Year in Review: A Look Back at Mattermost in 2021
From hackathons and (our first) VR Mattercon, to major changes to the Mattermost platform — take a look back at some of the highlights from the Mattermost team and community in the past year.
For all intents and purposes, 2021 was a jam-packed year for Mattermost, our contributors, employees, customers, and extended community. We broke through the muck that was a challenging 2020, and shared in celebration as we delivered the first open source collaboration platform to feature messaging, project and workflow management all in one convenient suite.
But 2021 was about more than just our major platform 6.0 announcement in October. It also included countless community contributor milestones, a return to in-person events, a number of other enhancements to the core Mattermost platform, and a host of other highlights.
In the spirit of being reflective, and equally excited for 2022, I thought we could take a quick look back at 2021. Here is a quick rundown of some of our product, community and team contributions and achievements from the year.
Product Launches and Enhancements
On the heels of the launch of our Mattermost Cloud offering, and continued refinements to our messaging platform, we unveiled our first big milestone of the year with the long-awaited threading feature, Collapsed Reply Threads as part of the Mattermost update (5.37).
But, the biggest news of the year came in October, with the major announcement touting the launch of Mattermost 6.0 and our foray into project and workflow management. The platform announcement featured the unveiling of Channels, Playbooks, and Boards, now fully integrated into a new unified user experience.
Community and Company Events
2021 was a galvanizing year for the contributions and overall energy of our amazing community. To start, we hosted the first-ever VR MatterCon in May. This annual community event featured several exciting presentations on the future of Open Source and the Mattermost project.
In August, We also held our first Docathon — a hackathon dedicated to improving and expanding Mattermost product documentation and were overwhelmed by the outpouring of contributions from the community. We received 178 contributions during the event!
But then, to top it off, we participated in Hacktoberfest 2021 and offered newcomers and seasoned veterans multiple opportunities to get involved in our community.
Customer Success Stories
In addition to our dedicated contributor community, Mattermost customers also continued to help shape our product and vision with their innovation. In March, we learned about an exceptional story from a Mattermost customer, MedinCell. The case study, how MedinCell uses Mattermost for secure collaboration, explained how our platform helps their international team collaborate securely from around the globe.
We also talked to our friends at n8n on the Mattermost.com blog for a post about their ChatOps evolution with the assistance of Mattermost in helping to automate mundane tasks and help team members connect with each other.
And, we released our keystone case study with the Department of Defense: “Mattermost to modernize collaboration for the U.S. Department of Defense.” Mattermost on Platform One has enabled the Department of Defense to modernize and accelerate communication and collaboration at scale.
Other success stories include how Fairphone, a designer and developer of smartphones with a lower environmental impact, uses Mattermost to distribute immediate alerts via Nagios to the appropriate Channels to improve incident awareness and resolution. Crossover Health, a digital-first, integrated national medical group uses Mattermost for HIPAA compliant, intra-office communication to stay connected between office locations and deliver better patient care.
Best Practices for Developer Collaboration, Alignment and Productivity
And finally, on this very blog, we published some cool content, thanks to our amazing technical writing team, contributors, and product owners.
Some of our top blogs included: “6 ways to improve your team’s remote collaboration experience,” which documented how remote work requires a shift in process and practices, with a focus on setting boundaries, celebrating wins, and communicating asynchronously. Another popular blog series documented how “How We Use Mattermost to Build Mattermost”, and “How Mattermost Helps Us Solve Common Developer Productivity Challenges.”
And, our What Matters Podcast delivered several fun and insightful episodes over the course of the year, covering important topics like accessibility, safety, and career growth in technology.
Last but not least, Mattermost’s cornerstone content and research report dropped in December with the launch of Unblock Workflows: The Developer Productivity Guide. This new report featured exclusive survey results from over 300 developers who helped reveal key trends impacting the workflow management, productivity, and collaboration challenges of DevOps teams.
So what lies ahead?
2022 is set to be another milestone year for Mattermost. A peek at our roadmap shows our continued commitment to working together with you, and learning from you, to improve the collaboration experience of digital operations teams around the globe. Cheers!
