{"id":2817,"date":"2015-10-29T10:29:23","date_gmt":"2015-10-29T17:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mozscienceblog.wpengine.com\/?p=2817"},"modified":"2015-10-29T10:29:23","modified_gmt":"2015-10-29T17:29:23","slug":"open-science-fellows-onboarding-and-onward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/mozilla-science\/open-science-fellows-onboarding-and-onward\/","title":{"rendered":"Fellows Onboarding, and Onward…"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week, Mozilla Foundation director Mark Surman wrote a terrific post on the latest strategic plans for Mozilla, a way forward as we champion an open, free Internet.<\/a> He reiterates the Foundation\u2019s commitment to web literacy, to getting everyone reading, writing and participating online. But he also identifies Mozilla\u2019s greatest assets, its leadership network and its advocacy engine, as the drivers of the next big, revolutionary wave in the open movement.<\/b><\/p>\n

At Mozilla Science Lab, we\u2019ve been thinking a lot about leadership lately, too. Our international network of study groups<\/a> is growing, we held our first leadership summit in Toronto<\/a> in September, and just two weeks ago welcomed our first cohort of Science Fellows to Mozilla<\/a>. As we planned the onboarding experience for our new Fellows, a few key questions about leadership began to crystalize. What\u2019s special or different about a Mozilla-grown network of leaders? What skills and competencies should those leaders have? And how do we lead \u201clike Mozilla\u201d when we\u2019re working across communities as diverse as academic publishers, citizen scientists, tenured professors, and research study participants? \u00a0<\/b>The onboarding experience we ran with Christie, Joey, Jason and Richard represents, in some ways, a very rough first draft at answers to these questions.<\/p>\n

We might typically think of leaders as possessing a set of super-attributes– wisdom, courage, charisma– that magically add up to personal power and influence. But in collaborative work, leading isn\u2019t about wielding one\u2019s own power. It\u2019s about creating a space where others feel motivated to think, work, and contribute at their best. \u00a0This kind of leadership is about relationships– understanding what motivates (and discourages) those in your community. \u00a0It\u2019s about recognizing capacity and possibility in others, and finding ways to unleash that power. <\/b>Our aim was to create an onboarding experience for the Science Fellows that encouraged this kind of leadership. Here\u2019s what we did:<\/p>\n

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  1. We made it personal. <\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    We kicked off the Fellows Onboarding experience with unhurried, 30 minute intro presentations by each new Science fellow on their personal histories, sources of inspiration, their own take on open science, as well as projects, goals, and challenges. We see our four Fellows as a brand new mini-community, and we wanted to give them a chance to really get to know and like each other. <\/b>These presentations were unique and surprising: instead of the usual project pitches, we got glimpses of passions and motivations (it turns out the inspiration for creative, free-thinking work in science can come from many sources– from <\/b>hip hop<\/b><\/a> to <\/b>skateboarding<\/b><\/a> to a stint as a hermit in an Iowa cornfield). <\/b>These introductions were a great start to the week, and we kept that approachable, social vibe going throughout by building in lots of downtime and opportunities for one-on-one conversations.<\/p>\n

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    1. We worked for each other.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      In a Collaborative Project Development Workshop<\/a>, we encouraged the Fellows to be actively, creatively involved in each other\u2019s projects and processes. We got them talking and listening closely to each other, considering shared challenges, and brainstorming solutions to each other\u2019s problems.<\/b> The workshop included a section on thinking about the needs and motivations of specific users the fellows will need to win over or activate– whether they\u2019re university administrators or medical study volunteers. Getting into the mindset of these users, developing empathy for them, and imagining how they might best grow into and along with a project is a key element of successful collaboration– again, it\u2019s all about relationships.<\/b> We\u2019ll keep iterating on this very rough workshop format, but it\u2019s a promising approach to getting folks thinking together and problem-solving quickly and playfully, in the open.<\/p>\n

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      1. \u00a0We shared Mozilla\u2019s culture.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        This notion of \u201cleading like Mozilla\u201d has its roots in the revolutionary history of the world wide web. <\/b>When Mozilla open-sourced its browser code in the wake of its defeat by Microsoft in the first Browser Wars, it relinquished unilateral control and activated an incredible community of creative contributors. Mozilla\u2019s particular institutional culture and way of working come out of this practice, and for newcomers (as I can attest<\/a>) this way of working can sometimes feel baffling and even bizarre. We wanted to alleviate a bit of that culture shock for our Fellows, so we developed a presentation about Mozilla<\/a> from a \u201cuser experience\u201d perspective– not only what the organization aims to do in the world, but what it\u2019s actually like to <\/b>be<\/i><\/b> at Mozilla\u2026 what that DIY, participatory, open, collaborative, distributed way of working really means, its joys and frustrations.<\/b> (We also included a handy crowd-sourced glossary of commonly used and commonly confused Mozilla terms<\/a>, like \u201cdogfooding\u201d, \u201cbikeshed\u201d and more.)<\/p>\n

          \n
        1. We know we\u2019re not done! <\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          Our fellows have a busy 10 months ahead of them, and this relationship-building thing– whether among cohorts or broader communities– doesn\u2019t happen overnight. MSL staff will be bringing this group back together several times in the coming months, including next week at MozFest. We\u2019ll be working with them to \u00a0co-develop trainings on what we think–and what they told us– are those key competencies for open leadership: \u201cworking open\u201d best practices, building and sustaining collaborative communities, teaching and facilitation, science communication and data storytelling for meaningful public engagement\u2026 and much more. <\/b>(We\u2019d love to hear your thoughts on what skills this any group of \u201copen\u201d leaders most needs). As we go, the fellows will be putting their new skills to the test in designing, prototyping and launching their open science projects. It\u2019s going to be an exciting year!<\/p>\n

          We\u2019ve collected the resources mentioned above, and more (including a great high level overview on the Science Lab\u2019s mission and where it fits into Mozilla\u2019s history) \u00a0here: https:\/\/public.etherpad-mozilla.org\/p\/fellows-resources.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          This week, Mozilla Foundation director Mark Surman wrote a terrific post on the latest strategic plans for Mozilla, a way forward as we champion an open, free Internet. He reiterates the Foundation\u2019s commitment to web literacy, to getting everyone reading, … Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[290376],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2817"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2817\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}