Gen Kanai of Mozilla shares 7 lessons from Mozilla. This presentation was originally developed by former CEO of Mozilla John Lilly.

1. 7 Lessons from Mozilla
GNUnify
Feb. 2012
Pune
Gen Kanai

2. Mozilla India
Community Meeting
Sunday, Feb. 12
Pune (see me for details)

3. Seven Insights
Two Problems & Some Thoughts

4. Gen Kanai
Mozilla
Dir. Community Engagement, Asia
Hello.

5. Caution: Your results may vary

6. Some
Context

7. Mozilla is…

8. FOX Business (2009)

9. FOX Business (2011)

10. Promote
Choice and Innovation
on the Internet

11. Seriously.

12. That’s it.

13. The Web is
too important!

14. • Mozilla project started in 1998 within Netscape
• Mozilla Foundation started in 2003
• approximately 600 paid staff in 20 countries
• ~40% of code contributed by volunteers
• Testing community of 60,000+
• More than 400 million users
• Global browser market share 25~30%
Factoids

15. Seven Insights

16. 1234
567

17. Superior Products
Matter

22. Without
excellent experience & utility,
the rest is meaningless

23. 1234
567

24. Push (most) Decision Making
to the Edges

25. Build Dee Hock’s Chaords

26. 1. exhibit characteristics of both chaos & order
2. regularly yield surprising innovation
3. highly robust & scalable systems
(examples include the Internet itself, Wikipedia, Visa)
Characteristics of Chaords

27. 1. Distributed Decision-Making
2. Nodal Authority
3. Ways to Route Around

28. 1. high agreement on core values
2. decision-making rests with module owners
3. groups have distinct ways of working
4. many decision-makers outside the “official” org
5. communication is central
Mozilla is a Chaord

29. 1234
567

30. Communication will happen
in every possible way
* so make sure it’s reusable

31. People will communicate in
every useful way possible

32. Wikis

34. Twitter

35. Our main channels: Bugzilla, IRC & newsgroups

36. More: Video, Audio, Chat (and Robots)

38. 1234
567

39. Make it easy for your
Community to do the
Important Things

40. SuMo
QMO

41. Twitter

42. Firefox ships in 82 languages;
81 of them localized by volunteers
Making it easy is a huge priority

43. All Things D

44. Our focus now (increasingly) is on
making it easier to help others do more

45. 1234
567

46. Surprise is overrated

47. Surprise is the
ETISOPPO
of Engagement

49. Grow the Circle of Participation
ideally everyone should
feel included if they so desire

50. 1234
567

51. Communities are not Markets:
Members are Citizens

52. Citizens are more than consumers,
are more than bystanders,
are more than stakeholders

53. fewer decisions
based on employment;
more decisions
based on merit

54. THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM
THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM
THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM
THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM
THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM
THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM
THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM
THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM
THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM
THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM
THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM
THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM
THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM
THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM
THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM

55. The best citizens challenge the
status quo, propose improvements
and make the conversation richer

56. They don’t just make products better.
They make them what they are.

57. Experiment! Try things!
Measure where possible.

58. 1234
567

59. The key is the art of figuring
out whether & how to apply
each of these ideas

60. 1. Superior Products Matter
2. Push (most) decision-making to the edges
3. Communication will happen - make it reusable
4. Make it easy to do the important things
5. Surprise is overrated
6. Communities are not Markets
7. Figure out whether & how to apply these ideas

61. Two Problems

62. noisy
Engaged citizens are
#1

63. “Fitts’ says bigger
“The URL bar should buttons are better.”
be removed.” “What’s with the
dirty house?”
“There should be
“My mom doesn’t a preference setting.” “Nobody uses the “Add support for
understand tabs.” ‘Go’ button.” BitTorrent.”
“OpenID is the future!”
“Everyone uses tags, “That’s great!”
not bookmarks.”
“I love tabs!”
“The profile manager
should be redesigned.”
“Add support for
Ogg Vorbis.”
“That’s awful”
“Closebuttons are better at
the end of the tabstrip.”

64. Demanding

65. Contradictory

66. They help products, technology &
organizations make hard decisions
in the right way.
vital

67. NO
There are
maps…
#2

68. Actually… there are maps.
They just aren’t yours.

69. http://xkcd.com/802/

70. Key is to define what you care about,
how to measure it and how to
communicate a litmus test.

71. …and some
Thoughts

72. Why
non-profit?

76. Why be
Open?

77. participation
agility
momentum
testing/rapid prototyping
leverage

78. public performance
endless opinion loops
“crowd sourcing”

79. next battleground
mobile web

80. carriers vs. manufacturers
‘app stores’ concentrate power
(mobile) web apps are free

81. build
Community
alongside your tool-chain

82. Planning Project Mgmt Dev & Build
wiki.mozilla.org bugzilla.mozilla.org Tinderbox , etc
QA Crash Stats Automation
quality.mozilla.org crash-stats.mozilla.org Nightly / Testing
Feedback …
input.mozilla.org

83. Thanks!
John Lilly, Pascal Finette,
Mike Beltzner, Chris Beard,
Matt Thompson, Mitchell Baker
Mozilla communities worldwide
all content CC-Attribution

84. gen@mozilla | @gen
“Mozilla in Asia” blog