of everything that really happens inside. I discovered the Slack channels, virtual coffees, leaders who give training, those who organize events, those who get together to run, those who drive social projects… and then I started to live the community in a very different way 🌻
In 2024, at Team in Las Vegas, the Atlassian Creators finally met each other (or almost all) in person. I recommend not skipping the experience of living a Team 💫 Because despite being "the new" among people who had been in the Atlassian community for over 5 years or more, everyone is super welcoming, there's always someone who stops to talk to you and show you a bit of the way, who "translates" all that you still don't understand and makes you feel part of the team, as if you've been there your whole life.
The Creators soon integrated with the rest of the Atlassian Community, although we didn't organize events like other Community leaders, we moved our own community through content, training, and the conversations we generated. But at Atlassian, every year is a new adventure, and in 2025, it was time to transition to Community Champions, which includes Champions who organize events, others who create content, and even profiles who are Champions in their own company, who are one step ahead, paving the way and always willing to lend a hand to others 🏗️
And yes, that's what the Atlassian community is about, and believe me, when you live it from the inside, the experience is even more intense. But for me, in particular, the experience is even more satisfying because I share it with a lot of women who inspire me every day 🥰
Being the only woman in a meeting, at a round table, on an event agenda, on a stage… no, sometimes it's not easy, and sometimes you feel like it's not your place. But when that happens, you open the Slack channel for Champions, you see all the intellingent women promoting initiatives, who have received awards, who are reacting to what you say, who share the information you need… and then everything changes a bit 😇If you also go to a Team with more than 4000 attendees and the opening keynote is given by Dr. Fei-Fei Li and Zanny Minton Beddoes, talking about AI adoption… then this adventure gets a lot more interesting.
So if you're thinking about it and needed a push, I hope this is it. Because in this community, nobody is left behind 💞
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María Ferreño Serra
About this author
Atlassian SME
TecnoFor
Coruña, Spain
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