That Was The Week That Was
Actually, two weeks owing to being laid low by both a persistent cold and toothache - not an ideal combination.

Confluence Calling JIRA
For those of you who don't know, JIRA is Atlassian's bug/development-tracking software. At the moment they are two seperate entities, but as of JIRA V5, we'll be able to link them. As I've only just started using JIRA, I'm not sure what all the advantageous will be, but the connectivity will definitley mean sharing information, which should benefit us technical writers. I assuming that we will be able to port data from JIRA into Confluence (and vice versa) which means we should have easy access to information that we can use as background materials and/or the basis of our writing.

If you're using both, you'll also be able to raise a JIRA issue straight from Confluence, which will speed up the process as you won't have to swap between programmes. Nice. It's this sort of thing that really sells Atlassian products to me, and it's something that a lot of other software houses could learn from. 

Although we're only trialling JIRA at the moment, I'm really looking forward to using it: I'm sure that joining the systems will benefit our documentation by opening up all sorts of information that wouldn't have been available to us in the past.

Why Atlassian is to Software as Apple is to Design
I've stolen this headline from an excellent article on Atlassian from the Forbes website. The article, written by Mark Fidelman, draws parallels with Atlassian's success with that other runaway phenomenon, Apple. As comparisons go, this is a pretty good achievement for a company that's only been in existance for ten years.

I think this is an excellent article for a number of reasons, one of these is the way it highlights the Atlassian attitude and mindset of nurturing both clients and staff. To quote the artcle:

"In business and in life, success breeds extraordinary performance and extraordinary performance breeds more success. Nothing demonstrates that more than Atlassian’s culture. With a 100% Glassdoor ranking, Co-CEOs Scott Farquh and Mike Cannon Brooks, have created an organizational culture that nurtures employees, customers and suppliers. And it’s paid off."

Personally speaking, having spent the last 38 years working for a wide variety of businesses, I think most of them would be transformed overnight if they adopted Atassian's methodology. Sadly, too many have little regard for their employees. In fact if they spent as much time nurturing their staff as they do looking after share-holders, they'd be surprised at how much motivation and production would rise. 

Unfortunately many workers feel disenfranchised and have little sense of ownership. It's amazing how little it would take to change this for the better.

What's this got to do with using Confluence I hear you ask? Everything. I love using Confluence because of the the thought and care Atlassian put into their software. And one of the  main reasons Confluence is so good, is because the people who put it together give a damn. And they give a damn because they know Atlassian gives a damn about them.
Cheers.
5/13/2012 07:12:51 am

Hi Mick,

You may be interested in http://idratherbewriting.com/2012/01/18/using-jira-to-track-writing-assignments/ re: JIRA. It details how someone uses JIRA to track progress of writing tasks.

Andrew.

Reply
mick
5/13/2012 07:23:12 am

Andrew,
Congratulations, you are the fastest draw on the internet. :) Actually, that is exactly what I want to do. And how is it that you are always know this stuff?
Thanks, I really appreciate your help (as usual/again/ad infinitum...)

Reply
5/13/2012 07:17:59 am

Thanks for the quick mention Mick. Atlassian has a great culture that works for them. They've quietly obtained a groundswell of support from their customers because in your words "they care".

Sent via mobile

Reply
mick
5/13/2012 07:24:40 am

Mark,
Thanks for your reply. It's not rocket science is it? :)
Cheers.

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