Draft for feedback: Developing participation leaders - MozFest, Leadership Summit, Work Week -- 2015

Mozillians
#1

Hi All,

We’d really love your feedback in the next 2 to 3 days on this draft for using global gatherings this November-December 2015 to identify and invest in participation leaders (people with the skills and commitment to teach and mobilize Mozillians, and further participation around Mozilla in 2016).

  1. What’s unclear? What questions do you have?
  2. What ideas do you have to make this stronger?
  3. What concerns do you have with this initiative
  4. What concerns would you have with the application/selection process?

If you prefer, send me an email to groter@mozilla.com

5 Likes
#2

Hi George!

I personally think this is a big improvement in the transparency and clarity of the selection process. Yes, there were wiki pages before, but the flow of info makes sense to me.

I would suggest adding weights (if any) to the selection criteria. Are they all equal?

If possible, the tools used to track the application should give some status. I remember people complaining that they didn’t know at which stage the evaluation is at.

1 Like
#3

A few pieces of email feedback I’ve received:

(1)
The “one or more product areas” can be a slippery slope as it relates to the Work Week. The Work Week is currently optimized to be with one functional team - if you try to participate in QA/l10n/Webmaker you miss the arc of narrative that is happening. The main conversations that you need to hear will be happening in that room, and if you keep having contributors leave to go elsewhere I think you are doing a disservice to the functional team area that invited them. I already saw that happen in Whistler and in Portland to some extent.

To me the commitment for Orlando should be to one functional area, and if time permits, to visit with other functional team/areas. But IMO for the lion’s share of time you should be working with the team that invited you. If we are only getting face time with community 1 time per 6 months, then we have to optimize for working with them during the course of the week.

(2)
mozillians.org profiles can be a bit problematic in some cases, as some community members have themselves listed as “Mozilla for X years” when they really haven’t been part of the community that long. As far as vouchers, we should be taking a close look at who from our side is actually vouching for them vs. those only in their community

(3)
Having some sort of transparent communication around the ways people get to Mozfest (such as being a contributor of the foundation projects or running a session) will help minimize any potential issues.

(4)
Is there a process for reps who have submitted a session?

1 Like
#4

I think that it’s really important that we look at what we consider a functional team. More importantly, I’m curious how this will play out with crucial, core mozillians that maybe aren’t leaders at an organisational level but are extremely significant in their function, specifically for workweek.

Otherwise, I think that this is great. I’m really excited that we’re pushing for people to be at the right events more than anything. I felt like a number of Whistler volunteers would have been better suited in MozFest, and maybe some MozFest attendees should have been in Whistler (but weren’t)

I think part of making this process work even better would be to help functional teams create a clear plan and understanding of how volunteering works in their team, and figuring out how to identify leaders and help them realise that they are leaders.

1 Like
#5

One concern I have is that volunteers in functional/product areas can be instrumental to the operation of their areas, but may not necessarily be “leaders” as they are defined here. For us, work week attendance is partly a reward for all their contributions, part leadership development, and part team-building and planning. I’m not sure that asking them to go through an application process would be appropriate, especially since we already know who works most closely with the team and what impact they have. Perhaps application for work weeks can be invitation-only? I guess it also depends on how extensive the process is.

3 Likes
#6

This.

I feel like a balance between the two is needed for the work weeks. Having transparency and clear application process is great, but we definetely should make sure we don’t exclude people that are just as crucial as employees.

Again, I think some clear planning from each functional area around volunteer participation would make that balance easier

1 Like
#7

¡Hola @george!

I guess I kind of concur with @amyt and @tad mostly, plus a few questions of my own below.

My memory is a bit fuzzy now, but I recall participation for the 2013 Summit was heavily advertised and I wanted to go so much that I ended up going and Mozilla even helped with visa applications and stuff.

As a Mexico national I do need a visa for the US, but do not need one for UK. Should that be a factor for me to consider?

How do I weigh in if I’m more fitted to be at MozFest, Leadership Summit or Work Week? Am I even worthy to be at any of them? Am I a “leader”?

Is there a proper and polite way for a Mozillian to nudge staff somehow to signal “I’d like to be at the MozFest, Leadership Summit, Work Week”?

For the last Mozilla event I participated was the QA/LATAM Hackathon in Lima for which there were two ways to signal interest detailed at https://wiki.mozilla.org/QA/LATAM_QA_Meetup_2015#How_to_Apply and https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.community.mexico/J29jg3E_Ut8/KVlUOWUyIOQJ

Again as I was very exited to participate and I’m fond of both QA and l10n I ended up applying both ways but to this day I do not know if I was selected for my contributions to QA or l10n =)

While in Lima, paid staff members of both QA and l10n asked me variants of “Why weren’t you at Whistler?” to which I was too shy to ask “Why you didn’t invite me?” =)

Hope I made sense and sorry for the wall of text…

¡Gracias!

3 Likes
#8

seems good to me , but please take into account when choosing participants how many this participants already been to these events !
for me a reps mentor , been with Mozilla for about three years and i Havant participated in a global event yet!
the team who is responsible for the selection should be fair and neutral

2 Likes
#9

I’m noticing that the application pool will be based entirely on self-selection. I think a widely shared nomination process should be added to help identify leaders who might miss out on this opportunity otherwise for whatever reason (didn’t find out about it, imposter syndrome, don’t identify as leaders, etc). This would also add an additional signal for selection.

I’d also like to see Mozilla alumi targeted/invited to apply. A nomination process could help with that as well.

3 Likes
#10

So I really like this process as an application to be in this “Leadership Cohort” and I like a cohort because it is a commitment to reach out to specific people and follow up with a relationship over time, so you can see what works and what doesn’t, then iterate and repeat for another cohort.

But I agree with all of the qualms raised about making this the path for volunteers to get invited to these events. For MozFest, people can also just attend or they can submit sessions (hopefully people submitting sessions are still considered for sponsorship outside of this application process). For the Leadership Summit I like this application process, and I also like the suggestion that people “invite” community members to apply. For the work week, well I had sort of an “aha” about my opinion on that, let me know if this is off topic for this discussion:

I think for the work week volunteers should be treated like staff. You’re either part of the team or you’re not, and if you’re part of the team you get an invite. There should be guidelines on how to identify someone as part of the team, and then if a volunteer meets those guidelines, they should get to go. I think this Leadership cohort could be used to seed volunteers on teams that don’t have volunteers they identify as team members yet, but that this cohort shouldn’t take away invites from other volunteers.

2 Likes
#11

Thanks for the great feedback everyone. Just an FYI that I’m going to wait
for more to come in and then we’ll work on a final iteration on Thursday.

#12

First of all, this is sooo awesome Participation team! This detailed process and guidelines are very helpful.
In the Leadership Summit, I think regional distribution needs to be taken into consideration, so we can ensure that as many countries as possible can be represented.

#13

Love to see that we’re trying to clarify the criteria and process, and it’s good that we’re not limit the chance to Rep only. (Although I’m rep, I know many people who is not rep but still contributing a lot.)

I just wonder about “choose 1 of 3” process. If someone choose one, but he had not been select (perhaps he is more suitable to join other 2). We’ll lost his participant for all. It will become a difficult choice for contributors, and we will miss 2/3 of potential participants for all 3 events.

I still feeling that apply process should be separate considering. But we can make the rule clear that “if you’re qualified to be all 3, you can only choose 1” (or “we will only invite you to 1 of 3”).

1 Like
#14

Getting feedback on dates for the Leadership Summit (note: November doesn’t seem to make sense for a variety of reasons related to planning and too many events and a need for ACTION in November on Mozilla’s campaigns and products)

Also, location is likely to be in Asia to increase our global presence of gatherings (looking at Singapore for ease of travel and visas).

  • January 22-24
  • January 29-31 (same time as FOSDEM but not at FOSDEM)
  • Feb 5-7
  • Similar dates, but not a weekend (Reply with suggestion)
  • Another date (Reply with suggestion)

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#15

Currently Discourse only allows for one vote, this might be better as a doodle so people can say all of the times they’re available.

#16

I just have the time to read all of this. My only worries is the cancellation of the REMO camp, i was really looking forward to it to talk to the other mentors face to face in a dedicated weekend about the program and in this proposal this will be lost

#17

Is REMO camp definitely cancelled?

1 Like
#18

Strongly agree, we also know that some sorts of folks, who are traditionally more marginalized, will not self-select into these groups - so I think it is important to our inclusion goals that people can be recommended and that a wide variety of types of leaders (staff, volunteer, people who lead in less traditional ways) are made aware that they should be considering people to nominate.

1 Like
#19

another thought - I like the diversity criteria already established and would encourage us to also seek additional diversity - ask people (who are comfortable doing so) to explicitly state further ways that they bring unique or unusual/important perspectives and highlght those intentionally in the application review.

1 Like
#20

ReMo Camp is going to be incorporated into a broader Leadership Summit (i.e. more diverse than mentors/council) + those who would have come to ReMo Camp are being encouraged to consider whether MozFest or the Work Week are a stronger fit for contribution.

Plus, none of these is an automatic invitation – they all require people to articulate the impact they want to have through attending.