Drumbeat/website/brief

Phase One Web Site Brief

Mozilla Drumbeat: Ideas, people and action making a better web Mozilla Drumbeat is seeking a "WordPress Ninja" that can help us rapidly implement a Phase One web site prototype. At this stage, we're looking for a few days of someone's time to get us up and running with a site that helps "show what we mean." Primarily by tweaking existing templates and widgets.

Overview & Goals

Mozilla Drumbeat will find and connect people, ideas and actions that make the web better. Drumbeat is launching a PHASE ONE web site. The major goals of this early, beta-type site are to:

• “Show people what we mean.” Explain what Mozilla Drumbeat is and where it’s headed -- primarily through powerful examples of what we mean. Use these examples to illustrate the overall concept and show rather than tell.
• Showcase compelling a) IDEAS, b) PEOPLE and c) ACTION for making the web better. These are the three major content streams for the site, and heart of the site.
• Crowdsource great new content. Make it easy for others to submit their own ideas, people and actions, using templates and workflow we provide. This is a key priority for Phase One -- we want to create a great container that models the kind of stuff we’re looking for, and make it easy for others to start feeding their own ideas, people and action into it.
• Showcase and get people excited about a big upcoming EVENT: Drumbeat Istanbul in June 2010. Make it sexy and trumpet key values: genius ideas, rubbing shoulders with the web’s leading lights, and the prospect of Internet “fame and fortune.”

In addition, the Phase One site will:

• Encourage the best content to float to the top. Get an early sense of which THEMES, IDEAS, PEOPLE & ACTION have the most traction and interest with our audiences. Use a simple voting & reviewing layer (probably Digg) to make this easy.
• Showcase LOCAL events and action, primarily in the form of short, Ignite-style presentations. Trumpet the big Istanbul event at the center -- but also local events and opportunities for participation around the edges and in your community. Should feel like a global community.
• Capture a “co-opetive” spirit and flavour.
• Be easy to share socially and push content to the places people are already at.

Scope: Phase One vs. Phase Two

It’s important to separate out the goals of this early “Phase One” site as opposed to the more robust and public-facing “Phase Two” site to follow. The emphasis for Phase One is RAPID prototyping and implementation. The goal is to get to a point quickly where we can invite others to crowd-source and populate great suggested ideas, action and people. Phase Two will be more robust and public-facing, with a greater emphasis on graphic design, scalability, a more robust back-end CMS, etc.

Target Communities

“People who make the web,” especially those who rely on it for self-expression or livelihood. The community for Phase One is likely to be a little more insider-ish and Mozilla “friends and extended family” -- though not exclusively. Phase Two will be aimed at a broader universe.

CMS & Graphic Design Approach

We're looking for boot-strappable WordPress templates we can implement quickly. What’s important for Phase One is getting the logical structure and intake workflow right. Graphic design for Phase One will happen after the initial “bare bones” black and white site is launched.

Information Architecture

Primary content streams: IDEAS, PEOPLE & ACTION From an information architecture standpoint, the Phase One site is basically “three streams plus a big EVENT.” The streams are dynamic and constantly updating and growing; the EVENT is relatively static.

1) IDEAS 2) PEOPLE 3) ACTION + EVENT

Cross-referencing and relating content

The ideas, people and action content need to cross reference and relate to each other in multiple ways. We need the ability to easily associate a particular PERSON, for example, with an IDEA they’re working on and maybe an ACTION you can take to spread the word about their work. Not all entities will have these relationships -- they’ll range from “one-to-one” to “one-to-many” to “one to none.”

Ten broad “themes” or categories

The ideas, people and action all fall under one of ten broad “categories.” These themes are like mini-impact or mission statements. Like: “The web gets better when we...

• ...ensure anyone can connect to do or say anything.
• ...make the internet more accessible.
• ...use and promote open standards."

An early spreadsheet of sample ideas, action, and people and how the four levels fit together here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ap7YmMaDsPWCdFJjX1hvY3lYekp0MVpVNlRlM1pwZEE&hl=en

Timelines

The first key deadline is Nov 10, the next Mozilla Board Meeting. We want to present early web pages, and have a critical mass of early PEOPLE, IDEAS & ACTION so they can get a clear sense of where Drumbeat is headed.