Community Advisory Board Annual Report 2020

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The Community Advisory Board was founded in 2017 to give our Community Leaders a stronger voice on the internal Atlassian Community team. We wanted to share a bit about them and take a look back at what this group accomplished last year!

                                             

                                  The award given to all our CAB members! 

The CAB is made up of six Community Leaders, representing different community cohorts as listed below. CAB members serve for three 6-month terms, or 18 months total. Over the course of 2020, the following folks served on the CAB:

• @Jack Brickey: Online community, Atlassian Community Events

• @LarryBrock : Online community, Atlassian Solutions Partners

• @Matthias Gaiser _K15t_: Atlassian Marketplace Partners

• @Meg Holbrook : Online community

• @Jodi LeBlanc : Online community, Atlassian Community Events

• @Fabian A. Lopez (Community Leader - Argentina, Florida, California)  Online community, Atlassian Community Events

• @Steffen Opel _Utoolity_  Atlassian Marketplace Partners

• @Karan Verma : Atlassian Community Events

• @Russell J Zera _Philadelphia_ : Atlassian Community Events

We had 14 CAB meetings during the year, and attendees included representatives from the Community Management and Marketing team, Community Support, Community Experience (including our developers and designers), and our leadership team. Some notable moments:

• The CAB got sneak peeks of Summit in progress, and when in-person Summit was cancelled, they were also the first to hear about Operation Lemonade, where we transitioned our planned in-person Community Leader workshop into a weeklong online event.

• The CAB got regular updates on our efforts to improve site speed and performance of our online community platform 

• John Ville, Editorial Director at Atlassian, joined the CAB to talk about the Work Life blog and opportunities for Community Leaders to contribute

• The CAB members were able to have an open discussion with our Head of Global Community, Stephanie Grice, about the changes to our server, data center, and cloud offerings

• We got to see very important dogs Max and Scarlett, as well as Matthias’s also very important new baby

The CAB got to give input on many other community initiatives before they launched, sometimes in design or experiment form, including:

• The new navigation bar (launched in September)

• The redesign of Community Groups (launched in December) and the upcoming additional changes (coming soon)

• “I have the same question” on questions (coming soon)

• The design of “Atlassian recommended” answers (launched in August)

• Homepage feed redesign (coming soon)

• Community Leader Workshops (ongoing)

• The new tagging experience on Bevy (launched)

• Project Lotus, aka the Community Kudos pilot (launched to a small segment of community members and all Community Leaders)

The CAB also gave us valuable input on many topics, including:

• Improving the product feedback process (a broader Atlassian initiative in progress)

• Content curation and cleanup (in progress as a partnership between Community Marketing and Community Support)

• Updating and clarifying the marketplace partner guidelines (ongoing)

• An updated information architecture for the community (coming soon)

• The transition to virtual events, including input on Bevy virtual (ongoing)

• Our brand-new perks and rewards program for Leaders (launched on January 1)

Your CAB representatives as of January 2021 are:

• @Walter Buggenhout : Online community, Atlassian Solutions Partners

• @Kimberly Deal _Columbus ACE_ : Online community, Atlassian Community Events

• @Matthias Gaiser _K15t_: Atlassian Marketplace Partners

• @Brittany Joiner  Atlassian Community Events

• @Jodi LeBlanc : Online community, Atlassian Community Events

• @Karan Verma : Atlassian Community Events

If you would like to get in touch with a CAB representative, leave a comment below and we will get you connected. If you’re a Community Leader who is interested in joining the CAB or nominating a fellow leader, reach out to communitymanagers@atlassian.com. To learn more about the Community Leader program or to apply, visit this page.

We can’t wait to see what we accomplish together in 2021!

[Jimmy Seddon]

Thank you everyone for the extra effort to make things awesome!  You guys are amazing!

[Meg Holbrook]

It was a joy and an honor to work with everyone during my CAB tenure. Miss all of your faces but SO EXCITED to see the amazing things the community team has in store this year. 

[Brittany Joiner]

So excited for this!

[Kristján Geir Mathiesen]

Wow - cool stuff. I'm learning more and more about Atlassian. I didn't have a clue about the CAB. Thought it was just Change Advisory Board :)

[_Fabian A. Lopez]

My term as a member of the Atlassian Community Advisory Board reached an end. There are no words to describe the role as I should have to use too many, just enough to scratch the surface. The only thing that could summarize it is just "Thanks for the opportunity." It was a fantastic time spent with great professionals channeling other community members' requests and ideas.
A sad goodbye to the CAB group and renewed happiness receiving the new members: Walter Buggenhout (Online community, Atlassian Solutions Partners), Kimberly Deal (Online community, Atlassian Community Events) you will rock in this role!, Matthias Gaiser (Atlassian Marketplace Partners), Brittany Joiner and Karan Verma (Atlassian Community Events), Jodi LeBlanc (Online community, Atlassian Community Events).
Have success, be healthy, and see you soon! Congratulations!

To my colleagues: Jack Brickey, Larry Brock, Meg Holbrook, Stephen Opel, Russell J. Zera, A-CSM, CSPO, CM that are also completing their terms, Thanks for sharing your time and experience, it was a wonderful journey! Have a successful 2021+

[Fabian A. Lopez (Community Leader - Argentina, Florida, California)]

 It was a great experience and a lot of great meetings and fun!

[Daniel Eads]

It's been a great pleasure and honor to learn so much from CAB members past and present! Everyone has great ideas to share and has represented others in the Community really well. Taking time out of your busy lives to be on the advisory board in addition to all the other impacts you make across the Community online and offline - is inspiring. Thanks for the effort you've put in (and CAB members from years past too) to help guide the Community. Looking forward to all the insights in the future too from all the CAB rockstars yet to come 🎸

[Matthias Gaiser _K15t_]

I felt deeply honoured when I was asked to join the CAB - and I'm happy to be part of this group so that I can give something back to the community which I used for tons of advice in the last years.

While I'm usually more active in the online community, I really look forward to actually meet some people again in Atlassian events - may it be Team/Summit/an ACE. For me the community is not only talking about Atlassian topics, but about meeting people and see what problems they face, what struggles they've won and how we can learn & encourage each other - and, of course, also have fun together.

[Walter Buggenhout]

I can only relate to what everyone else here is saying. In exactly the same words as what Matthias has used above, I am honoured to join the group and really looking forward to the experience, in the same spirit of giving back and hoping to contribute in a meaningful way to this ecosystem I am calling home in a way for quite some years now.

[Sven Schatter _Lively Apps_]

Thanks to the 2020 CAB members for putting in your time and hard work! Also, congratulations to the new 2021 members!

[Brant Schroeder]

Thanks for all the hard work and effort that is put in behind the scenes to ensure that the Atlassian Community is a great place to get answers, inspiration, collaborate and get great information about their products.

[Monika Rani]

Thank you, everyone, for making Atlassian Community is an awesome place.

[Karan Verma]

So proud to be a part of Atlassian Community Advisory Board 💙 

[Darrell Montiero]

How do I become a member for this year?

Thanks