Mozilla in one sentence

Over the last few months, I’ve been suprised by the number of people I meet who don’t know that Mozilla is a) a public benefit organization that b) exists to promote and protect the open web. This has got me thinking more and more about the importance of messaging our mission. For Mozilla to succeed in the long run, we need everyone we touch to understand that we’re on very important (and cool) a mission, and that they’re invited to join in.

With this in mind, Paul Kim and I recently organized a Messaging Mozilla’s Mission brainstorm. We got about 25 people in a room and gave them this assignment:

Describe Mozilla and it’s mission in a simple and inspiring way. Keep it short. Stick to one sentence if you can.

Armed with sticky notes and a great deal of enthusiasm, the group came up with some wonderful statements. Rising to the top of the clapping-based popularity contest was:

The Internet is the greatest development of our lifetimes. Mozilla exists to foster the Internet such that all people are able to realize its full benefit. We are a people-driven movement to protect choice and freedom on the Web. Join us!

…. by Tristan, Mary and Patrick. There were a bunch more. Some of my other favorites included:

Mozilla is a global community of people having fun building a better Internet for each one of us.

Mozilla is a people driven, global organization committed to making your web experience awesome by building products that are safe and accessible to all.

Mozilla is here to make the Internet better. We believe the web should work for the world through openness, innovation and opportunity. Learn more about us at http://www.mozilla.org.

The idea wasn’t to develop a perfectly honed statement on the spot (although do we need one). Rather, our hope was to get people thinking about the very basic but incredibly important task of messaging Mozilla’s mission to everyone we touch. This is something we all need to take on together.

Of course, it is worth coming up with some tight, solid statements that we can all use. Paul, Melissa and I are going to be working on this in coming months. In the meantime (and as part of the process), I’d encourage others to step up to the Messaging Mozilla’s Mission Challenge. How would you describe Mozilla and it’s mission in a sentence or two?