Community Eduction - Recognition that Matters

Hi everyone,

Thanks to all who took the time to complete a recent survey on Community Education, there were many, many interesting and clever responses and ideas. I am very interested, as a result of some of feedback for designing “recognition 'that matters”

Education will be baked into contribution pathways; into opportunities to get involved and as part of initiatives across the project, and so I am super-interested in what type of recognition matters most to you, and your personal goals.

Someone suggested: “something that can come in value at some point when in need of credibility or applying for a gig”. Right. If you are applying for a job, or you want to demonstrate your education & participation accomplishments - outside of the project, what would that look like?

How can we make recognition more ‘shareable’ and ‘credible’ to those inside AND outside the community - in support of your goals?

We’ve covered some of the usual suspects: badges, physical badges & paper certificates. But what else?

Would love to hear your ideas.

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There was something last year or so where people needed letters of recommendation. I could also use references for my resume. I also think about the credits for products. That is a way people can check to see you really were recognized for your contributions. I would think being Rep of the Month would be another accomplishment like that, though that is hard to make accessible to everyone since the value is in being featured. Though maybe we could do something a bit more formal for “Friends of the Tree” like once people are called out, do a post about why they were called out the way we do for Rep of the Month (but don’t formalize the nomination process, keep it simple!).

Not exactly what you asked, but I’ve been thinking a lot lately, and I think people want recognition that lets them know they had an impact. That they weren’t just doing something as an exercise. Knowing that your efforts are actually making a difference I think is what gets a lot of us through, and not knowing whether our efforts are making a difference to someone is what is really discouraging.

I guess the intersection here is that acknowledging the specific impact can be tied to the form of recognition, and then the person can have specific bragging rights, like how we can say there was a spike in Flame purchases after we were showing them off at OSCON.

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Some of the requests we received from community (and vice versa from myself to others during my job hunt) included LinkedIn recommendations, letters of recommendation, references for interviews/projects…etc. Badges and features on “rep of the month” are awesome but for a potential employer, they don’t exist on “credible” platforms and may lose value. Having said this, recognitions vary in value depending on the position/project applied.

The person requesting the recommendation/validation would need to be specific in terms of what types of recognition would be useful. In my case during my job hunt, I requested LinkedIn recommendation, letters of reference, and on my portfolio website I just linked to a whole bunch of projects/websites related to my Mozilla work. The types of recognition would vary depending on the role/project at the time, so I think rather than investing in platforms/ways of recognition, it would be more useful to ensure everyone knows WHERE & WHO to ask for recognition when they need it.

Just my 2 cents.

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Rep of the Month is an internal-facing recognition – Reps know what it means, but outsiders probably don’t. It would be great if part of the SOP for awarding Rep of the Month included a Council member writing a reference letter that describes why the person was selected. The Rep could then file that away for future need (i.e., next job hunt).

On a similar note, though I don’t think this can be an SOP: for people who need LinkedIn recommendations, we can encourage them to ask the people who vouched them to turn the vouches into LI recs. It’s great that we’re encouraging vouch-ers to write better descriptions for vouches; but those are still internal recognition. Hopefully, it would not be too much work to copy/paste/edit them on LinkedIn to be external recognition for those who need it.

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Not only is it internal facing but it also internal to the reps community.
I still think a good amount of MoCo and the project either do not go to
reps portal or know much about the program.

So while rep of the month may have a feel good I’m not sure if its even on
par with friends of the tree in terms of visibility.

On Jan 28, 2015 10:57 AM, “Janet Swisher” discourse@mozilla-community.org wrote:

jswisher
January 28

Rep of the Month is an internal-facing recognition – Reps know what it
means, but outsiders probably don’t. It would be great if part of the SOP
for awarding Rep of the Month included a Council member writing a reference
letter that describes why the person was selected. The Rep could then file
that away for future need (i.e., next job hunt).

On a similar note, though I don’t think this can be an SOP: for people
who need LinkedIn recommendations, we can encourage them to ask the people
who vouched them to turn the vouches into LI recs. It’s great that we’re
encouraging vouch-ers to write better descriptions for vouches; but those
are still internal recognition. Hopefully, it would not be too much work to
copy/paste/edit them on LinkedIn to be external recognition for those who
need it.


To respond, reply to this email or visit
https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/t/community-eduction-recognition-that-matters/1496/4
in your browser.

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Hi everyone

I just created a brainstorming etherpad to gather ideas about recognition. Emma has already started a thread here, which already has good input and I’ve already added this to the etherpad.

Please add your thoughts about recognition in the etherpad. It’s clear that recognition is something else for every individual, therefore we need to have a brainstorming to get all the different ideas that are out there.

https://remo.etherpad.mozilla.org/recognition

Feel free to discuss ideas here as well :smile:

Have a nice rest of the day,
Michael

Recognition is a term which can be different for different person . But recognition is important as it motivates a contributor to contribute with more energy . But As we define recognitions system we should also think about the categories of recognitions and how a specific contributor falls to a certain category and how do we recognize them for that. For a Mozilla Rep , a mentor can play a great role in recognition for him . A mentor can write blog about the awesome contributor his/her mentee has been making and share that to the Reps planet and other channels . Everyone gets motivated with that. If the contribution is even more consistent an awesome , that contributor can be provided some thank you certificate from leadership and also can be mentioned on the blog. In the same way we can categorize so many different levels of contributions and how to give proper recognition on those efforts.

I just want to share a few things I’ve done in this area since the original question, some may be related to Reps but FYI

  1. In Community Education/Participation We have badges associated with each ‘step’ of Participation Ladders. Currently Marketpulse is the working example.
  2. With education and training (Interviewing users for Mozilla) , we’re issuing a badge AND a printable certificate (example below). We’re also sending out a small notebook as a ‘gift’ on completion of all assignments (which include research for Mozilla).
  3. In recognition of leadership potential, we’ve created roles specifically to empower and give hands-on training to those people. (that’s a type of recognition I think).

What is all of this telling us so far? A number of things which I should probably write about (good things, and things I would do differently next time). Summary would be - I think having recognition baked into projects as a strategy for sustainability is worth the investment, that building goals into contribution, that end with something like a certificate actually help US highlight who our leaders are (those wiling to invest beyond a single commitment).
Challenges are keeping track of who should get a badge & certificates so as not to devalue those for others. Also how to avoid purchasing resources for someone who may not have intentions(or lose motivation) on completing the contribution. Also printable certificates are at the mercy of the printer and paper quality (which may cost contributors)

I really, really love using ‘steps and ladders’ for a number of reasons, but for recognition I find it even more helpful - for me, and I think it helps contributors as well. Would be interested in feedback on that.

+1 :slight_smile:

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