Great people building great things

Carnegie apparently said, “Take away my people, but leave my factories and soon grass will grow on the factory floors……Take away my factories, but leave my people and soon we will have a new and better factory.” Taken fom Seth Godin’s post – Losing Andrew Carnegie

For me this is also a great quote for open source and hybrid organizations, where brilliant, distributed people make a difference – no matter the project or interest.

And as long as there’s great work to be done – folks will always build and achieve great things together.

There’s certainly plenty of great work to do at Mozilla, and great people to go with it!

Photo credit:The Library of Congress

Marketing at Mozilla – Do you want to join? There’s a new open position

Marketing is funny at Mozilla. Whenever, I’m asked what do I do, I’ll very often say “marketing” — and that always feels strange when it tumbles out of my mouth. The next question is usually “… so what is marketing at Mozilla then?” … and further questions about “If you do all that, how big is the team?”

Let me try to answer…

What is marketing at Mozilla?
Well, this would be a very long answer if I went into even half the detail. But let me say in short – our job is all about…
– Sharing and advocating for a more open and better Web
– Spreading Firefox, and having people enjoy a modern browsing experience
– Help build and work together with Mozilla communities, and other open source communities to make great software

and we do this in so many ways which are not typical to marketing. We …

– Work together in the open to craft, build and run campaigns
– Empower and encourage communities to hold their own events and campaigns
– Share results in public, and talk about both our achievements and findings to take on board in future

– and much, much more…

How big is the Team in Europe?
In Europe there are 4 people including myself who help do the above. But actually, our team is much bigger than this. In each country there are scores of Firefox and Mozilla fans, and community members who each day advocate and share the importance of the open Web. Our wider team reaches in the hundreds, and that’s the way we like it!  Anyone can join, and anyone can get involved regardless of skill. The only requirement is a passion for open source and a desire to make the Web better.

** New Open Community Marketing position **
So if you got this far in my post — I’d say you are interested in marketing and community at Mozilla. And we are very lucky to have an open full time job opportunity available for a European Community Marketing Manager. The position is based in Paris. Here’s a quick round up of the job spec:

European Community Marketing Manager
Primary responsibilities include development of new programs to engage community and activism, as well as promote Firefox mindshare throughout Europe. Defining and implementing regional community campaigns and activities, market research, and day-to-day efforts in order to support community marketing, growth and effectiveness.

The ideal candidate will be highly organized and self-motivated, a strong communicator with experience managing marketing programs and campaigns.

** Primary Responsibilities:
* Lead, develop and implement new community grassroots  initiatives and marketing campaigns
* Support and initiate activities for Mozilla Campus reps program in Europe
* Contribute to overall community marketing programs with “real-world” components (eg. Meetups, Campus events, launch parties, etc)
* Conduct and assist with regular community surveys
* Review, share, participate and provide information on Spreadfirefox, forums, marketing mailing lists, IRC and blogs
* Communicate across a diverse community of project contributors and volunteers
* Assist with other marketing related activities and where needed, participate at key trade shows and events
* Provide support for Mozilla Mission-focused community initiatives

So, if you want to be a part of this amazing movement. Read more about the job and apply here.

** Photo courtesy of homardpayette on Saturday February 7th 2009 at FOSDEM ’09

Openness: Enjoy, Advocate and Maintain

Seth Godin (of which you know I’m a fan of from time to time) blogged yesterday about how the term “open source” is being over-used. In fact it was the buzz word of 2008, and seems to be continuing to right into 2009. Its used with regard to anything and everything, and can be confusing to say the least… and both frustrating and enlightening if you actually work in open source. 😉 Seth & Michal Migurski produced a list of the most common ‘open’ terms to try and set folks on the straight and narrow – its worth taking a look.

In some respects its delightful to see the term open source be used in so many ways… we have entered a new age where we see more companies, and organizations being more transparent, and working in the open to gain customer feedback. We have a cacophony of user shared experiences, photos, videos, all open for us to dually consume and add to. There are more opportunities to get involved with your favorite *whatever it might be*, information (or your identity) can be passed from one place to another often seamlessly.

So – its not stretch to say, we are living in the most open environment we have ever seen (unfortunately, I am only able to refer to the developed world here). We have come along way!

But… its important not to forget, whilst we make these huge advances forward in being open, there is much more work to be done, and still much more work to maintain these levels of openness. Terms are one thing, but making sure open, stays open is quite another. And its easy to take this for granted, especially when it comes to the Web.

Open means different things to different people, and Seth’s list surely demonstrates this in today’s world (also see a bunch of dictionary terms below**). But one thing is certain, what ever open means to you – you will want to preserve it!

**The dictionary entry for the term ‘open’ (taken from the

1 allowing access, passage, or a view through an empty space; not closed or blocked up

2 [ attrib. ] exposed to the air or to view; not covered

3 [ predic. ] (of a store, place of entertainment, etc.) officially admitting customers or visitors; available for business

4 (of a person) frank and communicative; not given to deception or concealment

Agenda for Community Marketing call on April 8th

Hi all:  Please join us for todays’s community marketing call at 10am PDT / 18:00 UTC on April 8th

How to join the call:

• Dial-in Info: +1.650.903.0800, followed by 92# and then 7391#
• Or you can use our toll-free number: +1.800.707.2533, followed by 369# and then 7391#. If you’re outside the US, use Skype to call in with our toll-free number.
• You can also watch the meeting live in Open Video at air mozilla
• For those that can’t make the call or want to participate online, join us in #marketing on IRC (irc.mozilla.org).

Agenda:

• Spread Firefox
  • Launch
  • Community Spotlight
• Community Marketing Team Update:
  • Launch activities
  • Overall program going forward
  • Name suggestions?
• Mozilla.org update
  • www.mozilla.org redesign update
  • Mozilla education program
• Roundtable updates:
  • Irina
  • Tobi
  • Tomcat
• Events:
  • Europe Update
  • Portland BarCamp
  • OSBridge

Open Source Articles Round up of the week … worth reading

Nine Attitude Problems in Free and Open Source Software – Bruce Byfield at Datamation

Who needs an open-source strategy? You do – Matt Asay at cnet’s The Open Road

The ‘other’ value of open source in this economy – Jay Lyman at the 451 Group

Mozilla Events Triage call today – please join in

Every 2 weeks on Wednesdays a group of us get together on the phone to discuss events going on in and around the Mozilla World. The call is hosted by Mary Colvig who heads up Events at Mozilla. Its first and foremost a sharing, plus logistical organization, and also a time where you can join and to tell us about events for consideration.

Please do join us, and if you can’t make it this week – please do in 2 weeks (Jul 9th), or next 2 weeks after that (Jul 16) – and so on!  It happens bi-weekly on Wednesdays at 10am PDT (that’s 6pm GMT, and 7pm CET for those folks in Europe). You can also check the events area on SpreadFirefox for more info: http://www.spreadfirefox.com/mozilla-events

Simply dial in to the telephone meeting with the following details:

Dial-in number is:

+1 650-903-0800, then Ext 91, then please add the ID 248#

Agenda this week –

* OSCON:
o Booth
o QA BoF
o Community Party
* Black Hat:
o Milk & Cookies Party
o T-Shirt
* Jornadas Regionales de Software Libre
o Need to determine preferred speaking day for Chris Hofmann
o Any other needs from Mozilla Argentina for the event?
* Congresso Estadual de Software Livre – Ceará (CESoL-CE) – August 19 – 23, 2008
o Need to determine preferred speaking day for Chris Hofmann

Talk to you later!