Adopting the guidelines gives us common ground, a place to start and a foundation to begin planning from. I can think of many conversations with my colleague, Misty Klotz, where we were floundering and trying to decide what the best step forward is (ex. planning to mentor folks new to outreach such as community volunteers and scientists). Now we don't flounder in this conversations for long, we say 'let's start with the Guidelines - then we discuss which set makes the most sense for what we need to accomplish - and we are off and running! Using the Guidelines has made our collaboration and planning processes smoother! Now we are working to share them with our colleagues by being really transparent when they are in use. I think this is at the heart of 'adopting the Guidelines' - making it obvious when they are in use!!