I like your idea of the funnel, along with the concentric circles. I think at this point we may want to encourage lots of ideasvery broadly, , as you discussed. But the things that work through the funnel to become Mozilla Foundation activities should be in a concentric circle very close to something that’s already working.

Of course, it’s not always clear which concrete things to work on until we stumble upon them, especially when you are trying to something like engage the Next Million Mozillians. I like your concentric circles idea as a way to do this process of idea stumbling (yes, of course it’s more systematic than that) close to home. For Mozilla, I can see how this would surface ideas that build concretely on existing talents while still moving beyond just software products. And also help figure out the outer boundaries over time.

A question: do you just start with the next circle out from the core (spreading the Seneca open source developer education model to more places)? Or do you jump a little further out from the start (inviting the millions of Mozillians to post online about how they’ve put the Manifesto into action in their lives)? Or do you find a couple of simple, concrete ways to play close to home and further out simultaneously?

Obviously, closer to home means its more likely that the idea will be a fit … and further out means your more likely to see genuinely new ideas and new people coming to the table. It seems both are desirable.