What does a local community in North America look like?

Communities North America
#1

Thanks to @bkerensa, btw, for organizing our first check-in in a little while.

One question we agreed we wanted to answer is what does a local community in North America look like?

Maybe we want to review this doc from the participation team with our perspective in mind - https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/t/what-is-a-healthy-regional-mozilla-community/1884?u=kensie

What do people in a local North America community do? What does communication in this community look like? What type of events happen on a regular basis?

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#2

Well to get the ball rolling, for me I would like to see a solid foundation of communication. I’d like to see active discussion on what outside events are happening locally that would be of interest to Mozillians, as well as calls for action - volunteering to help local events, plan local events etc.

#3

For me I would like to see collaboration on efforts to grow community in North America with emphasis on the West Coast and Midwest U.S. States.

#4

Benjamin - well yes, but before you grow the community, can you put your
finger on what actually makes up that community? When you look at it, what
do you see that makes you think of it at “community”?

#5

For my part (and those in Mozilla Utah), have a look at what we aimed to become at the beginning of the year at utah.mozillausa.org .

One thing I’d like to see more of is interconnectedness as a North American community. Mozillians in Utah gravitate away from the Reps program (thus not participating in discussions or meetups like these which can at times appear to be for Reps only, whether intentional or not) and it can be difficult to find mentors or regular points of contact for functional areas in general. I think involving multiple members of the NA community in the Scale conference was a great beginning of increasing the interconnection of NA community members, both Rep and non-Rep. I would have liked to see more interest from the NA community in OpenWest and I feel like we miss opportunities to bond, strengthen regions, and recognize that we’re all part of a bigger picture when large open source events in NA like this pass us by.

Right now, I know that this is a very relevant question for the leaders of Mozilla Utah. Since I left, they’ve really struggled to redefine themselves. Outreach from other members of the NA community could help them find their direction again, and this is where I see a higher level of interconnection filling a very real need.

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#6

One thing also to consider in all these discussions is does any past planning have any relevance anymore? Mozilla continues to redirect the direction of the organization and its focuses. I know from an event point of view the kind of events Mozilla would like to see us at last year are not applicable this year. In fact the teams funding events aside from reps are totally flipping events on their head backing out of funding events they have funded for years since its an entire new staff as many staff departed last year (All of devrel is a new team now)

#7

I think it’s helpful to think of participation/community building as being in support of project goals - and that this is why it changes year to year (with project goals). That’s not to excuse what is often lack of communication around those goals - but here are questions that occur as important to me:

“What impact do we want our community to have on Mozilla goals”
“How does community building activities lend to the impact we need for Mozilla”.
“What can I do on my own?”

The last question is relevant to me, as someone in a small town. I have worked hard on community building here but the results just don’t seem pay back for the effort - and so I want to think about how to have greater impact in general without spending a lot of time on things that don’t work. Understanding project goals I think is important to that.

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#8

I think a conversation like this in Reps Discourse would be really helpful, not just for these comments, but for others who may be feeling this way. Additionally, concerns like this help Reps team, mentors and council provide clarity. Clarity that actually - goals of the program this year sound a lot like what you are describing 'strongly connected efforts to functional areas, and their goals, Reps as a leadership platform or ‘launchpad’ to empower everyone.

Suggesting that perhaps initiatives here could help realize that model sooner than the project can steer itself. NA can have impact on Reps goals, in a big way.

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