One Mozilla story, we’ve come a long way

One of my obsessions has been telling the Mozilla story better. The most important elements of this story centre around topics like: ‘why we exist’ and ‘what we’re building’. Yet, we sometimes get caught up in ‘how we’re structured’ — which tends to confuse more than clarify.

We’ve come a long way on this front: we’re getting better at telling the world a simpler, more unified story about Mozilla. All around I hear people talking confidently about ‘Mozilla’ — the project and the community with a mission to create a better internet. And I see fewer public references to all the different pieces that make up Mozilla. This is important.

One core element of this is simply leading with the word ‘Mozilla’ rather than focusing on structure. It’s worth pausing to call out a few specific examples. You might not even have noticed them.

1. The marketing team came up with new ‘About Mozilla’ boilerplate text for the Firefox 3.5 launch:

Mozilla is a global community of people creating a better Internet. We build public benefit into the Internet by creating free, open source products and technologies that improve the online experience for people everywhere. We work in the open under the umbrella of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. Everything we create is a public asset available for others to use, adapt and improve.

This tells the big picture Mozilla and mission story well, and is a useful tool for any org, team or community within Mozilla. It doesn’t focus on which entity is doing the talking, which the old one did.

2. We’re now using the same business card logo and design across all parts of Mozilla. This may seem small — but it’s critical to remember that all of our small decisions add up to tell a bigger story. They’re important.

3. The main page of Mozilla.com no longer highlights Mozilla Corporation. It simply talks about our products (the main idea) and about ‘Mozilla’.

4. mozilla.org has was relaunched earlier this year with an even stronger focus on our mission and our community, and a clear framing of how our products fit into bigger commitment to building a better internet.

The bottom line in all of these examples: we should use a single, unified Mozilla brand across all of our public communication. While Mozilla is diverse and made up of many pieces, there is still one core story to tell about who we are and what our mission is.

Of course, none of this changes the fact that Mozilla is made up of distinct legal organizations performing distinct functions. This is part of who we are and it’s something we’re transparent about. We obviously need to spell out full organization names like Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation when talking about this aspect of who we are. It’s also necessary for certain functions tied to one org, like taking donations. But we shouldn’t tie communication about our mission and what we do to names that essentially describe our structure. If people want to understand this aspect of Mozilla, the best place to point them is the recently updated ‘organizations’ page on mozilla.org.

One last point: it’s amazing to see so much community creativity offered up to shape and improve how Mozilla’s story gets told. Any time I’ve asked for ideas on this topic, I’ve been deluged in the best possible way. I am truly grateful and astounded. David Boswell has offered to help to develop things like a style guide, slide templates and a sponsorship kit as a way to keep the ball rolling on some of the threads above. He’s also started a ‘list of one mozilla tweaks’. There is an open invitation for you to get involved. We need help make these things happen.

Drumbeat: turning a corner

Over the last two weeks, Drumbeat has been turning a corner — from open discussion about what’s possible to focused discussion on what to do first. A number of people have approached me to say: “great, but I am confused by what’s decided and what’s still changing.” This post is an attempt to clarify.

If you boil it down, the overall vision of Drumbeat is making sure the internet is still open, participatory 100 years from now. Big dream, but the right one. The basic framework we’ve been building around this vision is pretty fixed now:

• Mission: explain, protect and improve the internet as a public resource.
• Goals: drive awareness, ideas and action that create a better internet.
• Approach: website and local events gather people actively involved in creating a better internet. Annual Drumbeat Festival as major convening point.

We’ve been sharing this framework widely for a couple of months now. While some quibble on words, most people like it. This is basically the stable 0.1 Drumbeat framework. It’s not going to change much in the short term. I’ve indicated this on the Drumbeat wiki framework page.

During the last two weeks, Drumbeat discussions have focused on: what to do during Drumbeat year one? While there is more flux here, there are some things we know we want to do:

• Broad framing is around a ‘better internet’ — one that’s more open, participatory, decentralized generative.
• Main task = gather people who are — or want to be — doing things to build a better internet. This becomes nucleus for Drumbeat, allowing things to get much bigger in long term.
• Website and local events provide place for people to showcase ideas and get others involved in their projects. The most compelling ideas feed into the Drumbeat Festival.
• Drumbeat Festival is convening point for this group. People show their work and work together. Like a drum circle.
• Mozilla should help drive or even lead a few early projects. These help show what we mean by Drumbeat, attracting attention and people.

Up to here, the general plan is also reasonably solid. Not quite v0.1, but should be within a few weeks, at which point we’ll say ‘year one is rolling’. The elements most in flux are around the details inside this year one plan. Things like:

• Defining the outer boundaries of ‘better internet’, at least for now. We’ve tried to do that here by using examples.
• Developing a list of people and orgs already doing things to build a better internet. This list will help us populate the alpha Drumbeat website and make event invites.
• Deciding on small projects Mozilla should take on itself as first steps? They will be modest, but need to be compelling and have impact.
• Working out the specific approach and content for the Drumbeat web site and local events.

There is also a bit of continued discussion of basic terminology: better internet vs. open web vs. internet as public resource, etc. Personally, I think it’s time to set this aside. If we make any of these terms into household parlance, we’ll be a long way towards winning. And most people don’t see the distinctions we all do.

A number of people have asked: where they can help at this stage? What we need most is more names of people and orgs already working on better internet ideas, especially outside of North America. There is a page where you can add names to the wiki. Also, ideas and comments on the emerging website framework will help right now. There is a website sandbox page here. Of course, the best way to figure out how to help is to just jump into the Drumbeat discussion forum and introduce yourself.

PS. Sorry this is long winded. Based on comments from a number of quarters, I really needed to cover all this terrain in one post.

JetPack Learning: add-ons for better education

I am super excited to see Jet Pack for Learning launching today! It’s a mashup between two approaches: Mozilla Education (open source code as raw material for learning) and a Labs Design Challenge (open innovation to make the web better). The specific goal is to get people to write add-ons that demonstrate innovative ways to learn online.

You can find out how it all works on Frank Hecker’s blog and the Jetpack for Learning site. Here’s a quick overview:

We’re looking for designers, educators and software developers who want to turn their innovative ideas about learning online into working prototypes in the form of Firefox add-ons. We’ll help you refine your designs and teach you how to create Firefox add-ons using Jetpack and other Mozilla technologies. Participants creating the best prototypes will be invited to the Jetpack for Learning Design Camp and the SXSW Interactive conference in March 2010.

Part of my excitement about this is that it mixes something we’re already doing well with Mozilla Education (getting students involved in Mozilla) and something we’re just starting to think about with Drumbeat (engaging new kinds of people in the web innovation process). I suspect we will learn both learn a ton and produce some useful prototype online learning tools.

A big thanks goes out the MacArthur Foundation for backing this — they’ve been amazing in terms of sharing our vision of how the open web can become a rich learning environment. Also, hurrahs go out to Frank, Pascal and Phillip for getting J4L rolling and Sean for the amazing logo (above).

Drumbeat: what kind of people, ideas and action?

As I posted on Friday, Mozilla Drumbeat will take its first steps by seeking out people, ideas and actions that make the web better. In many cases, people, ideas and actions that few people have heard of before. This is something we’ll need a massive amount of help with (partly the point).

The obvious place to start is with examples that show what we’re looking for. With this in mind, we’ve created a grid that lists 10 ‘the web gets better when we …’ topics and then provides corresponding people / ideas / action examples. Here are three example clusters drawn from the grid:

1. The web gets better when we make the internet more accessible.

• People: Suvi Linden, communications minister who made broadband a human right in Finland.
• Ideas: Open source ‘village telco’ system for Africa, build from cheap commodity hardware.
• Action: Setting up a community WiFi network in 3 simple steps.
• Related: Digital divide, ubiquitous access, web a11y.

2. The web gets better when we give people more control over their data and identity online.

• People: Jennifer Stoddart, Cdn privacy czar who got Facebook to improve terms of service.
• Ideas: Simple set of icons that make it easy to understand terms of service offered by web sites.
• Actions: Sharing smart: 5 things you can do today to take control of your online data.
• Related: Weave+++, U-centric computing, people centric computing, privacy.

3. The web gets better when we tap into Internet DNA to create civic and value.

• People: Paul Biondoch, building open source tools for community health clinics.
• Ideas: P2PU -> people using the internet to teach and accredit each other without institutions
• Actions: Teaching like the internet: simple hacking and remix projects for your classroom.
• Related: Open -> education / government / healthcare / science / research.

Generating more examples — and then building stories and getting people involved with the most compelling people, ideas and actions — is something we need your help with. Soon, there will be a website for this (see: early notes and wireframe). But you can help right now by posting comments below or joining the Drumbeat discussion group.

Jump in and share: what people, ideas and actions do you know about that make the web better?

Ps. we also need a crisper ‘better internet’ definition. We’re working treating the material here and here as ‘good enough’ for now. But discussion and debate on this broad concept is definitely something that wants to be part of Drumbeat.

Mozilla Education: lots going on

I saw Dave Humphrey for the first time in a while last week. It was amazing to hear how much is going on with Mozilla Education, which was really just a single course at Seneca this time last year. Some highlights from what Dave told me:

• A Course on Mozilla Education and Technology started last week at the University of Evry in France, using the Seneca model and bringing 30+ students to Mozilla.

• Seneca’s own Mozilla course has kicked off for another semester, but this time with remote participation from students from around the world (via IRC etc.)

• The Madrid Mozilla Technology Course at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos is now wrapping up and we will see student projects soon.

• Another Mozilla course is soon to start up at the Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering in India.

• Approximately 20 students from Evry and Seneca are starting work on Processing for the Web, an initiative to complete and extend the processing.js data visualization framework.

The Processing for the Web is a particularly interesting example of what Mozilla Education can do. It represents technology development that is a) good for the web and b) really needs a push of people to help it move forward. Knowing that we had a predictable pool of new students coming this fall, Al MacDonald, Chris Blizzard, Dave Humphrey and Frank Hecker we’re able to map out a way forward — and then let the students roll.

My sense is that this kind of ’strategic opportunism’ will become common as we grow the number of schools and students involved in Mozilla Education.

Drumbeat: people, ideas, action = better web

After much discussion, we have made the decision to move ahead with Mozilla Drumbeat. The approach remains much as we’ve discussed all along — growing a community of people who explain, protect and improve the internet as a public resource. And doing this with a mix of online and on-the-ground efforts, plus a big Drumbeat Festival each year.

There will be two small (and positive) shifts as we move ahead: a broader ‘creating a better internet’ theme and a much stronger emphasis on community-sourcing to surface good ideas and interesting collaborators.

On the theme front, we want to create an umbrella that covers a number of specific internet issues: from access and open networks to open mobile and personal control over your data to open online content. The idea isn’t to be open ended, but rather to create a space where people can gather around the eight or ten topics that matter most right now. I’ll blog separately on this soon, but you can get the basic idea if you look at this grid.

Of course, ‘making the internet better’ is still a super high level concept. Our aim is to quickly identify concrete examples that show what we mean. Who’s doing cool stuff with open source to increase access in Africa? What ideas are on the table help people understand and control their online identities? How can everyday internet users get involved stopping online malware?

This is where the community and crowdsourcing come in. We want internet users around the world to propose ideas, nominate people and articulate actions that they believe make the internet better. This is what brings Drumbeat to life. The most compelling (and highly voted) people, ideas and action get highlighted, giving members of the Drumbeat community a chance to get involved and support specific initiatives. Also, the best people and ideas funnel into the Drumbeat Festival, which will happen mid-2010, hopefully in Istanbul or Amsterdam.

We’re using the ‘people, ideas and action for a better internet’ tagline as a quick way to describe this approach and theme. We should have a prototype web site up in less than a month as a way to further illustrate our thinking (and open the gates for proposals). We’re also going to move quickly on a number of smaller events to build up the local community side of Drumbeat. I’ll be blogging more over the coming week to outline early details on all this.

What is the open web? Two things, at least.

There have been bunch of Mozilla people asking the question ‘what is the open web?‘ of late. Atul, Jono and Mitchell all blogged about it a few weeks back. People at MozaCamp Europe drew pictures and wrote tag lines about it. Blizzard surveyed about it. Over 160+ people responded (snapshot in this wordle).

Looking back over all these materials in the last few days, I came to a realization: when you sort for broad patterns, people in the Mozilla world use ‘open web’ in two very different ways:

1. The first is to describe the open web as a set of technologies. It’s HTML, CSS, JavaScript and so on. The list of technologies grows over time, but all pass the test of being developed in the open, letting you create and innovate without asking permission. This is Atul’s ‘magic ink’.
2. The second broad category is open web as place or condition. This is Mitchell’s after market for car parts, or the ‘open web as cocktail party’ idea from MozCampEU. While it’s tied to certain values like transparency, hackability and decentralized control, it’s really about a ’state of the web’ that we aspire towards.

I’m not totally sure what this means yet. Maybe we should come up with a rigorous test of ‘what counts as an open web technology?’ (e.g a handful of criteria like ‘must based on an open spec or standard’). Or, maybe we should be using other terms (better internet? public resource?) to describe our aspirations.  Maybe both. Not sure. Food for thought.

PS. One thing we should do is engage more with others asking these questions, even if they are doing so in different ways.

Survey: supporting civic value on the internet?

Over the last few days, a number of people have floated the idea of supporting people using open source and the open web to bring civic value to the internet via Mozilla Drumbeat. There are more and more examples of people using the internet in this way. Open source healthcare. Open education. Open government data. And so on. The people doing this are blazing exciting trails, but surely also face many challenges.

An obvious question emerges: what concrete things could Mozilla and Drumbeat do to support people creating civic and social value on the web? (answer survey)

It could be that the answer relates back to other issues we’ve been talking about for Drumbeat: looking at the intersections between things like data / privacy / mobile and people working on things like open govt / healthcare / education / etc. Or, it could be different altogether, helping people tap into the ‘open model’ or tackling specific challenges like publicity or fundraising. And, of course, it could be that there is no role for Mozilla or Drumbeat here at all.

Before going any further with this idea, it would be helpful to hear what people think. I’ve asked the question above Rypple survey and have started a discussion thread. Answers in the next 24 hours are especially helpful.

If it turns out there are ways the Drumbeat could be useful in this area, we’d then need to move to the question: ‘is this a good fit for Mozilla?‘.

Drumbeat campaignstorm, and scenarios reboot.

Last weekend at MozCamp EU, we rebooted the Drumbeat scenario planning process and started a campaignstorm. The first cut at Drumbeat scenarios turned out to be too much cathedral (sketching a full year plan on a big theme) and not enough bazaar (rough scaffolding plus lots of campaign ideas). We changed this at MozCamp, getting 40+ people to brainstorm simple campaigns that they’d actually be interested in helping to run.

The results were good. We generated seven campaign ideas plus a rough overall Drumbeat audience analysis in an hour and a half. The ideas all used the same simple template — title, summary, goals, audience, activities. Here is an example:

Title: Who owns your picture?

Summary: Raise awareness around the terms of service and ownership of user-created content on the web, and advocate for more open and user-centric terms.

Goals

• Help people understand who actually owns the digital photographs they put online
• Create a networking effect between friends, families and open web groups
• Encourage sites to improve — and better explain — their terms of service

Audience

• Professional Photographers
• “Prosumer” photographers
• People who use Flickr to connect their families and friends
• (Also Facebook photo users?)

Activities

• Facebook Quiz or Application: Create a Facebook quiz asking if people understand the terms of service. Also, comparison of terms of service on different phot sites. The fun part is that most quizzes get access to a user’s friends list, entire photo collection, and photo collections of their friends. This could be used to demonstrate the user’s lack of ownership over their own digital content.
• iownthis tag. Get passionate users to tag their images with #iownthis as a way of expressing their desire to have more ownership over their own digital content. Put together websites to demonstrate how many people are interested, using graphs, photo streams, etc.

Generating many campaign ideas quickly was helpful in two ways: it channels general enthusiasm for Drumbeat into something specific and it gives us real material to test the thinking behind the Drumbeat framework. Also interesting, about 90% of the people in the room said they’d be interesting in actually working on the ideas they proposed in their campaign.

It would be good to get more people (like you!) brainstorming ideas and activities like the ones that came out of Prague. I have started a ‘campaignstorm’ thread in the Drumbeat discussion forum. Also, I am thinking about doing another small FTF campaignstorm in San Francisco or Mountain View next Tuesday. If you have ideas, please please please jump in on the wiki or in the discussion forum

Drumbeat notes #7: four good ideas

This is the seventh in a series of notes posts about Mozilla Drumbeat. This one lists out four notable ideas that have popped out of recent Drumbeat conversations. Still need to think about these more, and feed into the scenario process. But wanted to write some notes while fresh. Special thanks on these go to Atul Varma, Chris Messina and Chris Beard.

1. Build community around an ‘engagement ladder’.

People in the online campaigning world talk about engagement ladders — simple stuff / many people at the bottom (e.g. i <3 the web), bigger and deeper stuff for people w/ more passion and commitment further up (e.g. giving Mozilla talks at a local BarCamp). It’s been clear for a long time that Drumbeat needs something like this. However, conversations this week helped articulate a rough framework -> a) aware internet user (probably tied to Firefox brand); b) information seeker (connection to Mozilla brand); c) action taker (feels a sense of belonging to Mozilla community); d) organizer (brings others into community, creates campaigns and events).  This will be helpful w/ the scenario building process.

2. Start w/ a simple newsletter, be a friend and advisor.

The bottom of the engagement ladder could centre around something as simple as an e-newsletter. This would serve ‘information seekers’ by sharing ideas, tips and insights from more experienced Mozilla community members. For example, if Drumbeat year one focused on ‘the open web as platform’, the newsletter could highlight cool new demos or tips on using new open web features on your blog. Or, if we were focusing on things like identity and data, we could do a newsletter that is more focused on trend spotting and where the internet is headed. In either case, newsletters would also include invitations to get more deeply involved (graduating up the engagement ladder).

3. Visualize the web, show that it’s something we’re all building together.

The root ideas we want to communicate with Drumbeat can be pretty abstract. Products, demos and concrete action campaigns are one way past this. Another could be data visualization. Imagine we want to people to feel like they are a part of creating the web — that they are the web, and they are making it better and stewarding it simply by posting content. Visualizations giving a near real time picture of different kinds of content being added to the internet could help make this idea more real for people. Similarly, visualizations of things like number of HTML5 videos or sites using embedded fonts could help us watch the use of open web technologies grow.

4. Use ‘magic ink’ contests and games explain the open web.

Atul Varma recently posted about the open web as ‘magic ink’ — a set of technologies that lets us shape and transform the digital world around us. While the concept is compelling, it’s hard to really understand unless you’ve actually created something yourself on the web. As a way to give many more people this experience, Atul created a simple quest game / tutorial based on using Firebug to change a set of web pages. If they were a little more complex and fun, these kinds of games could be a really good ‘explaining the open web’ tool. Especially if we wanted to target people in high school who are curious about technology and are just deciding what technologies to play with.