Sarah Doherty
Always thinking. Always dreaming.
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Blogging BlogHer ’10 New York
It’s been over 3 weeks since a handful of Mozillians (including myself) were at BlogHer ’10 in New York City. I like to think we “took over the Big Apple” by introducing thousands of eager “blog-hers” to Firefox Add-ons in both the Geek Lab and our hospitality suite. After months of planning it was great to see so many people excited to interact with us about Firefox or learn about their new favorite browser.
There were a few things that were memorable for me and made the event a success. Since I think “pictures are worth a thousand words,” I’ll write less and try to use more visual elements.
BlogHer Toolbar & Add-on Collection
Prior to the conference we worked closely with the BlogHer team and Briks Software to develop a toolbar that would make browsing and navigating the website a lot easier. It was a lot of fun to be part of the development process and see how a few ideas can turn into a technical specification and finally into a coded product. I’m very proud of the result and encourage you to give it a try! Directly from the toolbar you are able to:
- Get updates of new articles on BlogHer
- Easily update your BlogHer Chatter status from anywhere!
- Quickly access your BlogHer account
- Share any website on BlogHer Chatter, Facebook, Twitter, or email
- Learn more about the toolbar
In addition to the toolbar we designed an add-ons collection especially for BlogHer ’10 featuring 7 all-star add-ons for bloggers and people who like to read. The add-ons are:
- Feed Sidebar
- Morning Coffee
- Read It Later
- ScribeFire
- Shareaholic
- Textarea Cache
- Yoono
You can get the add-ons here.
T-Shirts and the “Quickest” Survey Ever
We had some pretty rad t-shirts that we gave away in exchange for taking a survey on Firefox and Add-ons. I heard quite a few people say, “Gosh that was the quickest survey ever!”. With 357 completed survey submissions we got some great insight into the “BlogHer”. In our state of openness I’ll be posting some of the interesting results on Rock Your Firefox in the next few days. Until then here are some interesting stats:
- Do you use Firefox to browse the web? Yes (91.6%) and No (8.4%)
- If your primary browser is not Firefox, what is it? Microsoft Internet Explorer (57.1%), Google Chrome (32.1%) and Apple Safari (10.7%)
- What are your favorite add-ons? Firebug, AdBlock, Delicious were at the top of the list. Check out the word cloud for more insight.
Room Decor, Magnolias Cupcakes and Swag
I’ve never been a cupcake connoisseur but apparently Magnolia’s cupcakes are where it’s at in New York City if you wish to enter a blissed out state of sugar ecstasy. Partner this with a funky 80′s theme suite (to match our Rock Your Firefox logo) and some great swag (including Foxkeh) and how can you not have a great time?
I like to think that we (Mozilla) are masters of doing great events on a tight budget and this proved to be a great example: over the 2 days of BlogHer we got many comments that our suite was one of the best decorated and was the most inviting (furnished mostly with IKEA/Target). (I’d also like to personally nominate our suite as ‘Most likely to give you an extreme sugar rush!’)
The People
Over the 2 days of BlogHer we had an estimate of 600+ people go through our suite. I had the opportunity to talk to people on many subjects including Personas, Firefox 4, our beta program, Add-ons and of course the BlogHer Toolbar. It was great to have so much face-time with actual Firefox users – it leaves me feeling refreshed and reminds me how much Firefox affects and shapes peoples’ lives.
I always wanted to give a huge thanks to all of the Mozillians that came in to spend the time at BlogHer. We had some long days but had a lot of fun together. A special thanks to Mary Colvig, Marcia Knous, Justin Scott, Brian King and Jorge Villalobos. Definitely couldn’t have done this one without all of you. Now onward and upward to the next!
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SXSW Panel Picker 2011 – Vote for Mozilla Sessions!
It feels like just yesterday we were wrapping up SXSW Interactive 2010, but now the Panel Picker is up and running and SXSW Interactive 2011 is ramping up. This year we have three sessions submitted to the Panel Picker – including our very own from the Engagement team. So – please vote them up (voting ends 11:59 CDT on Friday, August 27th) – just click the link!
Mozilla’s Army of AWESOME: Engaging Non-Technical User Participants
Mozilla is traditionally known as a technology focused, open source geeky project. And, whilst Mozilla builds Firefox for all users, its community for many years remained heavily technical. Until recently. As online life expands and more people become aware of the true collaboration and communication potential of the Web, Mozilla has attracted artists, film makers, teachers and other less technical people into its community. Learn how Mozilla increased participation and engagement in the Mozilla project on a variety of levels truly opening itself up to everyone hackers — who side by side with coders are also building and shaping the web we all want.
How to Create Prototypes and Influence People
The value of an idea is zero unless it is communicated. To make a difference in your company, to get funding as an entrepreneur, to change the world, you need to be able to convince others of your ideas. Even the Palm Pilot started as a single-day prototype: a block of wood carried by founder Jeff Hawkins for weeks. Firefox Tab Sets started as a Saturday hack. The first wind-up radio was slapped together in a few hours after its inspiration. Many of the worlds most influential products have started as a prototype done in a day. This talk teaches you how to get a prototype done now, the right way and wrong way to give a demo, and how to start influencing people.
Mozilla School of Webcraft @P2PU
P2PU School of Webcraft: Web developer training that’s free, open and globally accessible. Mozilla and Peer 2 Peer University are creating the P2PU School of Webcraft, a new way to teach and learn web developer skills. Our classes are globally accessible, 100% free, and powered by learners, mentors and contributors like you. Our goal is to provide a free pathway to skills and certification to help people build careers on open web technology. Existing developer training is expensive, out of touch, and out of reach. We leverage peer learning powered by mentors and learners like you and self-organized study groups. We use existing open and free learning materials In this sixty minute session we’ll briefly cover the inception of the Peer 2 Peer University along with details and success stories from the first three cycles of courses. We’ll then dive into more detail about our collaboration with Mozilla Drumbeat including Mozilla’s mission to engage the next million Mozillians. We’ll present the P2PU School of Webcraft, and a case study of courses offered so far, including the first course, ‘Mashing Up the Open Web.’ Additionally, we’ll introduce our plans to separate learning from assessment and our community driven credentialing system. At the end of the session we will invite the audience, and all of SXSW, to join a course on open web skills to be offered during the week of the event. Read more.
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Why I Love My Job
Signed by all the Mozilla participants from FISL. I almost teared up when I
saw this on my desk. Thank you and I love you all! -
Huzzah! Social Media Toolkit Launched!
Today, I definitely don’t have a “case of the Mondays” because it’s Social Media Toolkit launch time! Over the last few months I’ve been working on putting together a grouping of tools and best practices around social media – think of it as a sister site to the Spread Firefox Education Toolkit.
The Mozilla Social Media Toolkit is a set of tools that allows you to leverage social media to market Mozilla and Firefox in your region and beyond. The toolkit contains everything you’ll need from best practices, tips and tricks, to design assets for both Facebook and Twitter.
Are you a Mozillian that has a community or localized Mozilla/Firefox social media account? Or are you interested in setting one up? Then this toolkit is for you!
One of the coolest parts of the Toolkit (in my humble opinion) are the social media design asset kits. Collaborating with The Royal Order we are releasing a set of 5 Facebook Profile Images and 4 Twitter Designs (2 Mozilla, 2 Firefox) that include a Twitter background, design color palette and profile picture. With these designs kits you are able to instantly identify your page as a Mozilla community-supported group (while looking pretty sexy too)!
Of course this project could not have come together without great synergy and collaboration from many different people. I want to give a huge thanks to Jamey Boje, Mary Colvig, John Slater, Tara Shahian and the fine folks over at The Royal Order.
Thanks so much and can’t wait to see these new design assets all over the Twittersphere (and other social networks too)!
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Recapping Mozilla Summit 2010 in Whistler, BC
The fact that Summit is over still hasn’t hit me. I think it’s the same feeling at the end of a really great family reunion or wedding that many months of planning and preparation went into – how can it be already over?
Now after 2 weeks of reuniting myself with the “normalcy,” I feel like I’m ready to recollect and recapture three memorable days of Summit in written format. Before I go into too much detail, for my non-Mozillian blog audience think of Summit as 3 mind-blowing days, focusing on the future of the web with 600 of your best friends in beautiful Whistler, BC. I think that sums it up pretty well!
Open Web Goosebumps
Close your eyes and think about try to recall some amazing experience that gave you goosebumps and chills. Maybe it was a trip to a Broadway show where the singer just hits that perfect pitch, or the feeling when you climb to the top of a mountain and see a sunset. These moments are rare and remind your senses what you find truly incredible. Shaver’s keynote and presentation of Flight of the Navigator did it for me. I’m an incredibly visual person and while there were so many keynotes talking about the changes to the open web platform, being able to see it all converge into one solid presentation gave me chills up my spine.
Why is this so cool? Normally video/audio requires plugins like Flash in a browser. This video is a perfect demonstration about the power of HTML5 with WebGL, JavaScript and the use of the Audio API — no plug-ins required! (Processing.js is used for animated textures, WebM video for videos and BeatDetektor.js for audio analysis and visualization). Simply stunning.
Session + Lightning Talk = WIN
Session: Moving from Local Events to Strong Local Communities
I was incredibly fortunate at Summit to be able to have both a session as well as a lightning talk. My session, “Moving from Local Events to Strong Local Communities” was co-presented with Nathaniel James from the Mozilla Foundation/Drumbeat. We discussed best practices from a local community level and how to uplift this information. Some of our key takeaways were:
- There are many types of events that the community and Mozilla are hosting and organizing, and there is inconsistent deployment around the world. This means the people in the various countries have varying levels of skills.
- Community (local community participants around the globe) need assistance in best practices for event management, as frequently they are not marketing experts, nor do we expect them to be.
- Organizers on different ends of the Mozilla enterprise can’t reach each other communities – a shared community contact database would be very helpful.
There are a number of great pieces of information that arose from this session – keep your eyes peeled over the next few months for some cool new additions that I think will make planning and organizing events around the world a lot easier.
Lightning Talk: Host Your Own Firefox Education Event!
What can I say? Being able to stand up on a stage and talk to 600 people about something I’m passionate about is a blast (and more-so to get such great feedback and interest after the talk put a silly grin on my face for the rest of Summit). I’ve spoken in front of large groups before, but nothing at this size and with this amount of lights (seriously, the lights were so bright that I couldn’t see anyone in their seats). I think my short presentation speaks for itself so I’ll let you page through it below.
Community, Community, Community
This is the section where I get emotional and I find myself at a loss for words.
Sure the sessions were great, we’re changing the web, and we’re awesome, but we wouldn’t be anywhere near where we are today without so many people that spend countless hours contributing to our codebase, marketing our products, and localizing our content.
Our community (I believe) is made up of some of the most humble and amazing people I have ever met in my life. Thank you. You are the reason I wake up every morning and want to work so hard at my job.
At the top of the beautiful mountain in Whistler I became so clearly aware of how lucky I am – At what other time in my life would I be able to have a conversation with someone from México, Paraguay, Bolivia and Serbia? I’ve learned so much from all of you, and see you as my peers, mentors, friends and most importantly, my inspiration. Together I truly feel that we can make a difference in the world.
Thanks and here’s to the next few years!
