AllHands/Story
From: Mark Surman To: MoFos
Hey MoFos
Wow. It has been a crazy few months.
As I stop to take a breath and look out at MoFo All Hands next week, I have to say: I’m excited. No bullshit. I’m excited by the people we’ve been able to gather around our table (that’s you!). I’m excited by the stuff we’re building out right now. And, maybe surprisingly given recent events, I’m excited — and hopeful — about the role that we all as MoFos can play in helping all of Mozilla succeed at putting people of the world back in control of their online lives.
All Hands is an important opportunity to do exactly this kind of reflection: to ask ourselves ‘what am I excited by right now?’ and ‘what do I want to bring to the big picture of Mozilla’s work in the world?’ I encourage each of you to do this in the run up to next week. And to write it down. Or doodle.
I did a little doodling this morning. One of my doodles was this:
This is my simplistic picture of how all the puzzle pieces are coming together at Mozilla. A $25 Firefox OS smartphone. A world of mobile apps and content that is as open, democratic, innovative, creative and unlocking as the wild west of the early web. A grassroots army of Mozillians teaching people and helping them figure out how to get the most out of the digital world they live in. We’re getting closer and closer to being able to shape and impact what the web looks like for people coming online for the first time via mobile — and to bring our values to the table as we do. That’s exciting.
Part of my excitement is that we are all actively working on pieces of this bigger puzzle. We are building the army of Mozillians who will help the next wave of internet users understand what the web can do, giving them a sense of confidence and empowerment. We are rolling out badges and metrics tools to recognize, organize and motivate the contributors at the heart of all that Mozilla does. And we are bringing in new communities and new ideas from places like journalism, science and policy to help shape what Mozilla and the web become. All of this is important.
Of course, the puzzle is much bigger than this and has many more pieces. Getting an open platform into the hands for the next wave of mobile internet users is critical. So is readying the ground for a truly open apps and content ecosystem. And creating the partnerships that get us into the markets where ‘the global internet’ is being shaped and built by those who are coming online for the first time. Others across the rest of Mozilla are doing these things — or at least building the foundations. There is huge potential for all of us at MoFo to look sideways to understand what people across the rest of Mozilla are building, and then figuring out how we work together to fit our pieces into the bigger picture.
This is exactly the kind of thing we do at All Hands: look up to see where we are; what’s working; where the opportunities are; and how we move ahead together. I’m going to send a couple more emails this weekend to further get your thoughts going on things like ‘what does winning look like’ and ‘what are the big challenges ahead’. You’ll also get some email from Gunner on how the agenda will work. Watch for these things as you pack and travel.
In the mean time, I encourage you to doodle. Or go for a walk. Or do whatever you do to reflect. What are you excited about right now? And how do you want to plug that excitement into the bigger puzzle that Mozilla is building?
Looking forward.
- ms
PS. If you’re new to Mozilla and have some time, take a few minute’s to watch Mitchell Baker’s opening talk from the 2013 Mozilla Summit:
http://summit.mozilla.org/summit-videos-are-now-live/
This will give you a good sense of some of the frameworks that shape what we do and how we work.