How a Ways of Working Community Event hits different (and bigger!)

[#1]

TL;DR

• Last week we hosted one of the largest Atlassian Community Events in Sydney with 120+ attendees
• The content was focused on Ways of Working, with three (3) curated topics/speakers and an MC to ensure flow throughout the event
• With the help of some simple exercises and intentional topics, the audience was fully engaged throughout the event!

Last week the Sydney Atlassian Community held an event that hit a little different...

No tooling 

All ways of working 

Background

The Atlassian Ways of Working Team ( @Dominic Price @Sven Peters @Mark Cruth ) were getting together in Sydney for some Intentional Togetherness time and thought... 

Hey, we should do a Community event since we're all in one place!

Dom reached out to @Mark Higgins and a plan was hatched to host an event! 

The Event

We didn't want this to be just any community event. Tools have been top of mind with the Unleash Community Led Conferences happening around the globe, so we wanted to focus on something different. We crafted the agenda, secured the Atlassian Syndey office, and launched the event...before we knew it we had 200+ sign-ups and a growing waitlist.

People started arriving at 5:00 p.m. and at 5:30 p.m. things kicked off!

Starting the Show!

Dom Price

As our MC, Dom, set the tone at the beginning with his jokes and banter. The goal was to get the energy started in the room, so he had everyone participate in a "get to know each other" icebreaker exercise. In just 5 minutes, you could feel the level of energy in the room was different.

A Postcard From the Future

Dr. Ben Hamer

We wanted the first topic to inspire people to think broadly about what's possible in the future of work, so the amazing Dr. Ben Hamer kicked things off by sharing some of the latest (and amazing) advancements in technology we're seeing (think using AI to detect Parkinson's disease❤️) and how things like flying cars and mind control are not that far away in the future. Link to slides.

Story Telling & Compelling Communications

Louise Devine

Louise is a legend inside Atlassian as she leads up Founder Communications (you know, Mike and Scott 😉). She's an amazing storyteller so Dom called in a favor and asked if she could tell the audience about storytelling and how to harness it at work. The tips and tricks that Louise shared were AMAZING. We all learned not just what makes a good story, but how to apply storytelling in how we communicate day-to-day. Link to slides.

The Modern Work Manifesto (with exercises!)

Mark Cruth and Sven Peters

To wrap up the event (before networking time), Mark and Sven presented the Modern Work Manifesto - a set of 8 universal principles that will guide work in the 21st century. We talked briefly about the Modern Work Manifesto, then focused on having the audience talk about it. People broke up into groups of 4-5 to chat about which principle was their organization's superpower (what they are strong at) and which was their kryptonite (where they need help). After discussing, we then had them talk about how they could turn their kryptonite into a superpower. The room was alive with conversation! Link to slides.

Pizza, Networking, and Robots!?!

With the pizza ready and the group primed to keep the conversation going, we released everyone for food and networking! Along with networking, we also had a special guest join us...Abi the Robot 🤖 During SXSW Australia, Dom met Grace Brown, founder of a company called Andromeda that specializes in creating robots for social and mental support. Grace brought Abi, an amazing robot with a bubble-spraying hand that spends most of its days in Children's Hospitals and Nursing Homes...needless to say, Abi was a hit during networking time. 

AMAZING event, but what did we learn?

The last guest rolled out of the Atlassian Sydney office around 9:30 p.m. Afterward, we reflected (over a beer🍻) on what we learned from the event. A few things came to mind, which we wanted to pass along to provide a little inspiration for your next event 💡

1. Pull on your network for unique speakers. Bringing in people like Ben and Louise brought a new perspective normally not heard at an Atlassian Community Event. When asking people why they came to the event in Sydney, we realized it was because of them that we saw so many new faces that night. 
2. Use activities to create the energy when you need it. The usage of the icebreaker at the beginning to set the energy level, and then the interactive discussions around the Modern Work Manifesto at the end to enable a smooth transition into networking was critical. The activities weren't hard either...just a couple of questions and then us saying "find a neighbor and talk with them about the questions" - let the audience do the work for you 😉
3. Expand your audience by focusing on the human side of work. The Atlassian Community loves tooling, but the thing that really brings people together is the human side of work. Focusing a level higher than tooling...on problems and solutions...that brings an entirely new group of people to the conversation.

We had a blast and can't wait to do our next one...stay tuned! 😉🎉

[Tamanna Godara]

Thank you for recapping it! It sure was a huge hit!! Looking forward to hosting you again soon!

[Peter Van de Voorde]

Thanks for the recap @Mark Cruth !

It sounds like it was an amazing event, I'm already checking out the slides.

[Summer Hogan]

This sounds like an amazing event @Mark Cruth and thanks for sharing the slides for all the presentations! I found them all very interesting! 

[Andy Gladstone]

Finally getting to my backlog of reading and so many take-aways from here. I especially like the idea of finding unique speakers that are not necessarily going to talk about Atlassian products and practices, but general ways of working. I'm bringing this idea back to our local chapter leaders to consider for some of the planning later in 2024.

And, I need an Abi in my life too!

[Vronik]

I think that is the idea of events, to have an impact, to provide another perspective, to teach the audience cases, tips and see another way of doing things, or at least that should be the purpose.