Friday 3 January 2014

Onwards!

The Development Team at Mozilla has been busy. Others on the team will be posting about what we’ve been up to in detail but I’d be remiss not to take this opportunity to point at fundraising.mozilla.org. In the last few weeks of 2013, my colleague Andrea offered not just a glimpse behind the curtain, but an invitation for donors/contributors/co-workers/everyone to get involved as we worked on Mozilla’s end of year fundraising campaign.
The level of broad based support we’ve seen has been truly inspiring and lays solid foundations on which we'll build in 2014. Huge numbers of people moved from being users of Firefox to actively supporting and funding our work.

We’ll carry forward this momentum as we move into the new year as part of the newly formed Engagement Team. This team will have responsibility for finding/supporting/encouraging/cajoling those who contribute either time or money to Mozilla. At last year's Mozilla Summit we spoke about "a million Mozillans" and for many at the time, it didn't really land or was viewed as a thought experiment. The engagement we saw as 2013 drew to a close should help to raise ambitions for  growing our volunteer/contributor/donor/mentor base.

In the 20 months since I joined Mozilla, my engagement/community efforts have usually been squeezed in around the day job so it's great to be part of the team who are on the hook for rallying people to our cause. That cause is pretty broadly defined and my approach to building community has always been to operate beyond the fringe of our activity, bring people back with me and then build a bridge.

Our work so far with O2 Think Big and the BBC both follow this model and I'll be working to ensure that those relationships continue to blossom and deliver value as well as seeking out new opportunities.  I'll also continue to contribute where possible to the wider community beyond Mozilla. When Tom and I first spoke about hosting the Wednesday night meetups at MozLDN the thing that excited me most was making a contribution to the community from which the next mySociety, or the next Mozilla could emerge. Keep an eye on mySociety's lanyrd page and add yourself if you fancy joining us on a Wednesday evening soon.




Saturday 28 May 2011

Turing (pronounced "during")

The Saturday and Sunday of Good for Nothing (GFN) are a bit of a blur.

I could forensically sift emails, tweets and photographs to try and piece together how it all happened but I'm not going to. What if I actually managed to describe what happened? Would anything be lost? Would I be thrown out of the Hackers' Circle for revealing who's passing the rabbit up through the hole in the table?

Not to worry. The chances of me usefully describing the process are slim. I've been trying to describe what happens at events similar to GFN for four years now and I'm still not happy with how I do it. I could throw some words at you like spontaneous collaboration or creative socialforking but that wouldn't get us anywhere.

Suffice to say, stuff got done (link to shiny showcase, not just mock-up, to appear here soon we hope). I was talking to people before we even got started about how the work done at GFN could be built upon and we'll see some of this at Over the Air later in the year. The "After" post of this three-parter will explore this in more detail.

In the meantime, play with Enigmatic on Facebook/Twitter (facelift in development) and visit Bletchley Park. I'll be up for the third week running on May 29th to see the Hurricane, Spitfire & Lancaster flypast and to talk Young Rewired State. Maybe see you there.

Enigma sketch by Ben AKA @inthecompanyof

Tuesday 24 May 2011

Before

Usually it works like this - I send a few emails, make a few calls, organise a few meetings and call in a few favours. Bit of gaffer tape here, bit of fire prevention (& fire fighting if something's escaped my attention) there. I usually get the chance to throw in my tuppence worth to contribute an idea or two for a hack/project but don't always have the time. Amazing things are made and then everyone goes home.

I measure how I've done a bit like the cliche about a referee having had a good game if you haven't noticed him*. The game ebbs and flows, teams perform and make space for individuals to shine.

This time was different. My tuppence worth wouldn't be enough. This time I'd have to throw in a couple of quid.

It was all same old, same old to begin with. I helped Tom, Tom and Dan organise the first Good for Nothing after meeting them at my first GoodGym monthly run. After the event, the dust settled and I made it clear I'd be up for helping out at the next one. When the call went out for good causes to work on at the next event, I suggested Bletchley Park (I try to drag my day job towards Bletchley, so why not the stuff I do evenings/weekends, too?).

All went swimmingly as I introduced the Toms (Dan was in Costa Rica) to Kelsey Griffin and Dr Sue Black. We came up with a brief everyone was happy with and Sue started to get excited about coming along as Bletchley's representative. Then as we were making final preparations, Sue updated her status.

She'll be fine for tomorrow, I thought. Tomorrow came and we were due to kick off at 7pm. Sue was feeling worse and it was clear she wasn't up to travelling. Up to my neck in Rewired State stuff, I kept in contact with Sue as we tried to find someone to stand in for her. We could always Skype or something, right?

In the end, I did it. I played a couple of short clips from Sue's appearance on Carpool and said a few words about Bletchley Park and the ideas we wanted to explore.

Despite dropping the bombshell that I'd be taking a group up to Bletchley Park the next morning on the 08:24 from London Euston, people were interested. People came to talk to me and scribble their names on the sign up sheet. Smiley, interesting and talented people asked me questions about Bletchley Park, Enigma machines, Alan Turing and more. I knew some of the answers!

We started to drink the refreshments kindly laid on by some of Good for Nothing's friends. We started to think about what we might do.

We were off.



*yes there are female referees but you don't see many. Or perhaps they're everywhere and doing such a great job that no one's noticed


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