In just a week Mozillians will gather for the Mozilla Summit 2013. I’ve been working with a number of the facilitators and the “track leads” and I have to say, it is really rewarding.
The Summit will have 4 or 5 “plenary sessions” with pretty carefully planned content. We also have identified some key ideas and topics that the plenary talks will raise, and planned session to address some of these. These are known as “Supporting Sessions.” We expect to have the same Supporting Sessions in each of the 3 locations, facilitated by people in each location. (There will also be a big chunk of time for Open Sessions –anyone proposes a session — and for spontaneous groups to gather.) The topics for the Supporting Sessions were determined by the 60 or so Assembly Delegates and the rest of the summit organizing team. These groups did not determine the actual content of the Supporting Sessions. Instead, we gave a topical statement to guide the facilitators in developing an approach to the session. The Track Leads have the roles of looking at all the supporting Sessions for a particular theme — product and technology, people and process, purpose and strategy. They also assist the facilitators stay connected with the overall picture.
I’ll give one of plenary talks, focused on the nature of Mozilla, who we are, why we exist, how we work, the attributes of success, and the connections to our products and communities. So far I’ve talked with the facilitators of 3 the Supporting Sessions that relate to these themes:
what does “mozillian” mean? ”
“practicing Open;” and
“distributed leadership and decision-making.”
Wow! In each case I was impressed with the sophistication of the work the facilitators and track leads are doing. These are complex topics, selected to represent some key elements of Mozilla that are different from most organizations. That means it’s really important to develop a shared understanding of our goals, and yet we can’t simply do what everyone else does.
I’m looking forward to the Summit more than ever!