Our newest MozSpace opened on July 22 in Portland. The city’s 27 employees now have a roomy space to call their own.

Built in the lovingly restored Brewery Block building in the Pearl District, this MozSpace, like our others, is centrally located  and easy to get to by transit or bike.  Iconic Powell’s City of Books is located one block away, as well as dozens of restaurants, retail stores and breweries within a short walk.  The office is an easy 5 minute stroll to a massive cluster of food trucks. Suffice it to say that lunch and happy hour options will not be a problem for Portlandians.

The Portland space has 39 workstations and 9 conference rooms as well as a large community area for events and workweeks. It also boasts a groovy bike shed area, shower and plenty of storage space.

WPR’s newest team member, Samantha Verbeck, is keeping Portlanders content with a plethora of healthy snacks and drinks. And of course there is the the classic Mozilla coffee bar with beans hand delivered by active Mozilla contributor and owner of BrewPony coffee, Jonathan “Duke” Leto.

Mozilla has deep roots in Portland’s leading open source community.  We are excited to double down in the heart of the fastest growing technology community of startups on the west coast.   There’s an amazing energy happening here in this intersection of technology, mobile, startups, and open source.  Come visit us whenever you are in the area.

For even more reading pleasure, we received an incredible amount of positive news coverage since our launch.  Check it out below:

GeekWire Here’s why Mozilla picked Portland to open its first offices outside Silicon Valley  7/22/13

Silicon Forest Mozilla plans to mosey into new digs 7/19/13

Portland Business Journal Mozilla CFO: Portland is a key market 7/19/13

Portland Business Journal Mozilla, maker of Firefox, to open Portland office 7/18/13

Oregonian Mozilla will expand Portland office, expand staff and lease space 7/18/13 (article also picked up on local TV news websites KATU.com and KOIN.com)

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Plan it.  Execute it.  Manage it.   WPR continued our Mozilla Spaces quest in 2012.   We opened new doors, signed new office space leases, organized events, and implemented new programs in our efforts to always stay one step ahead of our worldwide activities.

We began our Mozilla Spaces strategy in Jan, 2011 at a time when our only true “Mozilla Space” was downtown Mountain View, California which seemed inconsistent with our worldwide community, user base, and overall growth strategy.  In late 2010 and early 2011, we weren’t effectively promoting worldwide community collaboration, productivity, and events.  We knew we could do better.  We started.

We brought in a world class team of experts and opened San Francisco and Toronto in the summer of 2011 and upgraded New Zealand (Auckland) in Q3 2011.

By early 2012, we were hitting our stride and opened our doors in 4 new spaces including London and Taiwan in Q1, Vancouver and SF 3rd Floor in Q2, and added temporary workspaces for Portland, Paris, and Berlin as we continued to plan those futures.  Speaking of planning, each new space is planned with extensive analysis using key requirements for current and future talent, community strength, leadership, projected growth needs, and of course overall financial guidelines.

As we closed out 2012, we were operating 8 true Mozilla spaces on 4 different continents.  Looking forward into 2013, we are excitedly planning for grand openings in

• Paris (March/April)
• SF Floors 1 and 2 in May/June (ex-Gordon Biersch space)
• Portland (summer)
• Berlin (fall)
• Expanding our Taipei, Taiwan for a 3rd time with it’s focus on FFOS growth.

 

Moving and shaking in the Bay Area in 2012 and 2013

What started as a modest 7th floor San Francisco Moz Space (+ a cool deck) quickly transitioned to the need for more space.  We added the 3rd Floor in 2012 and signed a coveted and competitive bidding for Floors 1 and 2 (the ex-Gordon Biersch restaurant space).

Meanwhile, in Mountain View, we decided to consolidate our 4th floor back to floors 2 and 3 as we contemplated the final year of our current 5 yr lease.    The ensuing moving and shaking was a bit disruptive but in true California style we shook it off, stayed strong, and carried on.

We are currently actively planning version 2.0 of Mountain View with a launch date of Q1 2014.  We’ll be very excited to share these plans with everyone very shortly.

Organizing Mozilla Events: 

In 2012, your beloved WPR dept. coordinated hundreds of events including…

• Halloween Cantinas
• Fourth of July Fireworks
• Over 50 Workweeks
• Turkey Feasts
• Cocktail hours
• PR Soirees
• Holiday Buffets
• Birthday parties
• Meetups
• Networking events
• Hackathons
• and more!

And We Implemented New Support Programs

• Service Now allows you to easily submit WPR requests.
• Car Services are available to travelers in London and Vancouver.
• Centerstone software allows us to efficiently manage moves, spaces and seating plans.
• San Francisco’s pilot bike program allows Mozillians to cruise the Embarcadero in style.
• Security Guidelines and procedures give us a safer workplace.
• Travel tips and tools give us easier travel along our way.

Thanks to everyone for your input, support and patience as we learned and grew together in 2012. We look forward to working with you and continuing to build strong Mozilla Spaces Foundations in the 2013!

 

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Photo Credit Reid Beels

At long last the green city known for its breweries and bookstores will house Portland Mozillians under one roof. Sharing space with like-minded companies at the Collective Agency, employees will now have an office to collaborate, socialize and spread the Mozilla love.

We caught up with Portland resident and longtime Mozillian, Dietrich Ayala to tell us a bit more about their office space.

How many Mozilla people are in the space right now? How many do you expect?

Right now there are two to three people in the office on any given day, with a total of 12 people signed up. Several people are moving their desktops from home into the space soon. It just opened this month, so we’re still ramping up – once we get the Vidyo machine running and snacks/coffee/drinks available, we’ll see more people here on a regular basis.

The co-working space is called Collective Agency. The tenants are software developers, tech and non-tech start-ups and entrepreneurs, artists and various non-profit workers. There’s also a brain scientist, a beer educator, and a sustainable toilet designer. It’s a democratic and mission-driven co-working space, with an elected council and a constitution.

Several of us do! If I look wet on Vidyo, that’s why! Some of us live too far out to bike. Taras Glek lives in Hillsborough, and takes train in most of the way and bikes the rest. Dave Camp takes the train in from Washington state!

Our office is within walking distance of two large cart-pods in downtown Portland. My favorite cart for lunch is probably Nong’s Khao Man Gai, which serves a simple and delicious Thai chicken dish.

Ha! At one point I was on a Vidyo call, and realized I was the only one with a piece of art in the background… and OF COURSE it had a bird on it. However, there’s no bird art in the coworking space that I’ve seen. Yet.

 Thanks to Dietrich and Reid Beels for his photos. More of Reid’s photos can be found on flickr.

 

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