Designing for participation

Usual responses on this topic include

ah...

I don't want anybody to touch my things!

I just need to do my job.

Do you mean like sharing?

So, like a potluck?

ooooooow!

Like retweeting!

what?

But seriously, designing for volunteer

participation matters. It amplifies our efforts

and it's cool how we work in the world.

When I stated here in Mozilla I though to myself

"This is really hard! how do I do it?,

When do I do it?"

And then I one day was given the great opportunity

to make a video for the Australis launch.

This is a great opportunity to

communicate the mission and it was a global

global campaign. So we asked ourselves

"How do we amplify this effort through

participation?" And the answer was: Localization.

At first, it totally sucked. We didn't really

know where to start. It seemed really hard.

But then, we found a fantastic community

ambassador, who understood and had

relationships with a community

called L10N. The community dedicated to localization.

Together we hacked a process, and pretty

soon we were ready.

We asked for six languages, we got twenty nine.

German, Spanish, Lithunian,

and we got ten million views!

Brazilian Portuguese, Portugal Portuguese,

ten million views!

French, Japanese,

ten million views!

We had so many languages, I don't even think

I could attach the languages to the countries

they come from.

So, in my experience with localizing the

Australis video, people participated because

we had a nice process set up for them.

And also because they knew their

contribution mattered.

So the moral of the story is when you

look at a project you are working on

ask yourself: "Will it be amplify through

participation?" And if the answer is NO, forget it.

Don't waste your time. You don't wanna just

make work for yourself. And if the answer

is YES, then power through. Design a simple process

for people to participate and if they know

their participation is important, they

will help, and you'll be surprised of

what kind of contribution you get.

¡Gracias especialmente a Flod de l10n por su ayuda y experiencia!

We got twenty nine! We got twenty nine!

Stupid