[IMPORTANT] Council Elections - November 2017 - Nominee Q&A

Reps
#1

Hey all,
This is the second step into the Election Process. In this thread the 6 nominees should post their answers to the following questions:

  1. What are the top three issues that you would want the Council to address were you to join the Council?
  2. What is in your view the Mozilla Reps program’s biggest strength and weakness?
  3. Identify something that is currently not working well in the Mozilla Reps program and which you think could be easy to fix?
  4. What past achievement as a Rep or Mentor are you most proud of?
  5. What are the specific qualities and skills that you have that you think will help you be an effective Council member?
  6. As a Rep, what do you do to try to encourage inactive mozillians to be active again?
  7. Which of the three priority projects do you consider the most important? Please motivate your answer.
  8. Which of the two big roles (specific skills based on the 3 priority projects) do you consider to describe you best? Please motivate your answer.

Let me know if you have any concerns.

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Council Elections - Nominees Q&A questions rework
#2

What are the top three issues that you would want the Council to address were you to join the Council?

  1. Opportunities for new contributors and Reps
    Everyone loves ease in browsing and navigating through the various contribution opportunities and mentor-ship. Currently, most of the Reps and new volunteer Mozillians rely on whatcanidoformozilla.org to explore new contribution areas and learn ways to contribute. However, in spite of this portal, the volunteers tend to get in-touch with someone who can guide them. Thus, there is an opportunity in improving the whatcanidoformozilla.org portal and the linked wiki pages. This portal has always been a lighthouse whose light could be enhanced further.

  2. Communication
    Mozilla, as an organization, updates its goals and areas of focus every year. Over the past, we have seen that there are few new projects and areas which get added to the list and focus on some of the projects gets changed. It becomes difficult for the Reps to quickly act to the new priorities and contact the concerned Mozilla Staff about the expectations and support. The Rep has to spend some time in understanding whom to contact from the Mozilla staff and his/her contact information to seek support. Thus, a communication medium/portal where a Rep can get all the information about a Mozilla staff becomes a necessity. Apart from this scenario, the monthly Reps newsletter could also be improved and made efficient.

  3. Scalability
    The number of Mozillians joining the Reps program is increasing. The Reps Coach program has been rolled out in recent times. The new Reps and the Reps Coaches will have a huge impact and looking at this expectation, there should be a plan in place which can help to scale and monitor the program.

What is in your view the Mozilla Reps program’s biggest strength and weakness?

Strength :
I believe that Mozilla Reps are the individuals who are full of passion. A diverse collaboration to build an open web is the biggest strength of the Mozilla Reps program.

Weakness :
I think that the inactivity of most of the Reps is one of the weaknesses of the program. I am of the opinion that this weakness could be overcomed with a proper communication and feedback mechanism.

Identify something that is currently not working well in the Mozilla Reps program and which you think could be easy to fix?

I feel that Communication is currently not working well in the Mozilla Reps program. Apart from the points discussed in my answer to the first question, I have also seen that sometimes it so happens that a Rep has done an amazing job in his/her region or functional area but his/her work is not getting highlighted on a global scale. We do have the ‘Rep of the Month’ initiative but it so happens that there is no nominee for the Rep of the Month in a particular month. Reps are doing an a great job but I also feel that their activity should get enough visibility and recognition which is easy to fix in my personal opinion than some of the issues.

What past achievement as a Rep or Mentor are you most proud of?

I was one of the members of the core organizing team of the Mozilla India Meetup 2016 which was organized in Pune in August 2016. This gathering was remarked by most of the attendees as one of the best India community gatherings so far in terms of work, organization, agenda and logistics. I was the featured Rep of the Month for August 2016 for my contributions and involvement in the successful organization of the Mozilla India Meetup 2016. I am very proud of this achievement.

What are the specific qualities and skills that you have that you think will help you be an effective Council member?

I feel that I have very strong Leadership, strategic perspective and good Communication qualities with ‘Ready to help’ approach which helps me to understand any issue and come up with a solution/fix. These qualities will help me to be an effective Council Member.

As a Rep, what do you do to try to encourage inactive mozillians to be active again?

Every individual is unique and his/her motivation and reason to join the Mozilla community is different. Some contributors are keen to learn new technology, some prefer contributing to a project because they feel that they are good it, some contributors love to share their knowledge while some join the community to develop leadership skills. These are the very few examples but the motive is diverse. Whenever a contributor becomes inactive, there could be some reasons to it. A mutual conversation to understand the issue is the first step and letting him/her know about the new available opportunities helps to bring the inactivity to an end.

Which of the three priority projects do you consider the most important? Please motivate your answer.

Amongst the three priority projects, I feel that Communication is the most important. Communication brings transparency, recognition and awareness. It is Communication which can fix most of the problems/issues and adopt a progressive approach.

Which of the two big roles (specific skills based on the 3 priority projects) do you consider to describe you best? Please motivate your answer.

Strategic and Communication specialist can describe me the best. A better strategy with good communications is always a preferred combination.

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#3

What are the top three issues that you would want the Council to address were you to join the Council?

I think that the top three issues are:

  1. Continue Training System
    Miss of a continue training system about the evolution of the other programs and projects of the foundation. inside the local communities, the volunteer wants to have the opportunity to participate and volunteering in different mozilla initiatives. We as Reps must have the opportunity to have something of synthetical e frequently updated about all the initiatives that are around the Foundation. This initiative could help us to support better the local communities and facilitate the communities growing. Have strong local mozilla communities (and not necessarily only in tech) permits to spread better all the informations, and the information relevant of us included.

  2. More Support small and inactive Communities
    I think that as Reps we must try to help the local communities that shown more difficulty to grow and we must help the communities that underline situation of inactivity of volunteer or are going in a state of neglect. As Reps Regional Coach first and as Community Coach next, I see that sometimes the volunteer became inactive for personal problems, but other times because they felt to not be involved, the projects or the programs where are involved was be closed without an adeguate forewarning, or for internal conflicts inside. We should offer more support and training at the Local Reps to aim the local communities to know how get involve in new projects or programs hte volunteers, know how maintain them active, moreover the local reps should collect informations about the motivations of the abbandon or inactivity when are happening and not after.

  3. Cross participation between Reps Program and other Team inside Mozilla
    Increase the participation of Reps in Advocacy Campaign and in general in all the teams where result needed to get involve citizen o to increase the number of volunteers in local and/or WorldWide. I think that is in real important because the active Reps is near the Local communities where he live, so is in real important not only for increase the effectiveness of the campaigns in local but to help the Reps to feel more engage in the action that the Mozilla Foundation want to make with the Local Communities.

What is in your view the Mozilla Reps program’s biggest strength and weakness?

First of all the Reps Program gives opportunities. The volunteers that wants to be active in local and in a international way can, through the Reps Program, make important experiences for their personal growth, and make all for help the next to be involved in our mission. The Program offer resources, support and training and a set of activities (That need to be expanded in future for sure) to make real and actionable actions for involve other people. We have a council that work everyday to make improvement actions for the program. For sure, the Reps Program have a lot of strenght but have weakness points too. Sometimes not all the Reps feel to be involved in the program, miss an horizontal communication channel between the other mozilla teams in order to maintain updated all the Reps about what change and miss a system of continue Training (For example a Training for all reps every 6 months as a Quiz or other that help the program to be more sure that all the reps are updated about the develop of the program).

Identify something that is currently not working well in the Mozilla Reps program and which you think could be easy to fix?

Determine a continue training system about the evolution of the relevant programs and the projects created by the foundation. Create a new Wiki Page where put a list of the Active Programs and projects (Example: Mozilla Campus Club, Open Leadership Training Program, Nightly Project ecc…) indicating per each item the name and the principal referee, the web address of the project and a little description of the program or project. Another issue could be the Continue Training for Reps. Improve the entrance training making it as the Training for Reps Resources, and every six months make a documents or a training with all the updates of the programs, information about what changing around the Mozilla Fondation (Programs, orientations ecc…) after that a little final quiz to fill. In case that a Reps doesn’t fill out the quiz within a period defined (Example one Month) investigate about why he doesn’t do and evaluate the situation.

What past achievement as a Rep or Mentor are you most proud of?

I’m Proud to be part of the Community Coaches Team and be part of the Reps Resources Team. Probably I most proud of be a Reps everyday and spend my time to try to reach out the goal of inclusivity in our communities and in the local communities in order to maintain the web an open and free place for everyone in the world.

What are the specific qualities and skills that you have that you think will help you be an effective Council member?

I love to plan, organize and manage project (Probably because is what I done in my work life for several years), I love to share and communicate with the other in a inclusive way and I love to help the other people and volunteer to clearify the conflicts and resolve bad situation.

As a Rep, what do you do to try to encourage inactive mozillians to be active again?

First that I do is try to understand deeply why the mozillan are inactive, why he decided to be inactive. Next I try to make a little recap of what I learned about all that with him, next, I explore what is the availability of the volunteer (in terms of Hour and personal availability) and him skills, next I illustrate how can be involved in all the programs and initiative made by Mozilla in order to reach out our goals that looks more alligned at him.

Which of the three priority projects do you consider the most important? Please motivate your answer.

It’s an hard choose, because all these three are important. Probably the Re-commitment is the most important between the three. Only after know who are the Reps that want to focus theirself in a role of mobilizers we know who will be involve to test the new set of Coaching and Leadership Toolkits. moreover, it’s important to know how many reps wants to be mobilizer then who wants to be functionals doers and where are located to understand where we need to have and what, and next try to define better communication strategies to engage the different communities in what they need.

Which of the two big roles (specific skills based on the 3 priority projects) do you consider to describe you best? Please motivate your answer.

Probably what describe me best is the Coaching/Leadership role. I think that my last experience as Community Coach over the last year and half, my experience as Mentor of the Open Leadership Mentorship Program, and the work that me and Daniele done to coordinate the Italian Community help my self to understand better what means be a coach and have a Leadership Role in a community. For me be a Leader doesn’t mean order something to do, but partecipate actively in all the aspects of a community and facilitate the experience that the volunteers have inside the community to contribute in different projects, so, I love in real the idea to help the leader and the coach of tomorrow to became good leaders and coaches.

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#4

1. What are the top three issues that you would want the Council to address were you to join the Council?

Communication plan
Recently lot of things are changing in mozilla. Focus areas are changing. It is very important for the Council to create a new communication plan to reach out to every volunteer. The Communication plan should also include mentoring and training for the new activities.

Bonding with grassroot volunteers
Every community is different, every community face different issues. So it is important that all the inputs from these grassroot volunteers should reach the council. As our communication chain is long, the council might miss some important feedback or messages. Thus providing solution on time is not possible. This communication is very important for the future decision making.

Encouragement for experiments
Lot of our volunteers are experimenting with lot of activities. But after a while they lose motivation when they get less support or feel ignored. A small appreciation or proper support can boost the momentum.

2. What is in your view the Mozilla Reps program’s biggest strength and weakness?

*Strength:
Passion
Many volunteers are emotionally attached to Mozilla and its mission. Which is our core strength. No matter what volunteers are always trying to help mozilla in any way possible.

Easily adaptive
Our volunteers can flexible enough to carry out any activity. They are always excited for new experiments and activities.

Community that never sleeps xD
We are always active. Our community has global presence, we are present in almost all the time zones. In short Reps Program is audible to the world 24*7 . This has helped us in our past online campaigns like Net Neutrality, Encryption.

Good networks in different communities
We are connected with lot of other open source communities. It’s good to see these groups working - collaborating together for same/similar mission like ours.

Weakness:
Communication gap
There is communication gap between all the entities in the program (Council, Mentor and mentees). This is affecting the coordination between the three groups.

Our efforts weren’t enough for retention of members
In recent times lot of good reps have left the program. I feel our efforts were not enough to retain them back. Experienced and skilled member leaving is a loss to our program.

Less orientation to the new/upcoming reps
New and upcoming Reps will be the building blocks for our program. They are ones who will be leading things in the future. Proper orientation and training to them is a must. Strong foundation will lead in strong nurturing of the reps. The existing reps should pass on the knowledge and experience to the new generation. As mozilla has a complex ecosystem it will take time for any newcomer to get familiar with the system.

3. Identify something that is currently not working well in the Mozilla Reps program and which you think could be easy to fix?

Need to make most active
Mozilla Reps community is said to be one of the largest community in terms of its members. But unfortunately not everyone is active. Future activities needs involvement of the experienced volunteers.

Volunteers are unable to cope with the change
Most of the volunteers in the community do not contribute to code or any other technical contribution. So it is demotivating for them to continue contributing. Also lot of focus areas are changing, the transition is causing confusion leading to loss of momentum.

Recognition
The council can work upon few new recognitions. We have the “Reps Of The Month” but it is only awarded to a super active rockstar mozillian and others may or may not be nominated for it. Personal contributions are rarely noticeable so the council could work upon a new models where each and every rep can be appreciated for their contributions.

4. What past achievement as a Rep or Mentor are you most proud of?

Being a part of net neutrality campaign in India as a Rep
Lot of reps actively participated in this campaign. This was a successful campaign because we were able to make our voices reach out to the Government. Eventually they took strong actions by blocking Net neutrality violating service like zero-rating.

Privacy Month Campaign
This campaign was totally a community led initiative. Many global communities participated in it. One of the best example of good coordination and communication between different communities.

Reps volunteering for MozFest
This was the first time where mozilla reps where volunteering for each space at mozfest. Each space wrangler was assigned with few reps, these reps helped them manage the space activities.

5.What are the specific qualities and skills that you have that you think will help you be an effective Council member?

Marketing
I was part of the engagement team for more than 3 years. We have worked upon many marketing strategies for FSA program, Firefox, Firefox OS, Firefox for Android, Firefox for IOS etc. I have also led few advocacy campaigns for Mozilla. Managed social media account for mozilla. Now I am also volunteering for the facebook experiment team. Program Influence can be increased by redesigning few marketing strategies.

Mobilizing
When we had the FSA program mobilising them was one of the important task. Setting up campus program, motivating them to carry out activities. Guide them through various set of activities, training them. When you are dealing with large number of volunteers you come across different mindsets, different ideas, different demands. And this experience has helped me to deal with any situation related to volunteers. Thus handling people, motivating them to carry some activity is easily done.The Mobilizing was then continued in the Firefox OS promotional activities, Campus club, Privacy Advocacy activities etc.

Leadership
Listening to community members for their thoughts and grievances, making them feel comfortable with the workflow and saying ‘Thankyou’ or ‘you did a great job’ is something I have close experience in. Being the FSA E-Baord I have had my fair chances of improving my skills at this. Well motivated community can be very productive if they are channelized property to the right resources.

6. As a Rep, what do you do to try to encourage inactive Mozillians to be active again?

Not all reps are inactive because they got busy. Most of them are inactive because they were disappointed or demotivated by some circumstances. So I feel before encouraging any inactive rep, we should find answers to the following questions.

*Find out the reasons for them going inactive
*Find out the reasons for their disappointment
*Make them aware of how mozilla and its mission needs them. How each mozillian counts.
*Are they inactive because the project they were contributing to was shut down?
*Do they still have some trust issue ? (After Firefox OS and Connected Devices many volunteers were demotivated. And they stopped contributing)
*Are they unsatisfied with the recognition. Were their efforts not noticed?

Unless and until we don’t address the above questions we won’t be able to find any solution for bringing them back.

Encouragement can be in the form:
*Motivational push
*Communicating and regain trust
*Recognition
*New and challenging initiatives that keep the reps involved

7. Which of the three priority projects do you consider the most important? Please motivate your answer.

I think all the 3 are very important. Because all the 3 are interrelated to each other.

Comms: Only few set of Reps are active. New communication strategies might reactivate them. Other communication strategies can help us onboard new reps. Also bringing every rep on the same platform (which is very much needed) can be very well done by a good Comms strategy.

Re-commitment: After reactivating or onboarding new mozillians we can mobilize them to the right projects they want to contribute to. Misplaced talent is a waste of talent. A little help can place a right volunteer to a right task.

Coaching/Leadership: Coaching can help volunteers get aligned with the program goals and effective leadership can help volunteer reach out to those goals. Good coaching can lead to quality contribution and Good leadership can lead to quality community.

8. Which of the two big roles (specific skills based on the 3 priority projects) do you consider to describe you best? Please motivate your answer.

Specialist on communication, strategies and leadership has always been my contribution area. I have worked with the engagement team in the past where I learned how to design a communication plan to reach out to more and more volunteers. I have also worked with the participation team where I learned how to design strategies to increase participation in any project or activity. Few of the community building activities gave me experience in the leadership. Leadership skills helped me to maintain a healthy communities. So this is why I think my previous experience will be a added benefit for the reps program.

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#5

Alignment in the Reps Program:
Each module in the Reps program is important for Mozilla. Aligning Reps with Mentors and Council with the help of Reps Regional Coach to ensure more engagement to bring community contributors, Reps, Council and coach all together and closer to have a proper aligned scalable outcome in and around Mozilla.

Empowering Reps with Support & Training:
I want to empower reps with more support/ training to help with their projects and initiatives or activities which will not only limited to general budget review process but making their initiative more impactful and more aligned that will benefit the regional community and also strengthen mozilla presence.

Improving the reporting and recognition system
To get more output from an activity, I will try to improve the reporting system with the help of council by implementing post review process by giving feedback what went well, what not and what could be more better so that reps have an better idea about
the initiatives and with this scalable reporting and improved way of activity, a Reps can focus more on better event planning resulting better initiatives and in the meantime, there should be an process to train him more and more so his skills grow up and we can motivate him in a way to recognize him in a more better way.

Biggest strength: The biggest strength of Reps program is each and everyone- the people. In Spite of Being from around the corners and cultivating different cultures, everyone believes in same mission and together unitedly we create an environment that makes the Reps program.

Biggest weakness: The biggest weakness of Reps program is communication gap between Reps and Mentor. And Lacking of a proper followup/ guideline/support many
Reps becomes inactive which harms the program.

There are many reps who are inactive because most of the cases they are not being followed up by their mentor/Coaches. This could be easily fix by following up with mentees every week and help them by mentoring. This could bring back a long number of inactive Reps.

I am proud of many things as an Reps. Such as

Being Reps of the Month in September, 2015
Getting Shout out many times from Participation Team for my QA initiative.
Helped to organize Mozilla Bangladesh Meetup
Organized the First ever QA Hackathon in Bangladesh
Organized many QA Hackathon, Bug Marathon to do QA things.
Recruited around 100+ contributor in QA Domain for Mozilla.
Mobilized many mozillians to do End year campaign for Mozilla
Was part of Singapore Leadership summit Cohort
Was invited to join London All Hands
was invited to join Hawaii All Hands
was invited to join San Francisco All Hands
was invited to join Austing All Hands

Activity as Reps in 2015 - http://www.iamikram.com/2015-my-year/
Activity as Reps in 2016 - https://www.iamikram.com/2016-my-year/

Community building and community engagement.
Conflict Resolution
Mentoring and supporting Contributors ( which I am proud of )

Followup with them by setting up 1:1 call to know their issues, obstacles, and what steps can be taken to help them get started.
Fixing a plan to collaborate with some community work where they can be invited to have a role. I guess, Participation is the best part of being active. and again, follow up is the best policy which I always shall prefer.

Coaching/Leadership:
Coaching or Leadership is one of the priority for communities. I would pick this than others, as this motivates me more than anything. Leadership is impactful in any case, so prioritizing this with communities, will help many to help their communities.

Coaching/Leadership:
What I know about myself, I believe I should choose this. This role always excites me.

Thanks for reading. Hope, you will consider my previous activities while voting!

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#6

What are the top three issues that you would want the Council to address were you to join the Council?

  • Mozilla as a global community- Our community is a global entity. We come from different parts of the world, complete with different timezones, work cultures, education systems and different interests. Council should address this diverse community even more and should plan on strategies, campaigns, initiatives and functional activities based on this regional difference so that everyone can relate to them in a more generalized way.

  • Communication- I think there really is a communication gap in Mozilla. A gap between Council and Reps, a gap between Mentor and Mentees, a gap between reps and mozillians around them. A majority of reps fail to get updates about the current direction of Mozilla mostly because they miss out on monthly meetings and emails. I think this is a key issue on which the council should work on.

  • More Gender Equal Participation- More participation will lead to more outreach. We need to work on getting more people involved into the reps program. It would also be helpful in addressing the gender equality problem to a certain extent. A D&I inclusive strategic outreach should help with getting more gender equal participation in reps program.

What is in your view the Mozilla Reps program’s biggest strength and weakness?

Strength- Mozilla Reps in itself is a very unique program with a diverse group of people with different skillsets and interests coming from all around the world, but with a common goal and passion towards Mozilla’s Mission. Also it gives a platform where any mozillian who becomes a Rep feels a sense of empowerment and starts contributing with renewed energy.

Weakness- Sometimes, a program’s strength is also it’s biggest weakness. The sheer number of the people involved in this program can be difficult to manage at times, considering their contribution interests based on the geographical locations.

Identify something that is currently not working well in the Mozilla Reps program and which you think could be easy to fix?

  • All the initiatives and campaigns should be planned keeping in mind the geographical diversity and differences in work cultures within Mozillians. Every mozillian, no matter his/her location should be able to relate with the initiatives and should treat them with the same passion and dedication as every other around mozillian around the world.

  • Also, communication can become a barrier sometimes when working on a level at which Mozilla works with all its contributors. We need to come up with solutions to smoothen the communication process

What past achievement as a Rep or Mentor are you most proud of?

  • I was a part of the initial team that came up with the idea of #PrivacyMonth Campaign which became a global phenomenon in 2015, 2016 and 2017. We had people around the world participate in this campaign and help reach even more people through social media. I was also featured Rep of the Month for February 2017 for this initiative.

  • Being a Rep for over 3 years now, I am most proud of helping shape the community around my home city of Nashik, India and seeing them grow as impactful mozillians and effective leaders.

What are the specific qualities and skills that you have that you think will help you be an effective Council member?

Coaching / Training -

  • Being involved with Mozilla Foundation and #TeachTheWeb campaign for a long time, I have led many training workshops and sessions whose major focus was on spreading web literacy and the importance of open web among general audience. I have mentored and encouraged other mozillians to spread knowledge and train others along the same lines as well.

  • I feel, my experience with Mozilla and a general understanding of the council’s way of working with OKRs is an asset and would help me to strategize and plan solutions to key issues not just with the community, but also with various projects.

As a Rep, what do you do to try to encourage inactive mozillians to be active again?

  • The best and most effective way is to communicate with them and understand the reason for inactivity. I feel many people become inactive as they think they “don’t fit in”, or they are not recognized for a long time for the amount of work they put it. They need motivation or a reason to come back which they can relate to. This can only be done by talking to them and understanding their problems.

  • Mozillians are they very foundation of the Mozilla Community. A sense of belonging can only develop within the community if everyone who contributes gets an equal amount of appreciation.

Which of the three priority projects do you consider the most important? Please motivate your answer.

I believe all the 3 projects are important here-

Coaching/Leadership- The Reps coaching program is very effective for all the reps (new and old) to be stay on the same page with the Mozilla goals and mission. They help in training new reps to become effective leaders and help mentor other mozillians.

Re-commitment- In many ways, mozillians tend to get lost in the shuffle and lose interest in the pathway they were contributing to. As this project works, keeping in mind the main interests and focus of the fellow Reps, we can build pathways based on those interests.

Comms- As Mozilla community grows, more and more people get attracted to the reps program. Effective communication strategies is very critical at this stage, where we have to deal with these new people as well as people who are with Mozilla since a long time.

Which of the two big roles (specific skills based on the 3 priority projects do you consider to describe you best? Please motivate your answer.

  • A specialist in communications, I have been working with the team on the Reps FB Experiment since last year and in turn helped make the experiment successful. Since we need to work on the communication gap between everyone, I feel I can help here.

  • Also, one of my most motivating factors of remaining a part of Mozilla through all these years is that you get to coach and train others. Leading fellow mozillians into becoming efficient Leaders through proper training workshops and sessions is also one of the things that need focus and that is where I can help.

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#7

1.-What are the top three issues that you would want the Council to address were you to join the Council?

Reps training
Although at this time to integrate as a new member to the Reps program, you need to take a series of webinars and a few extra steps, the program forgets the reps that are already registered on it. That’s why I see necesary to have a constant and continuous training program for these representants who have been giving their time to the organization. This would help to keep them updated and always be up to date on the new objectives of Mozilla, or how could they can integrate to new projects.

Conflict Resolution Process
Some communities have unresolved internal conflicts that demotivate new people to participate with Mozilla. This translates into fewer active members in the communities and fewer opportunities to recruit new collaborators. Whether due to communication problems, not having the guidelines, or ignoring the code of conduct, it is necessary to have an action plan to counteract that kind of problems and stop them in time to avoid further damages to individuals and to the community. As reps, coaches or leaders we could facilitate this process and have communication with the people who wish to to form a conflict resolution team, so the reps can be the bridge between the team of Community Guides and Council, to publicize what we are living, the ways to solve it and the different ways available to do it and to avoid escalation of the issues.

Communication
To be able to communicate to the volunteers that there is a council, such as a Rep, Mentor Coaching or a higly active volunteer we know a little about how the council works, unfortunately, there are volunteers who do not know about this program and how it works.

2. What is in your view the Mozilla Reps program’s biggest strength and weakness?

Strength: The program has a lot of potential and a great reach within the community, it can reach commited people who then acquire responsibility and manage to position themselves as local referents; the people who become Reps are moved for the pleasure of wanting to contribute to something they believe in, and offer their talent and dedication to the cause, which allows to have true leaders who can empower more people within Mozilla.

Weakness: Disorientation, sometimes one does not know what to do or how to participate, this is a common problem that as Reps we should work to solve. To take the role of a guide and help other volunteers grow within the community should be a role that every rep should play, but that something that doesn’t happen often. Being a Rep is more to just hold the title, it is our duty to take care of the community and help it grow with its members.

3.- Identify something that is currently not working well in the Mozilla Reps program and which you think could be easy to fix?

Mozilla changes constantly, there are so many projects that dissapear or start that makes it hard to be up to date. We have information to create new events or to publicize product launches, but, what happens after that? Without continuity we can’t engage or make new active collaborating members.

Having a plan where expectations are estabilished in the short, medium and long term would help us to engage more easily new collaborators, and estabilish clear roles to achieve the stated objectives within the planning.

4.- What past achievement as a Rep or Mentor are you most proud of?

I’m very proud of the work done by the Rust community in México, currently the team is actively collaborating with other communities in our country, the mozillians began to make alliances and are even working on their own projects.

Another important achievement was our participation in the month of privacy, a campaign that was created and promoted by the indian community, but we contributed ideas and helped with the communication in Mexico.

Finally, there is the Rust Day, an event that we had this year and where whe had the opportunity to have the participation of the Core team from the Rust Community, several members of the community in Mexico, led talks and workshops, and we achieved good capacity and feedback from the participants.

5.- What are the specific qualities and skills that you have that you think will help you be an effective Council member?

Mentor: In my time as a volunteer, I have enjoyed working closely with the community with the intention of helping and guiding new people; knowing that i can help them to collaborate and grow within Mozilla fills me and makes me feel useful within the community. I think I have good ability to listen to people, guide them and help them find solutions to their problems, if I do not have the experience to solve it, I know I can guide them with the right person, because I know that the main thing is collaboration and teamwork.

Mobilizer: I like to interact with people, organize activities with the community where I know we can reach more and I love creating alliances with other communities with wich we can work to achieve objectives together on technical or social issues where Mozilla strategically tries to work. I do a good networking and I encourage other mozillians to also become leaders of the projects that they are passionate about, giving them the tools that I have at my disposal and that I know that can make their work easier for them.

6. As a Rep, what do you do to try to encourage inactive Mozillians to be active again?

Gathering the community, active and inactive, to inform them about new projects and thus plan internal activities that reinforce our ties as a community; do workshops on the focus topics of Mozilla and also create good work ties, interpersonal ties that help them feel integrated. This would give a better notion of what is being talked about now, they would know how to use the tools offered by Mozilla and they would see the way to be able to participate more actively within the community. All this in an attractive and safe environment where they know that their ideas contribute a lot to the cause and are taken into account and encouraged to achieve something better together.

7. Which of the three priority projects do you consider the most important? Please motivate your answer.

I would like to put them in order, rather than give importance only to some, since I believe that three are united as a series of interconected projects.

Comms: Publicize the program, about what is going on, what can be done and how they can appply to enter the program.

Coaching/Leadership: Once inside, train the Reps on a constant basis so they do not lose their way and have clear objectives.

Re-commitment: After being able to take the two previous projects, each rep can make a decision of where do they want to contribute, either as a mobilizer or a functional Rep.

8. Which of the two big roles (specific skills based on the 3 priority projects)10 do you consider to describe you best? Please motivate your answer.

Coaching/Leadership and re-commitment, are the ones I identify with the most, this is what I have been helping within the local community and other communities in Mexico. The love of helping, learning and being able to share is something that I love. Being a leader does not see him as someone who leads or decides what a community does, I see him as a person who can help the community to do better things, work as a team and in the end these same people can do the same with new volunteers.

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