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Categories: Summit

What I learned this week planning the Summit

My older son (he’s 9) has been asking me every day for weeks if the soccer (football to those outside of the U.S. and Canada) uniform I ordered him has arrived.  He wants so much to be a part of this team.  His endless asking got me thinking about the Summit and even more, about Mozilla.

I learned today that within the past week over 700 volunteer Mozillians have joined the “summit2013” group on their Mozillians.org profile (a condition to be considered for an invitation to the Summit).   Mozillians have joined this group for the same reason my little boy so desperately wants his uniform.  We want to be part of something bigger than ourselves, to contribute to something with a group of other humans who want to do that too.  It all feels awesome so let’s do it (no uniform required – other than your favorite Mozilla t-shirt, perhaps).

What I’ve learned this week:

The past couple of weeks of Summit planning have been a time of great learning (which doesn’t always feel good when it’s happening but almost always does once you get to the other side).  I thought it would be interesting to share the things I learned this week:

  1. Not all of our amazing volunteer contributors have mozillians.org profiles.
  2. Paris is very popular in October.
  3. People like FAQs – we added this to the wiki page: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Summit2013#FAQ
  4. Lots of folks want to help make the Summit amazing.
  5. How to be a little more open.

I’m sure there was more but those are the highlights.  I also know I will learn more in the weeks that follow so I will do my best to share that.

Next steps:

The biggest task for the attendance working group (right now, the Community Builders, Community Engagement and the Reps Council) over the next few weeks is getting a good count of the volunteers who will attend the Summit.  Once we have that, we can move forward with securing venues for the event in each city and can start to work with people who need help securing visas.  I will continue to update the FAQ as we go so that’s a good page to watch.

As always, you can reach me on IRC #summit2013.