Teams | Collaboration | Customer Service | Project Management

May 2024

Product Roundup: What's new in Rocket.Chat 6.8

Accessibility is not just a mere add-on, but a defining facet of Rocket.Chat. In order to ensure no one is left behind in the digital dialogue, we’ve made our platform easier to use and more accessible in this latest version. We firmly believe that communication shouldn't discriminate; it should be made accessible to everyone, taking into account differing technical competencies and physical capabilities. As we move into the second quarter of the year, we keep up the pace.

What is content marketing? A complete guide

When brands produce great content, their audience keeps coming back for more. In this article, learn how to create a successful content marketing strategy that keeps your audience engaged. Content marketing isn’t just nice to have—it’s a necessity. Ninety percent of marketers incorporate content into their strategy, and that number is growing. Research projects that the content marketing industry will be worth $600 billion in 2024, a significant uptick from previous years.

How to find alignment on AI

AI’s starring role in workplace transformation is now undeniable. CEOs everywhere are asking senior leaders to create strategies for maximum AI impact, while frontline managers and their teams must navigate rolling out this new reality. AI feels like an imperative within all corners of the org chart. Eager to dig deeper, we turned to the latest research from Asana’s Work Innovation Lab, a think tank developing human-centered, cutting-edge research to help businesses evolve.

3 ways extrovert bias stifles innovation

In fast-paced workplaces, it’s easy to assume that the loudest, most outgoing voices always have the best ideas. This assumption, however, overlooks the dangers of extrovert bias — the subtle (and often unintentional) tendency to favor the contributions of more vocal team members over those with quieter personalities. Extrovert bias imperils innovation by creating missed opportunities for breakthroughs. This leads to homogeneous solutions and can drive away valuable talent.

Resetting the server-side key backup

The server-side key backup is an encrypted copy of your Matrix client’s message keys, securely stored on your Matrix homeserver. To ensure those keys can only ever be accessed by you, they are encrypted on your device, with a key that’s kept only on your devices and known as the backup key. In order to use your backup, you must have access to either.

How to get started with visual thinking: Diversify your brainstorm sessions with these visual thinking techniques

Unlike verbal or word-based thinking, which is sequential and linear, visual thinking uses imagery and spatial representation to organize information. For visual thinkers, this way of laying out information sparks creativity and imagination, as it helps them comprehend concepts, identify new patterns, and make connections.

Reasons Why Email Hosting is Essential for Your Business

Emails play an essential role in any company. They allow us to connect with people all around the world, promote our products and services, share vital information, and collaborate on projects. Regular email services, on the other hand, are notoriously unreliable and vulnerable to security breaches. This is why people and companies are always looking for safer and better solutions.

8 most secure government communication platforms

Clear and accessible government communication is key to building trust and transparency between the government and its citizens. It empowers citizens by keeping them informed about policies, initiatives, and decisions, fostering a more educated and engaged society. However, accomplishing these purposes on a large scale presents a major challenge regarding compliance, security, and interoperability.

Slack's Customer Success Podcast: Episode 4 - Internal Comms

Finally here, our fourth episode! For today’s episode we have Emily Zwecker, Senior Manager of Internal Comms here at Slack. In this episode Emily shares a lot of knowledge and some great tips, to help Internal Comms teams to work through Slack in a way that is more simple, more pleasant and more productive.

How I do it in Miro: Streamline your sprint planning with Rosanna Knottenbelt

While sprint planning tools aim to streamline the planning process and enhance collaboration, they can also introduce challenges. Some tools lack flexibility, forcing teams to adapt their practices to fit the tool rather than supporting their preferred way of working. A lack of customization options can also hinder the effectiveness of these tools, leading to outdated data, information silos, and the need for workarounds. The result is poorly defined plans and wasted time.

How to conduct a feasibility study: Templates and examples

Conducting a feasibility study is an important step in successful project management. By evaluating the viability of a proposed project, a feasibility study helps you identify potential challenges and opportunities, ensuring you make informed decisions. In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to conduct a feasibility study with practical templates and real-world examples, designed for project managers seeking to optimize their project planning process.

EU AI act: GenAI solutions that rely on trusted, internal data are key to compliance with new legislation

The EU parliament has approved its AI act, the world’s first recognized set of rules designed to regulate this technology. Under the act, AI solutions will be divided into risk categories, including an ‘unacceptable’ tier that will see models that pose systemic risk banned. The bill will come into force 12 months after it is made law and is subject to formal approval from ministers of EU member states.

How I do Sprint Planning in Miro

Watch Rosanna Knottenbelt, Product Lead at Miro walkthrough her sprint planning process with her team in Miro. Rosanna shares a holistic view from product roadmap to task estimation and valuable tips to make planning engaging, collaborative and efficient for your team. If you like Rosanna’s board, head over to Miroverse to try it out with instructions on how to use it from Rosanna. It’s free.

How to choose the best project management software

If your team has ever had trouble getting a project off the ground, or getting a timely status update, or getting work done by deadline, or all of the above, take heart. You’re not alone. Managing projects is hard work. Really hard. But it’s also critical work that can either make or break your team’s ability to hit goals. Enter project management software.

Effective Board Management in Miro: Sharing & Setting Permissions

Master the art of board management in Miro with our comprehensive guide on sharing and permissions! This video will take you through the essentials of managing access, controlling permissions, and sharing boards in Miro. Whether you're a team leader, a project manager, or a collaborative group member, these skills are crucial for maintaining control and security over your Miro boards.

Every human has two needs #mindset

Learn how to optimize your mindset with mindset coach Ben Crowe, who's worked with No.1 tennis champions, Olympic Gold medalists, champion surfers, record-breaking race car drivers, and execs from Nike. He chats with Atlassian's Dom Price about elite performance and the relationship between sports teams and business teams, "human being vs. human doing," and the ways we can tap into our mindset to find incremental improvements in how we see and relate to the world.

Collaborate on system design with UML diagram templates in Miro

If you’re a software engineer who uses Miro, you might know that Miro is a great tool for retrospectives, sprint planning, and other software development practices. But did you know you can also use Miro to build UML diagrams? In this post, we’ll share several ready-made UML diagramming templates that will inspire, save you time, and help you build the next big thing.

Innovation is...? What innovation means to product leaders today

What are three words that come to mind when you hear the word “innovation?” That’s exactly what we asked a dozen enterprise product leaders when conducting interviews with them earlier this year. Their answers — which included words like complexity, consumer, transformation, and fun — show just how unique and varied perspectives on innovation can be.

The Impact of Professional Communication in the Workplace

Did you know the importance of communication in the workplace? Communication is the strong element that holds teams together and allows businesses to function smoothly. Whether it's a quick chat with a colleague or a formal presentation with the whole team, the way we communicate can have a significant impact on our professional success and the overall work environment. Let's explore how effective communication can influence businesses, customers, and the well-being of employees.

Quality Assured: Your Guide to Earning and Excelling in the QA Profession

Quality assurance engineers use manual and automatic tools to test code architecture and ensure that the software's framework is reliable and functional as is and when scaled. QA experts are in demand, especially in certain industries like fintech, medicine, finance, and tech. In today's world, quality assurance has become an essential system and must be integrated with the wider software development framework. If you want to become a QA engineer, the first step is to create a QA tester career path.

Utilization rate: How to track, calculate, and boost performance

Utilization rate is the measure of available time used for billable work, expressed as a percentage. You can determine utilization rate by dividing a team member’s total number of billed hours by the total hours they have available. In this piece, we’ll explain how to calculate utilization rates and discuss ways to reduce work about work and improve these rates across your team.

Team '24 - highlights | Atlassian

Distributed teams, artificial intelligence, and work silos are just a few of the challenges organizations face. We think technology should make work easier, not harder, and that connected teams equal successful teams. Join founders Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, and President Anu Bharadwaj, to hear how Atlassian will power the future of teams to make the impossible, possible.

ESS 24.04 is the new LTS release

We're thrilled to announce the latest long-term support (LTS) release of Element Server Suite. This release represents a significant leap forward, especially for some of our larger customers who are using our previous LTS release of ESS which came out in October last year. This release focuses on enhanced reliability, new features, crucial bug fixes and improved security measures. Let's delve into the highlights brought to the table in this version.

What AI advancements mean for product development teams

By providing access to vast amounts of data and increasing computational power, AI and machine learning are changing how we work. In product development, this new technology is creating an opportunity for Agile teams to overcome the limitations of traditional processes and instead focus on more meaningful work.

Pros and Cons of Asynchronous Communication at Work

In today’s workplace, casually strolling over to a coworker’s desk for project discussions is becoming rare. Instead, real-time interactions are being replaced by asynchronous communication methods. Even in the office, colleagues are often occupied and prefer messages through chat platforms. This shift towards asynchronous communication allows remote employees to stay connected without missing critical discussions happening in the office.

Social media audit: Free template, checklists, and examples

Social media audits are an easy way to keep track of your social media accounts. Generally, it’s best to review your accounts quarterly; however, you can choose a frequency that best fits your company’s goals. Below, get the seven key steps to complete a social media audit, plus a free template to keep all of the information in one place. Social media is the place to market your business and reach your customers far and wide.

4 Confluence add-ons to take your team's collaboration to the next level

As a Confluence user, you know the power of collaboration. Sharing information, ideas, and projects creates a work environment where everyone can contribute to the greater whole. And more and more people are concerned with creating collaborative work environments. As the Harvard Business Review put it, “Collaboration is taking over the workplace.” We’ve built Confluence to be the place for your team’s work, documents, and ideas, so that everyone can be on the same page.

A picture is worth a thousand words: diagram add-ons for Confluence

Memos, post-its, endless meetings: these are a few of the ways you can slow down team productivity. You’re often much better off communicating ideas quickly and simply with diagrams. There are several great Confluence add-ons that help you easily create beautiful diagrams, including Confluence Diagramming by Creately, Gliffy, and Graphviz — that are intuitive, fast, and smart. They take care of creating and embedding simple, easy-to-use diagrams, so you can focus on what matters to you.

Unlocking Creativity in Miro: Your Ultimate Guide to Content Creation

Dive into the world of content creation with Miro and unleash your creative potential! This comprehensive tutorial is designed to guide you through the exciting process of developing, organizing, and visualizing content in Miro. Whether you're brainstorming ideas, planning projects, or crafting visual stories, this video will elevate your content creation process to new heights.

Want to master innovation? Start by validating ideas quickly with these tips from product wizard Ash Maurya

Ash Maurya is the acclaimed author of Running Lean and Scaling Lean. In 2009, a significant realization about the importance of developing products to meet real needs led him to the Lean Startup movement, which was pioneered by Eric Ries and Steve Blank. From there, Ash created several business modeling tools, including the Lean Canvas, Traction Roadmap, and Customer Forces Canvas. Today, his frameworks and methodologies are used by over a million people globally through his company, LEANSTACK.

Tips and best practices for showcasing employee benefits on your intranet

Well-being and work-life balance are top priorities for today’s workforce. A competitive employee benefits package is a must for retaining happy, healthy and productive workers. And you’ll need a seamless way to share those benefits — no matter how or where employees work.

Beyond Aesthetics: Understanding the Role of Functionality and Usability in Exceptional Website Design

In the realm of website design, aesthetics often steal the spotlight, with discussions revolving around visual appeal, color schemes, and typography. However, exceptional website design goes beyond mere aesthetics—it seamlessly integrates functionality and usability to create engaging and effective digital experiences for users. In this article, we delve into the critical role of functionality and usability in website design, exploring how they contribute to creating exceptional digital experiences.

How to Become a Miroverse Creator

Have you ever wondered who the Creators are that submit templates to the Miroverse and whether it’s difficult to become one? We’re here to answer these questions and prove that everyone can be a Creator. ​Reveal all your worries and concerns by chatting with the Submission Coordinators - Jamie Brit and Boris Aggev - who review dozens of templates every day!

Team '24 Founders' Keynote

Distributed teams, artificial intelligence, and work silos are just a few of the challenges organizations face. We think technology should make work easier, not harder, and that connected teams equal successful teams. Join founders Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, and President Anu Bharadwaj, to hear how Atlassian will power the future of teams to make the impossible, possible.

New in HEY! Improved Email Threads

We just revamped an essential part of HEY — working with long email threads. Before, clicking one entry expanded all of them, which was disorienting. Now you can take a peek into individual messages in a thread, and the rest stay in place. HEY now reliably detects previous replies and tucks them away until you need them. Previous content will be collapsed, making reading and replying easier.

Data Security in Database Services: Best Practices for Protecting Sensitive Information

In an age where facts breaches and cyber threats loom massive, safeguarding touchy statistics stored in database services is paramount for companies throughout all sectors. Whether it's purchaser records, economic information, or highbrow belongings, the outcomes of a statistics breach may be devastating, ranging from economic loss to irreparable damage to popularity.

Safeguard mission-critical work with Atlassian Guard | Atlassian

Guard your organization’s next big idea with Atlassian Guard – our most advanced security offering. Enable your teams to collaborate securely across Atlassian cloud products with proactive security controls, actionable detections, and suggested remediations to respond to threats before they become incidents.