Call for Nominations — Diversity & Inclusion for Participation Focus Groups

Mozillians
#1

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Dear Mozillians,

The heart of Mozilla is people - we are committed to a community that invites in and empowers people to participate fully, introduce new ideas and inspire others, regardless of background, family status, gender, gender identity or expression, sex, sexual orientation, native language, age, ability, race and ethnicity, national origin, socioeconomic status, religion, geographic location or any other dimension of diversity.

We think of diversity as the mix of people, and inclusion as how we enable that diverse mix to work effectively together - to innovate and have impact on the mission we care so much about.

In 2016 we focused as an organization on inclusion and diversity, including an insights phase, listening tour, and organizational strategy. If you are interested, please check out the D&I wiki for more information.

In 2017 we will continue to prioritize enrichment of Mozilla’s culture through the development of a D&I Strategy for participation . In the next month we will be conducting a broad set of focus groups with D&I topics relevant to regional leadership, events, project design, and participation in projects . These insights will generate initiatives and experiments that lead us to a first version of the strategy.

Today, I’m writing you to ask you for nominations of diverse individuals in our communities who you think we should talk to, and learn from - and yes you can nominate yourself!

We need our focus groups to represent the diversity of our global community including a range of:

  • First languages other than English
  • Region & time zones
  • Skillsets (technical and non-technical) contribution
  • Active & inactive contributors
  • Students & professionals, retired, not working outside the home
  • Gender identities
  • Ethnicities, races, and cultural backgrounds
  • Ages
  • Students, professionals, retired and everyone in between
  • New, emerging and established contributors
  • Staff, community project maintainers designing for participation
  • Accessibility / disability

Focus groups will be conducted in person, online and many in first languages other than English.

If you believe that you, or someone you know can provide key insights needed for community strategy - please nominate them!

Nominations will close January 23rd at 12:00 UTC. For more information, and updates please check our D&I for Participation Strategy wiki.

Contact Emma Irwin or Larissa Shapiro with questions

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#2

One of our Interview/Focus Group topics is ‘Participation Design’, and someone asked what that means. Here’s my response to help you think about nominations in this area:

https://medium.com/@sunnydeveloper/what-is-participation-design-anyway-7fc220129053#.d7kl6922g

#3

As someone active in organising conferences caring about accessibility issues involved in couple of FOSS projects centered around that, it occurs to me constantly that Mozilla messaging misses to include people with disabilities and individuals with mental health issues.

This extends to the participation guidelines: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/participation/

#4

Hi,

Thanks so much for this. you are 100% correct accessibility issues, and
designing with disabilities in mind is incredibly important, and although
regretfully missing from this list - is identified as an important
attribute of diversity in our research phase. Having also worked with FOSS
for accessibility (GoRead / Fbreader),
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.benetech.android&hl=en
I have seen how lives are changed by this type of inclusion - and I would
LOVE to talk to you, or have your nominations of others who can help us
visualize accessibility in participation. Or even if this thread - if
people want to share their challenges, and dreams for a more inclusive
Mozilla for people with disabilities - please do share. We need as many
perspectives as possible.

Thanks again for raising this important point. I have updated the post,
and blog to reflect this feedback.

1 Like
#5

I see that the form is still available, Is the nomination process still open ? or is it too late now because you moved to the second phase ?

#6

Hi Amine,

Thanks for the question and offer. Indeed, we’ve moved on from the interview/insights phase of the project.

We’ll be posting the results of that research in the next few weeks for people to ask questions about and comment on.

Cheers,
George

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