commnities are awesome
DESCRIPTION
The Mozilla Developer Network is an open-source documentation wiki for web developers, which is written by really passionate, smart, and inspiring people. Most are not paid employees of Mozilla. All of them are helping make the web a better place by writing, editing, and reviewing articles. How do you support a diverse community, acknowledge many different voices and perspectives, be open and inclusive, and still get things done (especially when you can’t force anyone to do anything)? In this session, I’ll share what I’ve learned (and keep learning) by working with, in, and for volunteer communities; including how to be more transparent, create opportunity, and broadly share ownership.TRANSCRIPT
Introduce yourself!
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The Firefox browser is Mozilla’s most well-‐known product. You might not know Mozilla is an open-‐source, non-‐profit, mission-‐based company.
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Mozilla has a mission is to promote openness, innovaGon & opportunity on the Web.
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We rely upon a huge volunteer community to achieve our mission.
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I’m here today to talk about one part of the Mozilla community; the volunteers who contribute to The Mozilla Developer Network (MDN). MDN is an open-‐source documentaGon wiki for web developer. WriQen by a community of developers and writers. Or would that be writer-‐developers? Developer-‐writers? Anyways;
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MDN documentaGon covers standards & technologies that build the web: HTML, CSS, Javascript. Canvas. SVG. Mobile & HTML5 Apps. We also write developer-‐centric documentaGon for Mozilla products. MDN scope & size: • 2 million users/month • 35 languages • over 11k documents & growing all the Gme 5 paid writers. The web is big & constantly evolving, Standards are updated. There is a lot to document. More work than 5 people can possibly do. How do we get around that?
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We have an awesome community who do amazing things. Our community consists of people who love the web and feel passionately that keeping it open and accessible to all is important. On MDN, community enables us to “punch above our weight” • 5 paid writers, plus 1 community manager, plus 1 manager • 2-‐3 part-‐Gme paid contractors • 225 core volunteers (contribute weekly over the course of several months) • 600+ acGve contributors (at least one in a month) • 1,500 occasional contributors (monthly) • 5k registered users (have made one edit) • 2m users, who I hope will eventually join and share their experGse. What does the community do? Write, edit, localize, tag content. Technical and editorial reviews. Contribute code to our proprietary wiki plaeorm. Upload demos and code samples. Speak about Mozilla at events. Hold MDN events for developers – documentaGon and localizaGon sprints. Help us be more accessible. Just as – or more-‐ importantly, thye provide diversity and different perspecGves.
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One of the best parts of my job is working with the community. Story: Priyanka & Kaustav are university students in Pune. Met in person in September. Love Mozilla & love MDN Helped host an event in Pune, then began hosGng Doc Sprints Created event best pracGce guide to help others who want to hold similar events. Helped re-‐write Gekng Started guide for new community members. Provide insight into what developers in India care about
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PERSONAL STORY: FISL in Porto Allegre, in Southerm Brazil. Held a localizaGon sprint & 70 people showed up. Introduced MDN and gave a quick introducGon to how to edit. AQendees asking “it is that easy”” was thrilling. The big smiles and enthusiasm were infecGous. Many guys brought their girlfriends, halfway through the day the girls had pulled the laptops away and were translaGng. Translated 200 docs. Whave very remarkably low spam and malicious edits. Even accidental problems are rare. People feel great responsibility to the site and the documentaGon. They follow the style guide and editorial rules, oqen without prompGng. We come together around a shared goal: documenGng the web. Keeping it open.
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You’re probably thinking,, wow, that is awesome, you have armies of volunteers working on documentaGon. How do you get them to do what you want?
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You don’t Members of your community are not minions; they are partners in a journey.
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To get things done you share informaGon and ownership. You help, you moGvate, and you provide opportunity to share their experGse in a way that is relevant and meaningful to them. I believe providing opportunity is the key. What, exactly, drives people to devote their free Gme to wriGng stuff they don’t get paid for?
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ScienGfic studies find there is a powerful and significant difference between extrinsic moGvaGon, the kind that comes from outside sources, and intrinsic moGvaGon, the kind that comes from within yourself. Beyond a certain level (providing for basic needs) money, which is extrinsic, isn’t the most powerful or effecGve moGvator. In fact, extrinsic moGvators may have a negaGve effect in the long run. In a 1974 study Green & Lepper rewarded children for drawing with felt-‐Gp pens (the children drew before with great enjoyment). The surprising result? Aqer receiving rewards for the acGvity, the children showed liQle to no interest in drawing with the pens. The extrinsic moGvaGon replaced any intrinsic moGvaGon, thereby diminishing the innate enjoyment of the acGvity. What moGvates volunteers? A sense of belonging. The opportunity to share experGse. Learning from and with others. Being part of something bigger. Something important. The exposure to new ideas, resources, and experiences. Having more impact than they would by themselves.
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A great book about moGvaGon, Drive, by Dan Pink, explains theories of what drives people: Autonomy – the desire to direct our own lives. 2. Mastery — the urge to get beQer and beQer at something that maQers. 3. Purpose — the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves. This applies outside of documentaGon, open source, or technology. It is part of the human experience.
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STORY: Burning Man. 70,000 aQendees. 90% of the staff are volunteers. Volunteers parGcipate in every aspect of the event; building the city, operaGons, security, art, music, cleanup, and tear-‐down. People volunteering at Burning Man have similar moGvaGons to contributors at Mozilla. Burning Man volunteers say parGcipaGng in the event profoundly changes their lives. They feel part of something bigger than themselves. Volunteering allows others in the community to also have that experience. Burning Man has 10 principals that help to shape their community & culture.
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I find the principal on parGcipaGon interesGng and relevant. Everyone is invited. They open-‐source the event, create a social experiment
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Mozilla also has 10 principals that shape the community and culture. Mozilla’s principals also address community parGcipaGon. Transparent processes lead to parGcipaGon, trust, accountability. Everyone is invited. PERSONAL STORY: A couple of weeks ago, I aQended a talk by Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, who wrote a book, Delivering Happiness, about the culture at Zappos.
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Zappos also has 10 principals (or core values) that guide their culture. The actual principals themselves maQer less than fully commikng to them. They are not a meaningless plaque on the wall of the corporate lobby. Everyone must understand and commit to these values; at Zappos they hire and fire by them. They set the tone for the culture, the community. By doing this, you build a community & culture with a common purpose.
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You are probably thinking, That’s great, but… It would never work for me. Not at my company. We have deadlines, roadmaps & there is not way to get around them. So do we. We have roadmaps, goals. It’s just that our prioriGes & roadmaps are developed with the community, instead of for them. Think about it. If I can’t convince the community of passionate volunteers, who give up their free Gme to write documentaGon, that something is the right thing to do – maybe it isn’t the right thing to do. Think about that. It is too easy to get into a bubble. A bubble of your team, your company, your area or region. History is liQered with failed products developed by teams that got too far into their bubbles and lost touch with their communiGes. A community of deeply involved, passionate, smart, and inspiring people provides diversity and different perspecGves. They help make the right decisions.
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It isn’t easy. I’m not saying we do it 100% right all the Gme. Currently, most of our meeGngs and discussions are public, as are our roadmaps and goals. We have an open list to discuss prioriGes. We vote, discuss, argue politely. The ongoing dialog improves iniGaGves and ideas. We all are invested in creaGng good documentaGon. We can, and will, conGnue improve openness and communicaGon. Our very vocal community ensures that. We constantly improve, learn and evolve. Openess is hard. Consensus feels slow and frustraGng. However slow consensus feels, I believe doing the wrong thing is slower. STORY: MDN Redesign. It isn’t easy, but what we share and achieve, together, is awesome. Not everyone can, or should, build a community in the same way. What works for us might not be possible, or beneficial to you and your users/community. You community might not be volunteers, it might be co-‐workers or others in your industry. I challenge you to think about what you document. What inspires you? What inspires passion in your users? Can they help write the docs? How about review them? Can they promote them at events? What opportuniGes can you give your community? What opportuniGes will they give you, if you allow them to.
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Try it. Or, you are always welcome to join our community and help make the web a beQer place.
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