1. What is, in your own view, the Mozilla Reps Program’s biggest strength and weakness?
The Reps Program’s biggest strength is in its privileged strategic position within Mozilla. An important bridging position between the board, staff, and volunteer communities.
Its biggest weakness is in its ability to sustain itself, through onboarding, branding, amplifying and inspiring new volunteers.
2. Identify something that is currently not working well in the Mozilla Reps Program and which you think could be easy to fix. How would you approach a possible fix?
I don’t feel that the Reps Program is forward thinking enough in its focus. A lot of time and effort is spent retrospectively engaging to learn lessons from things we did weeks ago. To be truly effective we could be balancing this collaborative effort and joining together for more impactful global, collective, community campaigns surrounding areas of engagement like Internet Health. Adding our voices to provide greater human and empathic diversity in our messaging.
3. What are the top three issues you want the Council to address in case you get elected? Why? How would you approach these issues?
- Representing as LGBTQIA I wish for the Reps Program to more actively set targets for diversity, and transparently communicate how effective we are being in each of our communities on a regular timeline.
- I recognize the need for stronger recognition of exemplary efforts by people inside our communities. I wish to initiate a ‘Mozillian of the Week’ program, to allow Reps to amplify outstanding contributors and truly recognize we see these stunning people.
- Heavily focus on the already initiated onboarding reconstruction in alignment with Mozillians/Phonebook integration.
4. What are the specific qualities and skills that you have that you think will help you be an effective Council member?
I bring a broad set of expertise:
- customer service
- training
- people engagement
- community building
- strong empathy
- transparency
- process driven
- future thinking
- whipping up a Eurovision score sheet in minutes
5. Which of your contributions from the past 18 months had the biggest impact on the Reps Program on a programmatic level?
I’m still inside my first year as a Rep, but I’ve not let that stop me from stepping in to shape our future. I’d initially focused on public facing workshops but I soon noticed our local needs as a community were being sidelined. Bringing new folks into a fractured structure was bound to be unsuccessful from the outset.
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I’ve spent a considerable amount of hours getting feedback from fellow Mozillians:
- identifying our priorities as a region.
- building a long tail of events through to summer next year.
- and reignited our collective enthusiasm.
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I’ve been asked to be a Mozilla Festival space wrangler for the second year, in which will be my fifth year volunteering.
- here I’ve spoken with Mozillians from across the globe.
- brought in new alignments to our network.
- helped support onboarding events.
- but most importantly being there as a human being when people have needed someone to talk to or gentle words of encouragement and inspiration.
There’s still a lot of work yet to be done. Yet it won’t be in isolation as it builds on the strong work already sustained by fellow Reps, the Reps Council, and initiatives from inside Mozilla. From the integration of Phonebook and Mozillians.org, the addendum to the Mozilla Manifesto, the Community Participation Guidelines, a guiding light from Diversity & Inclusion, transparency when things go wrong.
- My greatest focus has been on:
- recognition and encouragement of people doing good.
- flexibility in our approach.
- encouragement for autonomy.
- providing a roadmap through transparent planning, consistent momentum, and communication.
- reducing gatekeeping in our community to allow for a more dynamic group voice and output.
6.Which past achievement as a Rep would you tell your best non-Mozilla friend about?
Teaching 170 kids of the ages 7-11 some basics in A-Frame. Their energy was electrifying and I’ll always remember how privileged I’ve been to experience such an opportunity.
7. Not all Reps are using the reporting form to report their Reps activities. Why do you think that is?
Cognitively we mostly hate filling in forms. Retrospectively doing things takes a lot of energy. Heck I’m just as bad and have a week old report to fill right now. I don’t have a solution to this but I’d love to tackle the challenge. Anyone want to do mine for me?
My application video. Vote for the bald guy!