Maybe you read it in December: Seibert Media has been around for a while. Since 1996, to be exact, which means that last year marked our 25-year anniversary. While the company started out small (not quite from a garage, but still) offering homepage building services. The company has steadily grown since then, and now, over 250 colleagues help other companies improve their corporate communication and collaboration. We always like to say that we're "standing on the shoulders of giants", and one of these giants is Atlassian. And Seibert Media is currently one of the largest Atlassian Partners in the world.
Once upon a time, in 2012, there was a Marketplace
In 2012, Atlassian opened the Atlassian Marketplace, where anyone with a great idea that helps companies extend the default functionality of any Atlassian product, like Jira or Confluence, could (and still can) offer their apps. When they first launched the Marketplace, only 60 apps were available, but nowadays, over 5,300 (!) can be found.
We're proud to have been on the Marketplace almost from the start: our first app, Linchpin User Profiles, has been available since October 30th, 2013, and together with some other Linchpin favorites, this app has recently made the move to Confluence Cloud as well!
As you can imagine, the Atlassian Marketplace has not stood still but has been continually expanded with interesting features. Several interesting initiatives were also introduced in the Marketplace, like the Bug Bounty Program that rewards people who find bugs in all of their software, including their own Marketplace apps and those of third-party vendors (like us!).
Anniversary and looking into the future
So the tender beginnings are now 10 years ago - an anniversary that must be celebrated properly! Atlassian is foregoing a lavish party and taking a more modest approach: First with a video tribute plus a new landing page, where customers can learn more about the Marketplace, get to know new apps, and receive impulses to advance collaboration in their own companies.
The coolest thing they're going to do, in our humble opinion, is that for every app installed on May 31st, Atlassian will donate $5 to Raspberri Pi to help usher in the next generation of developers. In a time when programming skills are becoming increasingly important, this is a valuable contribution to the future. By the way, we at Seibert Media offer courses at our Wiesbaden site for children and young people who want to learn to program, because we see it the same way Atlassian does.
On average, about 4000 apps are installed every day, so that means $20,000 would be generated to help students all over the world develop their passion for computers.
How can you help?
You may be thinking "OK, $20,000 is nice, but surely a bit more wouldn't hurt?" Well, then you can contribute very directly to making more money go to the Raspberry Pi Foundation. And it's easy to do! As an app provider on the Marketplace you can do the following:
- Share what you've learned in the past 10 years about teamwork. Publish a post in Community detailing which apps, tools and/or rituals have elevated the way your team works together since your company was founded.
Use the label "marketplaceturns10" so Atlassian can find your post and they'll share it with the rest of the Community! In early June, the tips and best practices will then be collected by Atlassian and published in a Community post and shared in their June newsletter. - Try to get customers to install your app on May 31st by any means necessary. If you would like to send them an email, Atlassian can provide an email template. If you use social media, there are also templates available for that. Just go to the templates page and copy the text and you're good to go! (You could also phone every single customer or send a carrier pigeon, but that would probably take a bit too much time.)
For some helpful assets and a downloadable pre-built campaign, search for "Marketplace 10th Anniversary" on the Partner Marketing Center. - Give a shout-out to the campaign! If you're planning to release any content, start your own campaigns or have any events planned, let people know about this campaign or add a link to Atlassian's special new landing page.
- Get creative! Email Maggie from Atlassian at mnorbyadams@atlassian.com if you have another brilliant idea - together we will find a way!
If you're not a vendor, but still think this is a great initiative and want to help, then of course there are things you can do. For example, you could let your customers who use Confluence know, and if they're already planning to start using an app, ask them to install it on Man 31st. The more people who know about it, the better!
And since every little helps, you could find some apps to install on that day yourself, too.
Need Some App Installation Inspiration?
If you're looking for some helpful apps to install, why not check out our long list of apps that are available on the Atlassian Marketplace? For example Blueprint Creator, Aura, Agile Hive, draw.io, Linchpin Intranet Suite, Version Planner, Properties, Language Manager, Navigation for Confluence Cloud, Linchpin User Profiles, Enterprise News, and, last but not least, Checklists for Jira Cloud.
Further Reading
- Now available for free on the Atlassian Marketplace - our new Cloud apps
- 7 Tools That Make Your Cloud Migration Easier
- Atlassian Cloud – The Future is Looking Up!
- All articles in our "Atlassian Cloud Mythbusting" series
- All published articles in our "5 Reasons" series
