Our Favorite Parts of Atlassian Team ’23

Atlassian Team ’23 was a REALLY exciting time for all of us here at Old Street. Coming hot on the heels of our acquisition by Tempo (literally, contracts were only signed days before Team) and the drama that ensued over the ad that shall not be named , it felt like we were the talk of the town.

So, here are our favorite parts of this buzzing week in Vegas!

The Bar Chart afterparty

Our Bar Chart BASH afterparty at the Rockhouse on Thursday was a massive success. We reached max capacity and even Chris Cooke had to queue for his own party. When Chris finally got in, he, Jacek Dębiec, and Andy Barker gave a speech telling the zero-to-hero origin story of Old Street, and how Custom Charts for Jira went from a color picker for Jira pie charts to a full-blown custom reporting app.

We also had some fabulous conversations with the Atlassian community who were fascinated by Custom Charts (and probably equally fascinated by the weirdos who make it).

Jacketgate

The marketing team back home got a hilariously garbled account of what happened to Morgan Folsom’s jacket on Sunday evening. Something about Andy Barker convincing Venetian staff he was Morgan’s husband and then loads of Old Streeters, partners, and customers taking photos in the jacket for funzies. The marketing team thought that people were either trying to marry Morgan or become Morgan. (You just never know with our lot.)

All that happened was that Morgan left her jacket in the bar accidentally and Andy tried to retrieve it for her. Only he didn’t know what the jacket looked like, and could’ve been anyone (hence the “I’m Morgan’s husband” line). He succeeded somehow (although it’s unclear how) and all the jacket-wearing at the end was to celebrate!

Women in Tech

Several of us went along to the awesome Women in Tech lunch on Wednesday. One of the panelists was Anu Bharadwaj, Atlassian President of Markets & Transformations, who spoke at Team ‘22 but wasn’t a president yet. So it was really neat to see that growth from last year and hear her stories about being in leadership as a woman. The tech industry is male-dominated, as is the conference, so we found it super-special to look around the room and see it packed out with female-identifying humans!

Becky’s a winner

At Gilley’s Saloon on Sunday evening, Andy bribed Becky Schwartz onto the stage to sing Journey’s 1978 classic Lights and she was amazing! On Monday she also gave a fabulously nerdy presentation at Seibert Media’s Partner Info Session about how Darth Vader could’ve prevented the second Death Star’s destruction if he’d had Jira and Custom Charts dashboards.

Then, right before leaving Vegas, Ben Mead gave her $20 to gamble with and she won $150 at Black Jack. Not bad. Becky was less successful when she and Marek rode the rodeo bull at Gilley’s and lasted approximately 0.5 seconds.

Sorry, this information booth is closed

The Atlassian booth next to ours had a ton of blank TV screens, no swag, and no staff. Andy mistook it for the Data Center information section . We kept an eye on it over the course of the three days, waiting for something to happen. It did not.

We love Alex Ortiz

Alex Ortiz, owner of the #1 Jira channel on YouTube, Apetech Tech Tutorials (who recently said some lovely things about our blog!), started working on our booth on the last day, giving people testimonials about Custom Charts. Andy sat back and watched in awe of someone doing a better job than him.

Worst best man speech ever

Chris misunderstood the purpose of Adaptavist’s Stand APP Night Special on Tuesday night and did a stand-up comedy routine that managed to offend absolutely everyone. I’m told you could hear a pin drop amid the awkwardness. Thankfully, Chris read the room, skipped the most offensive jokes, and jumped off stage before any fruit got thrown.

What rules can we break this year?

Our hugely popular swag chapsticks became the subject of some controversy after Andy said to James Hussey, “Follow me, I have a cool idea.” Then the two of them handed out chapsticks to people at the keynote exit. Chris was fully aware that this was against Atlassian’s rules because he’d read them this year, to check if there were any worth breaking. Once again, we were told off by Atlassian for our terrible behaviour, although, like the T-Rex last year, it got featured in Atlassian’s promo videos. Honestly, they can’t work out what to do with us.

New friends

We made some great new friends, partners, and customers at this year’s Team, and are looking forward to nurturing these relationships. Now that we are part of Tempo, Team ‘23 was our last solo effort for Atlassian’s flagship conference and expo, and we can’t wait to have Tempo’s backing for Team ‘24 (hope they know what they’re in for ).

What are your best/funniest/most embarrassing stories from Team ’23? Let us know in the comments or on our social channels!