The power of sharing power
Openness at Mozilla, part 7
This post is part 7 of the Openness at Mozilla series. Read the other parts here:
- Part 1, Building an Open Movement for Internet Health
- Part 2, What does Openness Mean To You?
- Part 3, What does Transparency mean to you?
- Part 4, What does working like a movement mean to you?
- Part 5, What kinds of successes and challenges have you faced in working open?
- Part 6, Big Changes, Big Questions
Our recent planning retreat for MozFest 2019 (hosted a Soko Tech, a “citizen lab” — or maker space serving local community members) reminded me of how our principles become real in action as dozens of community wranglers (or organizers) from around the world joined support staff to begin designing the festival that wranglers envision and will deliver with hundreds more attendees, facilitators, and production volunteers. We share MozFest’s programming with our wranglers because we trust them to provide a platform for the community and to design an event that is reflective of them, their communities, and their allies throughout the internet health movement. In addition to asking community wranglers to co-design the festival’s programming, we hold ourselves accountable for learning from each year, for consistently evolving the festival, and for remaining relevant to our community and the people they represent.
From planning to execution to reflection, we strive to make MozFest an event that clearly communicates and demonstrates our values to all.
Values, like people, are often interdependent, so in part 7 of our series on openness at the Mozilla Foundation we’re asking ourselves:
What connections do you see between openness and transparency and movement-building?
Why are we asking this question?
Openness. Transparency. Working like a movement.
How do these things connect? What do they have in common? How can we make them real?
We know that openness, transparency, and working like a movement lead to expanded reach, improved quality, and increased impact for open projects and the work of organizations like Mozilla. But how do they do it? It’s not enough to call something “open” or “transparent” or a “movement.” We have to live and enact the values of each to benefit from the power that comes from sharing power in community.
In their responses to our recent openness survey at the foundation, our colleagues helped us understand how they see these ideas in action at the foundation and across the internet health movement. Their responses brought us back to ideas like these again and again:
Accountability. Clarity. Trust.
Values like these connect openness and transparency to one another and help us strengthen our contributions to the internet health movement. When we work to bring more and more clarity to our processes and projects, we also work to build trust between ourselves and our partners and allies. By sharing our work, we invite others to hold us accountable to it and to learn from our successes and failures alike.
These values are the drivers of openness and transparency that make it possible to work together toward a shared goal in any movement.
Why is this question important to me?
Since joining the Open Leadership & Events (OLE) team at the Mozilla Foundation, I’ve spent a lot of time learning about openness, transparency, and movement-building. I’m excited to help the Mozilla Foundation continue building on its history of openness, transparency, and working like a movement. Witnessing movements like Extinction Rebellion (XR) and Fridays for Future inspires me to think of ways Mozilla can continue to share power with others by sharing:
- Information.
- Relationships.
- Resources.
- Space.
- Story.
How, where, and when might we best show up to share these things as part of a popular movement or in solidarity with others? As part of a consumer movement? A political one? How might we share power across all of these kinds of movements to strengthen internet health for all?
How would I answer this question?
I don’t have a solid answer, but I do have the questions posed above (and a game you can play-test right now). It’s my hope that by sharing my questions with you we can gain clarity about what to do next, trust each other to do it, and create the conditions necessary to support each other and hold each other accountable for developing a healthier internet together.
What do you think? How do openness, transparency, and movement-building connect in your mind? In your work and life? What advice do you have for us about strengthening our contributions to the movement for internet health? About sharing power and movement-building in general?
Please join the discussion! How would you answer this question for Mozilla? For your community, organization, or project? For a healthier internet? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think. Have feedback, questions, or suggestions? Let us know at leadopen@mozillafoundation.org or @MozOpenLeaders. Learn more about the OLE team and our work here.
