Mozilla

Posts Tagged with “brainstorming”

Business Card Redux

June 4th, 2009

Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions for describing the Mozilla mission for a business card. Also to those involved in the related conversation on the characteristics that make the web better over at Mark Surman’s blog.

After reading the suggestions a few times I realized I want to try something that is explicit about the public benefit or non-profit nature of Mozilla. This concept helps people understand that we are fundamentally different from most of the software vendors they are accustomed to. And i think it makes it easier for people to believe that our talk of “open” or “shared control” or “benefit to the user is first” reflects our guiding principles, and not simply nice-sounding words that promote some other goal.

Mozilla offices are moving this weekend and I need new cards in a hurry so I went with something very simple for the first batch. I’m not remotely done yet with this project though. I’ve already got ideas for the second batch, and I’m trying to figure out how to incorporate more ideas from the recent discussions.

The front side is a template, where colors, the Mozilla dino logo and the text block are predetermined. The back side is open for exploration. Here’s my first batch.

For the second batch I think I’ll try adding a second line, so the text next to the Firefox logo says:

Public Benefit Internet
Opportunity for All

I like many of the other ideas quite a bit and am working on incorporating them in future versions, until I find one that really works. I hope anyone who feels inspired to use these ideas in any setting to describe Mozilla, please of course feel free.

Please help me design my business card!

May 22nd, 2009

I’ll be ordering new business cards shortly. I want to use the back side of the card to test out ways of describing the Mozilla mission. The front side with have a Mozilla dino head image. I’ll probably put a Firefox logo on the back because so many people I meet recognize Firefox but not Mozilla. Next to that I want to put a short, pithy statement that goes way beyond our products. I’d like to either capture our mission, or spark a conversation that allows us to describe the mission. I’ve put a few possibilities below. I am looking for other ideas.

My examples will be in English, but I’m also interested in good ways to express key Mozilla concepts in other languages as well.

  • building opportunity into the Internet
  • public benefit internet
  • Building the Internet as a global public resource
  • opportunity for all

Back from silence

April 7th, 2009

I’ve been traveling and on vacation the last couple of weeks and so have been silent here. There are a couple more posts about the EC I want to turn to, interspersed with some other topics.

As to the EC, the potential principles I haven’t yet addressed are below. In addition, I want to address why I believe there are significant competitive issues even though Firefox is gaining marketshare.

  • Microsoft must educate people about other browsers (or fines levied against Microsoft should be used to support open source projects and education).
  • Microsoft tools for developing content must not produce IE specific or Windows-specific results.
  • IE must comply with web standards. (Opera has suggested that Microsoft must support web standards they have promised to support).

To-Do List

September 8th, 2008

It’s been a hectic summer. First the Firefox 3 release, then the Firefox (Plus) Summit, then working on renewing our Google agreement, then  a week of vacation at the end of August, and then responding to the release of Google’s browser. (Fortunately part of my vacation was in an old cabin in a beautiful old state park with waterfalls and woods and trails and not much else to do but relax and unwind.) I’ve got a lot of things in progress that I want to return to, as well as a bunch of new topics. Here’s a partial list:

On-Going:

New topics:

  • Mark Surman starts as new Mozilla Foundation ED in two weeks. I’m anticipating he’ll spend a couple of weeks getting settled and then there will be a flow of Foundation topics that both he and I will be focused on.
  • Describe my current role — what I’e been doing, how I work with John and the rest of MoCo in my current role.
  • Describe my perspective on what it’s like to guide a project like Mozilla, how we “manage” things, what leadership looks like, what I’m learning about distributed authority.

Unplanned: I don’t know what these are yet, but I’m sure they are coming. If the past is any judge, the unplanned topics may well overshadow everything else! Even before that happens there’s plenty to do 🙂

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