Origami, for anyone who doesn’t know, is a traditional Japanese art form whereby the maker transforms a flat sheet of paper into a finished sculpture through a series of folding and sculpting techniques. The actual number of basic folds is small, but they can be combined in a variety of ways to make intricate designs. Creating the Mozilla Summit feels a bit like that these days – a few basics with an endless number of possible combinations – ultimately (and hopefully) transformed into something amazing.
I wanted to take a moment this week to share my learnings from this past week – collected whilst sculpting and folding my way through this journey of Summit-creation. I was reminded by someone close to me that because this is as much a personal journey as it is an organizational one, documenting my experiences along the way is important – in addition of course, to big, project milestones like getting all of our amazing volunteers invited.
So, here are a few things I learned this past week making a Summit:
- [On the volunteer selection process] It is important to have a good, thoughtful process at the beginning of a project and that being flexible within it, while not compromising the good, thoughtful process, is okay. Perfect is not the goal; Better-than-last-time is.
- [On the #summit2013 back channel] If you wait, people will usually help others in the tribe figure out what to do, or how to think differently.
- [On navigating processes that don’t make sense] Allowing yourself to be vulnerable, to admit to just not getting it, to ask for help, is the very best way to stop your tummy from aching.
- [On working with other groups within Mozilla] I am not in this alone.
I am incredibly thankful for the opportunity to fold and sculpt and to create, now with others. Onwards.
Here are the instructions for the baby origami fox : http://keepfoldingon.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/fox-baby.pdf
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