Hi Mozillians,

I’m excited to share this update on participation in Connected Devices at
Mozilla.

Product Innovation Projects

At the start of the year we embarked on a process to bubble up ideas within
the organisation and start experimenting. This is known as the Product
Innovation Process
<https://wiki.mozilla.org/Connected_Devices/Product_Innovation_Process>.
Last week, we published a blog post
<https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2016/03/01/update-on-connected-devices/>
detailing the progress we’ve made so far. You’ll see that the first set of
projects proposed by staff have just passed what we call “Gate 0”. This
means that they are still in their very early stages, aiming to validate
their hypotheses on the ‘Problem/Solution Fit’ by building early prototypes
and doing some initial testing.

So what does this mean for participation? This is the phase where our small
participation staff teams will start to work with the projects to a) find
out the big challenges they are up against,  and b) design ways in which
those challenges can be addressed effectively by volunteer Mozillians --
ideally we’re trying to find that sweet spot of challenges that are both
motivating to tackle and that volunteer Mozillians are the best equipped to
address.

As we continue to fine-tune this work here are a couple of things to be
aware of:


   -

   The teams may not have the bandwidth during this phase to engage a
   general set of contributors -- they have a very short window of a few
   months to bootstrap and prove their ideas. Building great onboarding,
   contribution funnels, and other contribution practices for the long term is
   not the priority right now. The good news is that we are dedicating
   employee time (from the Connected Devices and Participation Teams) to help
   design high impact contribution opportunities. These are likely to be on a
   specific slice of each project. More details will be coming soon.



   -

   These projects are transient. They are very early stage and it’s likely
   that many -- if not most -- won’t make it all the way to becoming products.
   Some will likely not even make it beyond Gate 1 before Mozilla resources
   are withdrawn. Getting involved in these is truly being part of Mozilla’s
   innovation process and portfolio, which includes a spirit of trying new
   things, learning and adapting to change quickly.


The projects are now listed on the wiki
<https://wiki.mozilla.org/Connected_Devices/Projects> where you can dig in
and find more information. Over the next weeks as we work more closely with
the teams, opportunities to jump in and help will be made very clear.

Finally, for those volunteer Mozillians interested in the innovation
process itself: For the time being, “pitching” to the product innovation
process will be limited to employees. We are exploring ways to broaden that
in the months ahead, which brings us to....

Community Experimentation Launchpad

Parallel to the work we’re doing on product innovation, we’re also building
on great feedback we’ve received in the past months from Mozillians and
designing a program to support volunteer-led projects. The program, which
we’re calling the “Community Experimentation Launchpad’ (CEL) is a
community-driven program that aims to empower Mozillians to dream up the
future of connected devices, test and prototype their ideas, and make them
a reality through open collaboration and innovation.

The program provides resources (e.g. Reps Innovation Fund), tools (e.g.
learning resources and event kits) and mentoring (volunteer/staff IoT task
force) to help you get involved, either through contribution to an existing
project or bootstrapping your own. The CEL is still very much in its
infancy but it’s already picking up great momentum. Make sure to check
the dedicated
section on the wiki
<https://wiki.mozilla.org/Connected_Devices/Participation#Community_Experimentation_Launchpad_.28CEL.29>
regularly as we will be continuously adding new content.

Stay connected!

These are the early days of Connected Devices Participation and so it’s a
particularly ripe time to get involved. Stay in tune and stay connected as
we continue to design and build for participation. We’ve created several
new communication channels to ensure that you don’t miss a beat, so make
sure to check these out:


   -

   Discourse
   -

      Connected Devices category
      <https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/c/connected-devices>


   -

   IRC
   -

      #cd-participation on irc.mozilla.com
      -

   Github
   -


      https://github.com/mozilla/participation-org/labels/Connected%20Devices


Last but not least, we run Connected Devices “innovation and participation”
calls every week. They take place every Thursday at 18:30 CET (i.e. 17:30
UTC). They are open for anyone to join. You can dial in on Vidyo
<https://v.mozilla.com/flex.html?roomdirect.html&key=l96DRYh97Y30vXiIPSoxaRqrJAs>
or join on IRC, on the #cd-participation channel.

We’re excited about the future for Connected Devices, and we’re working
hard to have both staff and non-staff community participation built into
the very fabric of how this team will have impact on Mozilla’s mission.

Onwards!

George (on behalf of the Participation Team)

-- 
George Roter
Head of Core Contributors, Participation

irc: geroter  |  skype: geroter
Cell - Canada: 416.670.2401
Cell - USA: 650.485.0079
<650%20308%208443>
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