7 Lessons from MozillaGNUnifyFeb. 2012PuneGen Kanai

Mozilla IndiaCommunity Meeting

Sunday, Feb. 12Pune (see me for details)

Seven InsightsTwo Problems & Some Thoughts

Hello.

Gen KanaiMozilla

Dir. Community Engagement, Asia

Caution: Your results may vary

ContextSome

Mozilla is…

FOX Business (2009)

FOX Business (2011)

PromoteChoice and Innovation

on the Internet

Mission

Seriously.

That’s it.

The Web istoo important!

Factoids

• Mozilla project started in 1998 within Netscape• Mozilla Foundation started in 2003• approximately 600 paid staff in 20 countries

• ~40% of code contributed by volunteers• Testing community of 60,000+

• More than 400 million users• Global browser market share 25~30%

Seven Insights

1 2 3 45 6 7

Superior ProductsMatter

Withoutexcellent experience & utility,

the rest is meaningless

1 2 3 45 6 7

Push (most) Decision Making to the Edges

Build Dee Hock’s Chaords

Characteristics of Chaords

1. exhibit characteristics of both chaos & order

2. regularly yield surprising innovation

3. highly robust & scalable systems

(examples include the Internet itself, Wikipedia, Visa)

1. Distributed Decision-Making

2. Nodal Authority

3. Ways to Route Around

1. high agreement on core values

2. decision-making rests with module owners

3. groups have distinct ways of working

4. many decision-makers outside the “official” org

5. communication is central

Mozilla is a Chaord

1 2 3 45 6 7

Communication will happenin every possible way

* so make sure it’s reusable

People will communicate inevery useful way possible

Wikis

Blogs

Twitter

Our main channels: Bugzilla, IRC & newsgroups

More: Video, Audio, Chat (and Robots)

1 2 3 45 6 7

Make it easy for yourCommunity to do the

Important Things

QMO

SuMo

Twitter

Firefox ships in 82 languages;81 of them localized by volunteers

Making it easy is a huge priority

All Things D

Our focus now (increasingly) is onmaking it easier to help others do more

1 2 3 45 6 7

Surprise is overrated

Surprise is the

of EngagementOPPOSITE

Grow the Circle of Participationideally everyone should

feel included if they so desire

1 2 3 45 6 7

Communities are not Markets:Members are Citizens

Citizens are more than consumers,are more than bystanders,

are more than stakeholders

fewer decisions based on employment;

more decisionsbased on merit

THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM

The best citizens challenge the status quo, propose improvements and make the conversation richer

They don’t just make products better. They make them what they are.

Experiment! Try things!Measure where possible.

1 2 3 45 6 7

The key is the art of figuringout whether & how to apply

each of these ideas

1. Superior Products Matter

2. Push (most) decision-making to the edges

3. Communication will happen - make it reusable

4. Make it easy to do the important things

5. Surprise is overrated

6. Communities are not Markets

7. Figure out whether & how to apply these ideas

Two Problems

Engaged citizens are

noisy#1

“I love tabs!”

“Everyone uses tags,not bookmarks.”

“My mom doesn’tunderstand tabs.”

“OpenID is the future!”

“What’s with thedirty house?”

“Nobody uses the ‘Go’ button.”

“There should bea preference setting.” “Add support for

BitTorrent.”

“Fitts’ says biggerbuttons are better.”

“Add support forOgg Vorbis.”

“That’s great!”

“That’s awful”

“The profile managershould be redesigned.”

“Closebuttons are better atthe end of the tabstrip.”

“The URL bar shouldbe removed.”

Noisy

Dem

andi

ng

Contradictory

They help products, technology & organizations make hard decisionsin the right way.

vital

There are

NO#2

maps…

Actually… there are maps.

They just aren’t yours.

http://xkcd.com/802/

Key is to define what you care about,how to measure it and how to communicate a litmus test.

Thoughts…and some

non-profit?Why

Open?Why be

participationagilitymomentumtesting/rapid prototypingleverage

Goals

public performanceendless opinion loops“crowd sourcing”

Not

mobile webnext battleground

carriers vs. manufacturers‘app stores’ concentrate power(mobile) web apps are free

Mobile

Communitybuild

alongside your tool-chain

Planningwiki.mozilla.org

Dev & BuildTinderbox , etc

AutomationNightly / Testing

Project Mgmtbugzilla.mozilla.org

QAquality.mozilla.org

Crash Statscrash-stats.mozilla.org

Feedbackinput.mozilla.org

…

Thanks! John Lilly, Pascal Finette,

Mike Beltzner, Chris Beard,Matt Thompson, Mitchell Baker

Mozilla communities worldwideall content CC-Attribution

gen@mozilla | @gen“Mozilla in Asia” blog