Planning a Summit is hard, let’s go shopping

Hello fellow Mozillians (and curious onlookers)!

In a couple of days you will, en-masse, get your first peek at the high level agenda of the 3 day MegaMozillaFest you’ll be cannon-balling into this coming October. As someone who feels very fortunate to have been part of the planning processes (more multiple threads than you can shake a stick at) I thought I’d take some time during my layover en-route to Toronto and fill you in on what got us here in the hopes that:

I can shine light on how much hard work and sincerity went into the organization so that participants can get a lot out of this experience
You can see how many different voices and teams come together to plan an event at this scale
You’ll become as excited as I am (or close) for the journey we’re about to go on together this fall

It started, for me, back in June when 70 ‘delegates’ were brought together at the Mozilla Paris office to begin the conversations that were intended to bubble up the big issues and tensions that our community needs to address at Summit.

Wait. It started before that.

For delegates going to the Paris Planning Assembly, we were asked to go out and interview people in our ‘functional areas’ and query them about the story of how they got engaged with Mozilla, what they perceived our challenges and opportunities to be, and where they see Mozilla going in the next 10-15 years. I reached out to our Homozilla list, WoMoz, and also to the Firefox Team – a nice, diverse group of people to try and drag up some feedback to bring.

Sidebar: We often get asked to seek feedback from others in preparation and most recently I did this for a TRIBE workshop. From doing those interviews in person I now plan to commit to doing all sorts of info-gatherings in person/vidyo rather than over email. It’s too easy to send out an email blast and then just pick up what comes back to you. I get so much more from talking with a person face-to-face (video chat counts) and as you’ll see later in the post about Summit planning, it’s important to go a little further trying to encourage feedback than just a one-way missive over email that can be easily ignored or missed.

I got less feedback from people than I would want or expect. It’s a part of our culture to be cycling rapidly on our work and that results in a general air of being overwhelmed and too busy to do anything out of the usual routine so I largely attribute the low response rate to that. For my part I could have framed the questions differently, reached out to individual people instead of group lists, held a vidyo ‘office hours’ to talk with people in person, and followed up more (ie: nagging, a RelMan’s #1 skill).

Minimal feedback aside, I went to Paris feeling very much like I could bring a certain voice to the discussions as someone who wears many hats in our organization and who’s been involved with the project since 2006. Also, as a former unpaid contributor, intern, then full time hire I can imagine some of the realities of what it’s like in the shoes of many Mozillians.

I’ve already written a bit about what happened at the Paris Summit Planning and how it impacted me so I’ll sum up by sharing that when we left Paris the “what’s next?” action was that we each put our names to one of 5 groups where we could be called upon later for ideas/session planning/accountability for that area: People, Process, Product, Strategy, Purpose

Those groups then got turned into three track themes and were assigned two track leads who would work with Steering Committee members on refining the sessions for each as well as with the other delegates from Paris who had signed up to be accountable for those topics. The entire breakdown of this process is handily in a wiki page, but here’s the high level of who’s involved so you know who I’ve been working with for the past month or so:

Purpose & Strategy – Track Leads: myself and Michelle Thorne, Steering Committee: Mitchell Baker and Mark Surman
Products & Technology – Track Leads: Dave Herman and David Ascher, Steering Committee: Jay Sullivan and Brendan Eich
People & Process – Track Leads: Michael Coates and Zbigniew Braniecki (Gandalf), Steering Committee: Debbie Cohen and Jim Cook

The above listed people, along with Dino Anderson and Dia Bondi (and then a whole host of people behind the scenes like Kate, Mardi, and outside contractors) shepherded us through the last month while we did 3 iterations on an agenda in order to get the results you’ll all see this Tuesday. We held a TON of meetings with each other, in our small Track groups, and with our body of delegates from Paris. In our group, Purpose and Strategy, we kept circling back to the Nature of Mozilla (NoM) and how to best transmit that message so it can be held as the core of every Mozillian’s understanding of who we are, why we are, and what we do. We’d have to ask ourselves: Do our sessions have NoM aspects to them? If not, this isn’t the time. The very core of what makes us Mozillian is the key to this experience because it’s at the heart of how we will move into the future with our new projects as well as continuing to properly steer our existing ships in the waters of the open web.

During this process of multiple hour-long or more meetings each week with some serious thinkers & planners at Mozilla, several things happened for me:

I worried sometimes that we had become too narrow, that as such a small group we weren’t getting enough input, yet at the same time I saw new, and very engaged people at the table taking on leadership roles and bringing up strong points. I had to trust that this part of the planning process (similar to with the Paris planning) was for the best and that we’d get the right pieces cobbled together – always with the larger group who will attend & participate in the final product foremost in our minds.
It was reinforced for me many times over how it is for me to participate in meetings that are over 30 minutes long. I’m really going to need to work on that for my own professional development and opportunities in the future. I’m most definitely open to suggestions on how I can ‘game’ my own self to be better at meetings. In TRIBE we learned about the forms of listening and I’ve been aware of/practiced active listening for 2 decades but there’s something about meetings – the group factor, the agendas, getting off topic. Perhaps some training in facilitation might help understand this area better.
At the beginning of our meetings Dino asked all the Track Leads to speak a little about how we work best and I stated that I always prefer *doing* and am at my best with a list of clear steps to take. While I still enjoy talking/dreaming big, at the end of a rousing brainstorming I need that list of “now what?” and it had better be clear what is expected from me next. This planning process was definitely done in a way that met & exceeded my needs in that area. I applaud all the people who are at the top of the accountability chain for the Summit on their skillful communications and guidance throughout the last few months.
I felt incredibly fortunate to be a part of the creation of this next milestone in our shared Mozilla experience. We were *creating* a journey for (almost) all Mozillians to share. Having these touchstones within a project is so important. Being at the table to dream up and then turn into actuality the plan for complete engagement, alignment, and inspiration of what will get us all to the next billion web users is a heady task and I truly believe we’re very much on the right track to providing a creative and engaging space in October that will change all of your lives in good ways.

At the end of our last agenda review, I was filled with excitement about our schedule: Science & Culture Fairs, lots of Open Sessions, something called ‘Speedgeeking’ which I suspect will be like lightning talks, and then the overall story we’re going to learn about but also build into over 3 days. I’m sad that I’m missing almost 2/3 of Summit due to a prior commitment to the Grace Hopper Conference Open Source Day but I’ll join many of you on Saturday evening in Toronto and go deep Sunday so I can get the most out of it.

I hope this explanation of the process helps you understand how many people put in a lot of time to create what you’ll be participating in. Please join us with an open heart to the goals of this gathering – whichever location you end up in – know that we brought in as many of your voices as we could, that we want more than anything for you to get as excited about Mozilla’s future as we’ve been while dreaming about how we’re all going to build it together, aligned and re-energized. See you in October!

Mozilla’s got projects for GNOME OPW Summer 2013

We’ve got 2 projects right now for GNOME Outreach Project for Women to apply to: https://wiki.mozilla.org/GNOME_Outreach_Summer2013 thanks to Liz Henry and Selena Deckelmann

If anyone else at Mozilla has a project that can be done in 3 months time (or at least give the contributor a sense of accomplishment and get them very engaged as a Mozilla contributor) feel free to add a project (and a mentor) to the wiki. Applications are being accepted via GNOME until May 1st.

One of my favourite things about this program is that it allows someone to ‘intern’ with Mozilla without the requirement of being a student. If you can help tweet/share the project, that would be much appreciated too. This project has been growing exponentially every session and is making a significant impact to FOSS community and culture.

https://live.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen

PyCon 2012 and a second wind for PyStar

Pystar flaming 160 150px

Yesterday when PyCon concluded (and I sadly did not win a NAO robot), I drove home with a sense of renewed energy for continuing to work on building the python community I want to be a part of. I had a tremendously good time at this year’s PyCon. It continues to become a more diverse space and a place where I feel connected with people who inspire and motivate me.

I was happy to (finally) meet Dana face to face, and thrilled to see several women who had attended PyStar events also now attending PyCon. It’s one of the reasons we left last year’s PyCon with the dream of PyStar in our hearts. After the talk about the Boston Python Workshop (which was wonderful and thanks to Asheesh for the shout-out) I was thinking about what makes PyStar unique and whether there is a need for PyStar now that many other alternatives exist. Hard to believe that only a year ago it felt like there was nothing for women in Python and now there’s shirts stating “Python is for Girls” for sale at the expo hall.

So, with all these groups springing up (and the BPW continuing to grow) do we need PyStar? My gut says immediately “yes” because the more groups focusing on bringing women into geek/programming space and having it be safer and comfortable the better. There’s more to it than that though. The groups are all doing great with their various organizers and events. PyLadies, Ladies Learning Code, and Women Who Code are all holding sold-out events, getting lots of attention, and we’re all working hard to get more women connected to a community of programmers where they can learn and develop skills in a ‘safer’ space than historically has been available to women. The Boston Python Workshop is doing a great job of promoting Boston (as well as Python and Workshops) but I realized that for me, the reason I got excited (and am excited again) about PyStar was exactly because it was non-geographically named and because the name itself is for “all”. I’m very happy to be in the mix with all those groups and yet I recognize that I still want to try to nurture and shape PyStar into its own thing.

I am interested in continuing to explore how to work on this project with a distributed team and to have PyStar events spring up in various communities and be customized to specific needs. Just because SF is heavy into startups and web apps doesn’t mean that San Antonio, Texas will be – maybe they’ll be more into big data and hardware hacking. I like the idea of PyStar developing and hosting a wide variety of curriculum for python-driven projects in a central repo that can be cherry-picked as needed by anyone in any city who wants to lead a workshop day/weekend/afternoon. I especially want to figure out how to repeat what I did in Paris last summer, where I managed to organize a PyStar for when I was going to be there visiting. That certainly required some existing connection to the town (Mozilla/WoMoz) but the idea of traveling and setting up shop anywhere a hacker group/women’s community/library can host – that’s exciting to me and carries forward the DIY/punkrock way I’ve always known how to get things done.

In the talk at PyCon, one of the BPW’s stated goals is to try to build up within existing user groups. I see their logic, and it’s sound, but I was not a member of the BayPiggies (the Bay Area PUG) when I first was inspired to start running PyStar events in the Bay Area and I still don’t see the need to be. There are several places where I can announce upcoming workshops, Baypiggies have a mailing list I’m on, and I can promote PyStar events and make sure other groups are in the loop about what we’re doing. I think this more than satisfies being eligible to be part of the larger Python community, and yet there’s room for more than one Python-loving group in any community. I’m not always looking to insert myself into an existing group – there is something to be said for creating new things and building them with a certain tone/mission in place at inception. That’s what I get out of PyStar, it doesn’t have a legacy or a way things have always been done – the spirit of PyStar is one of distributed organization, shared responsibility, and communal education.

Here are my specific goals for this upcoming year of PyStar:

1. More curriculum on the PyStar site – workshop material that is discoverable by level (beginner, intermediate, pro) and by time commitment (half day workshop? full day? multi-week?). A new person interested in organizing a PyStar event should be able to see an easy-to-follow list of what to do to set up their own event based on time and level. This can be accomplished through more research on finding existing curriculum and adapting it, more events where we can test and fine tune those curriculum, and also having curriculum hack nights with PyStar organizers and volunteers (multi-city) where we focus on developing material to fill gaps in our topics

2. Have PyStar SingPath tournaments both locally and with other PyStar outposts. While the one I did at PyCon 2012 was a nerve-wracking experience, it was ultimately a confidence-boosting event for me. I encouraged a few women to come try it and it seems to be a pretty fun way to maintain the energy as well as test your new skills between workshops. We can tailor the tournament to be _very_ friendly (prize/badge for all, just for participating). I read/heard something recently about how leaderboard style of competition is not that motivating for women and that beating your own previous results is much more fulfilling. We can definitely work that into our tournament styles by awarding prizes for most improved and other metrics that a person can get by just doing better than they did in previous tournaments.

3. Incorporate Open Badges into the PyStar curriculum so there is measurable outcome for completing projects and implementing the handing out of badges through the PyStar site. Gregg and I are already talking with Mozilla about their Open Badges project and will continue to keep an ear to the ground on how to implement this into the PyStar site. It would be nice to have a meeting with all interested PyStar organizers to brainstorm on what our badges could be.

4. Find non-profits who need small projects (simple website, automation) done and have no budget – match them with PyStars who would like to learn. Possibly have a connection section on the PyStar site? Have PyStar leaders be ‘project managers’ and bring a project to fruition through regular PyStar meetups? This is a longer term goal, but one I like to keep floating out there and gauging people’s reactions to. Usually the reaction is “great idea! lots of work!” 🙁 My vision here is something along the lines of a a template for ‘how to build a (info, fundraising, blogging) site for a small non-profit with a newbie webdev team’ curriculum.

5. A stronger focus on intermediate level programmers. Not to the exclusion of beginners, but to be sure there is room to grow within PyStar This comes up a lot in SF/Bay Area and I know it’s different in each city. In SF/BayArea it seems really important because there needs to be something to hook in the women who have programmed in other languages or who are CS majors who seem to lack the confidence in themselves now that they are out in the workforce – with many of these participants, it doesn’t take much to remind them how far they are from a newbie – I would like to focus on them a bit more because a) no one else seems to do so b) it provides more volunteer potential and alum/badges c) mentoring opportunities for newbies and job networking for the intermediate level programmers among each other

6. Continue to develop strong connections with PSF, BPW, PyLadies, and __insert_group_here__ organizers. – I should have proposed a BOF at PyCon for organizers to get together and share plans — I would really like to work alongside these other groups in a sustainable way, we all have admirable goals and could share some resources and people-power.

7. PyStar gear & promo materials, fundraising. Set up a cafepress store to sell some PyStar goods and also try to get a few donations to set up an account for PyStar that would allow us to a) pay for the domain name I just renewed b) potentially buy other domain names for side projects we come up with when we work with non-profits c) cover the costs for creation of handouts, cards, other promo materials to give out at events promoting PyStar

Get involved! The project currently lives in github and organizers/contributors can reach each other through our mailing list. If you want to host an event, help with curriculum, or otherwise work on making safer spaces for learning Python happen in your own community, get in touch.