Few weeks ago Ken Saunders has sent an email to our mailing list and share his thought about how great can be if we use spreadfirefox platform concept as an idea for “Join Mozilla” program.
It was very surprising, because I was thinking the same. Well I know great minds think alike :):)
The new Mozilla Community ecosystem
We have currently 2 large groups of communities:
- Contributors – people who actively work on Mozilla related issues;
- Local Communities – Contributors + some interested in Mozilla folks;
The new “Join Mozilla” project is the third big group in the Mozilla ecosystem. Here is how I see it into this picture:
Why SpreadFirefox model? Can we call it SpreadMozilla?
Groups
The main idea of the new program is not just to get some money from the community and from the people who will join us in our mission, but to educate them how to work for an open web more actively. Yes, they already are working by using OpenWeb tools, but most of them don’t know that.
So we need to educate them, but first is great idea to understand “What anyone can do best an how can be helpful to the community”. For sure I don’t want to receive mobile Firefox news, because I don’t have mobile phone on what Firefox can run.
The best way to make that is to allow people to join groups based on their interest or location or any other smart criteria. After that we will have the opportunity to convert “Like” to “I will do something about it”.
I am interested in…
If we know what any member is interested in we can offer him more information about Mozilla related projects:
Karma
The other cool idea is to create a Karma system and show most “valuable” users in the from page. We may implement something like “Friends on the Tree” and to give the opportunity all members to be able to vote or nominate members for a weekly or monthly prize (email or t-shirt or just a widget for your blog).
Join, contribute, spread
This is the slogan of SpreadFirefox. Yes That is what we need to do with “Join Mozilla”, but step by step this project has to be a bridge between “Join” and “How to contribute” (http://www.mozilla.org/contribute/) using my skills.
Tasks
We as a community have 2 main tasks
1. To convert “I like” to “I will do something about it”
2. To make people grow through the community.
P.S Read Ken’s comment here.
I had the same idea for an engagement site for everything Mozilla a year or two ago. Interestingly a group of contributors have built a new version of spreadfirefox.com and a team member is flying out to Mozilla HQ in San Fransisco this week to see if we can take over the site and build a community grassroots site for firefox. Hopefully this will broaden into a wider engagement over time. Best, Paul
The situation reminds me of the pioneer days, with IE & Microsoft looming large and self-evident over the landscape.
Viewed from this perspective spreadfirefox is a “borrowed interest” trick. Firefox? We need something much much bigger and all-pervading … Oh well, I’ll say it … much more awesome.
Soyons realistes, demandons l’impossible.
Regards
smo