What does the Mozilla Balkan community mean to you?

[Brian King]

Hi Everyone,

A couple of months ago we made an effort to renew the community and
there was enthusiasm at that time. Since then, meetings have been made
and attendance has been poor (although last night was an exception,
which is great). It also seems that little work has been done (together
that is, I know all of you work hard in your own communities).

In light of this, we are seriously weighing if the upcoming meeting in
Zagreb is necessary and will achieve anything. Of course, I know some of
you are still enthusiastic about this and would like to see it happen.
Each meeting is big investment from Mozilla, and like any investment it
is always good to get a return on it.

I propose that each community nominates *one person* to answer the
following questions:

1. What does the Mozilla Balkan community mean to you and your community?
2. Why is Mozilla Balkans still relevant?
3. What can we realistically achieve in Zagreb that will give us a
springboard to further collaboration in the future.

If we want the Balkans community to survive and still be relevant, we
all need to step up and do more.

If we come to the conclusion that keeping Balkan community meetings
alive is not a feasible option, I don't think we should be disappointed.
It served it's purpose as our communities were growing. Now our
communities are established, and we are all busy. The Mozilla Reps
program is also filling some of the roles. We can be proud of what we
have achieved. And as I said at the meeting last night, we have built
strong friendships throughout this that will help us in collaborations
moving forward.

--
Brian King

[Nikola Matosović]

On 11 April 2012 23:09, Brian King <brik...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Everyone,
>
> A couple of months ago we made an effort to renew the community and there
> was enthusiasm at that time. Since then, meetings have been made and
> attendance has been poor (although last night was an exception, which is
> great).

I would add that, in the beginning, attendance was good.
And, yeah, it kind of dropped again with time.
Yesterday wasn't so exceptional - I contacted some people over chats and
emails which is the reason why some of them showed up.
It's ok if that was a reminder, but it's not OK if that is "dragging"
people to channel.
People should feel interested and come by themselves.

> It also seems that little work has been done (together that is, I know all
> of you work hard in your own communities).
>

Something moved.
Other things that started moving, required other people to participate and
help out, too.
Maybe "help" isn't the right word. Better to say, "give info" or some minor
things like that.

I'm also using this opportunity to compliment Ioana Chiorean, which was
really really helpful all the time,
approaches to everything with specific enthusiasm, and really never turned
me down when I asked her to do something.

If you remember, there were some offers to people from Balkan Region, to
take over some "jobs" and roles.
In the end, only Ioana "offered her services". :)
Don't get me wrong, I have no intention to disrespect anyone's help and
engagement, Ioana is not the only one who moved,
but she is definitely most helpful and "in working mode".

One of prerequisites to start seriously working is to get some basic things
in order.
After all, house is built from foundations, not roof.
I started that initiative long time ago (at this point I'm alluding to that
"Active Contributors" list which are really "must do",
so that we know on who can we count and what are we dealing with). Until
yesterday, there were two or three countries
completely empty and still some of countries are not completed. We tried to
remind people on that during online meetings,
over email, chats, IRC. Results - poor.

If I continue with why other basic things failed, this mail will be very
very long, and this is why I'm skipping to my conclusion:
Main problem is not in ideas or lack of inspiration or, god forbid work,
but in people and their lack of interest and engagement.

We can plan and brainstorm as much as we want but if Balkan People don't
change their approach, nothing will happen.

>
> In light of this, we are seriously weighing if the upcoming meeting in
> Zagreb is necessary and will achieve anything.

My idea was that Balkan Meeting in Zagreb is "last chance" for getting out
of this "poor" situation.
Meeting which will help empower people and during which we would wake up
people.
I also found out that I'm not the only one who shares this opinion and idea.
In fact, I was told by Mozilla employees that this is in fact their point
of view - one more chance to do something.

> Of course, I know some of you are still enthusiastic about this and would
> like to see it happen. Each meeting is big investment from Mozilla, and
> like any investment it is always good to get a return on it.

This will for sure cause some negative reactions, but I have to say this:
I find it both strange and funny that during all this time only around 10
people regularly showed up on online meetings,
but right now I have 20 people from region who expect to be invited and
want to come to Zagreb.

I know how to be rude and heartless :) but this time it's somehow hard to
me tell people that they aren't really Balkan Region material.
On the other hand, this needs to be done.
Reasons for that:

- One of most important basis for this Balkan Region and quality work
during it, is to have really interested people, eager to achieve something
and work, not just to travel abroad and go sightseeing.
- Those who return from Balkans @ Zagreb should transfer to their
communities what they learned and implement it in community work. I'm not
sure that we can expect that from people who are barely engaged in their
local communities, and which barely heard for Balkans.
- Mozilla is often cutting me on budget, and this time especially. And,
as you all probably know, this kind of meetings are not cheap. I believe
that there will be some objections when I file the budget request tomorrow.
Along with that calculation, I will send "Specification List", explaining
all costs, environment and context. Probably there is some space for minor
reductions but all in all, this is it. If it's ok, great, let's gather up
in Zagreb and work. If not..

>
> I propose that each community nominates *one person* to answer the
> following questions:
>
> 1. What does the Mozilla Balkan community mean to you and your community?
> 2. Why is Mozilla Balkans still relevant?
> 3. What can we realistically achieve in Zagreb that will give us a
> springboard to further collaboration in the future.
>
> If we want the Balkans community to survive and still be relevant, we all
> need to step up and do more.
>

Yeah, as mentioned earlier. +1

>
> If we come to the conclusion that keeping Balkan community meetings alive
> is not a feasible option, I don't think we should be disappointed. It
> served it's purpose as our communities were growing. Now our communities
> are established, and we are all busy. The Mozilla Reps program is also
> filling some of the roles. We can be proud of what we have achieved. And as
> I said at the meeting last night, we have built strong friendships
> throughout this that will help us in collaborations moving forward.

I apologize if I didn't pick my words more carefully unintentionally. For
those intentional parts, I won't apologize. :)


GreetZ from Croatia

[Brian King]

Nikola Matosović wrote:
> One of most important basis for this Balkan Region and quality work
> during it, is to have really interested people, eager to achieve
> something and work, not just to travel abroad and go sightseeing.

I have no doubt that everyone goes with good intentions to learn and
contribute. This is not really what I was getting at in my message. My
main point is how can we translate that enthusiasm from meetings into
wider Balkan community work. Or, is wider work even necessary, given the
individual work we are doing and also the work within our communities.

--
Brian King

[Mike Dupont]

On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 11:09 PM, Brian King <brik...@gmail.com> wrote:

> 1. What does the Mozilla Balkan community mean to you and your community?
> 2. Why is Mozilla Balkans still relevant?
> 3. What can we realistically achieve in Zagreb that will give us a
> springboard to further collaboration in the future.
>

I would like to say how I see this,
I have started working on promoting FLOSS in kosovo because of my wife and
family there, I saw that there was nothing happening and that
there is a need for it. after that I was asked to help organize something
in albania, and we did do a small conference there which was very difficult.

Recently I was asked to help to organize something for bosnia, and it is
also very very difficult to get started.

One problem that I see is that there is too much focus on just mozilla, and
there are groups just focused on linux, some on debian, libreoffice, gnome,
some on civil society, osm, wikipedia, creative commons, some on fedora,
hackerlabs etc. The balkans is just too small and fragmented to focus on
just one topic, the vast majority of the people are not aware of FLOSS at
all and we have a huge educational issue to tackle. Only focusing on
mozilla is excluding the other groups when we should be working on
integrating them.

These groups are tool small to organize conferences like the sfk on thier
own, We have had a good experience with a large conference that is bringing
everyone together,
I think that we need to work on creating some events that bring all the
people together and shed off the pure mozilla focus for the balkans.

I would like to engage the mozilla team in organizing these events and to
make them part of the bigger picture, to also create teams of people that
represent all different groups and also importantly to bring new members in
.

One thing we learned about flossk is that it is not exclusively focused on
mozilla, but mozilla is an important project. When we have new people come
we can direct them to mozilla , or to osm or to some of the project, but
event organizing and marketing is also an important part and can be done
with no technical knowledge.

I think that we need to work on creating balkan wide conference, and open
to all FLOSS topics, i think that would be successful . I beg you all for
your support in this effort.

the FREESB conference in vlore was the attempt at that, in 2010, free
software in the balkans. We should continue with that on a rotating basis,
one event in each country or multiple events in a row, a tour. We can cover
all major cities in 1-2 weeks, and that would be able to split the costs of
travel for international speakers.
Not all people can travel easily, and these events can be for the general
public.

If we organizing a rotating or serial conference tour then we can find
sponsors in each city, we can share costs and reach our objectives of
promoting mozilla,
I think mozilla could take the lead as the prime sponsor and co-organzier
along with all the other groups in each particular area.

lets work together and end the fragmentation of the balkans. Lets look at
the big picture of working with other groups to reach our goals.

thanks,

mike

--
James Michael DuPont
Member of Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova http://flossk.org

[Brian King]

Hi Mike,

In general I agree with everything you say. There is a huge potential for
FOSS in the Balkans. Mozilla would be happy to collaborate with other
projects, as we do elsewhere all the time. I don't really see Mozilla
initiating such a large conference in the region (but you never know),
though we would definitely be happy to participate. I think this would need
to be a grass-roots thing by FOSS folks in the region. Most FOSS projects
align very well with Mozilla's mission.

As for this meeting, the scope is very much Mozilla and is intended to be
be. There are people doing Mozilla work or representing Mozilla (Reps) in
their community and this is a way of both rewarding contributors and also
making sure everyone is up to date on the work that they need to do. It is
quite focused on not just figuring out how to spread Mozilla but also to
get some real work done.

- Brian

--
Brian King

[Mike Dupont]

Well for bosnia it has been some of the mozillians there who approached me.
I would like to work with all of you on getting something started in
bosnia,
from what I have seen it will be very very difficult and we will need all
the help we can get.
mike