(Press Release) Atlassian Empowers Companies to Tap Their Inner Genius

24 Hours to Deliver Change: Atlassian’s FedEx Day Campaign Challenges Companies to Jumpstart Innovation

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Atlassian, a leading provider of collaboration products for enterprise software development teams, today announced its “Atlassian FedEx Day” Campaign, an open call for companies to apply to win a 24-hour day of innovation hosted by Atlassian’s expert engineers.

Chronicled by author Dan Pink in his best-selling book, “Drive,” Atlassian’s FedEx Days have influenced companies from Ennova to Yahoo! to encourage employees to step out of their day-to-day mindset, think creatively about anything that relates to their business and then deliver a solution. FedEx Days are inspired by the FedEx Corporation’s commitment to “ship in a day.” Participants are given 24 hours to develop a working prototype that “scratches an itch,” innovates around an area related to their personal or team operations, or demonstrates something awesome and inspiring. The competition is fueled with Atlassian-sponsored pizza and beer and concludes with an edge-of-seat “show-and-tell” where employees vote for a winner. Along with company-wide recognition and personal bragging rights, the winner takes home a trophy and limited-edition t-shirt.

“With Atlassian FedEx Day, employee creativity and team spirit soar,” said Carol Ganz, director of business development for Six Feet Up, a developer of open source web applications. “FedEx Days are like playtime which is ironic because this is probably the 24 hours when we work the hardest.”

Started in 2005 with the goal of testing whether a bit of discretionary time would produce a significant pay-off, Atlassian has hosted one FedEx Day a quarter for the past six years. As a result, the company has created significant product features for its popular portfolio of software products including two extensions for Con?uence, its industry-standard enterprise content collaboration product.

“That one day of intense autonomy produces a whole array of software fixes that might never have existed,” explained Dan Pink.

Now Shipping…”FedEx Days”

Starting today, companies from around the world are invited to share their story detailing the problem they would like to solve and the reason they believe innovation has stalled in their organization. Participating companies are encouraged to provide text, video and photos to support their entry. Companies are invited to submit their reason for needing an Atlassian FedEx Day by December 21, 2011. The winning company will be announced in January 2012. Three Atlassian seasoned experts will be shipped to the winner’s offices to lead a 24-hour innovation day, document the event and provide pizza and beer (the fuel of innovation) for the participants.

“Atlassian FedEx Days are something we look forward to each and every quarter because it’s simply an incredible day of ideas, innovation and fun,” said Jay Simons, president of Atlassian. “It’s amazing to see what creativity people can produce overnight, and we’re excited to help kickstart that opportunity with other companies.”

ABOUT ATLASSIAN

Atlassian products help innovators everywhere plan, build and launch great software. More than 17,000 large and small organizations – including Citigroup, eBay, Netflix and Nike – use Atlassian’s issue tracking, collaboration and software-development products to work smarter and deliver quality results on time. Learn more at http://atlassian.com.

Contacts

Atlassian
Catherine Norman, 415-701-1110 ext. 2921