Tuna Park

I’m just about recovered from Mozilla Camp Europe.  Compliments to William and Irina for putting together such a well-run and enjoyable event.  I felt that this year’s event was even better than last year’s, which is no reflection on the fine city of Barcelona.

Highlights there were many.  Meeting Glyn Moody was pretty damn cool.  He’s such a gentleman he did not wish to disclose his favourite book for fear of appearing pretentious – that’s class.  He also opened my, and a few other’s, eyes to things that Mozilla could and should be doing.  With great responsibility comes great power, after all.

From the Advocacy track I was delighted by the level of contribution from people.  I did not speak much myself, as I felt I had little to offer compared to the war stories and practical advice from our speakers.  But I will mention a few memories:

Bogo Shopov kicked us off on Saturday in fine style.  To learn more about Bogo and his adventures in freedom fighting, you can read his page, Who the f**k is Bogo -few “About” pages start so promisingly.  Bogo kicked us off by explaining that his mother told him not to talk to strangers, and consequently we all had to introduce ourselves.  And then…a pantomime, “The non-linear behaviour of a business mind”.  For about 15 minutes, Bogo silently performed his working day.  I think this was to make us consider decision making cycles in businesses.  But it might have just been a laugh.  Mission accomplished on both counts, and a wonderful and imaginative way to kick off the track.

For the rest of Saturday afternoon we brainstormed on Project Drumbeat and then on remixing the Mozilla Manifesto.  We will be hearing a lot more about these  in the coming months.

On Sunday, I met a few people for the first time, and can say without exaggeration I felt truly inspired by some of our speakers.

I had heard many great things about Mozilla Italia, but hearing from them in the flesh was amazing.  Iacopo Benesperi presented on advocating at non-technical events.  All through this session I was nodding in agreement, but it was not because these were things I knew, but rather, that I had felt. Iacopo brought them to life.  One slide in particular captured my imagination (the picture is not very good because of my rubbish camera dreadful photography skills):

Mozilla Italia have quite some experience attending events and advocating for Mozilla and the lessons rang so true.  I especially liked the bullets on this slide, “Be prepared to talk to anyone about anything”, and on his closing slide, “Be geek” (i.e. let people get as technical as they want to).  What does not come across from my underexposed snap is the respect and affection for this target that all the Mozilla Italians showed.  It’s that spirit that made me want to join the project in the first place.  I enjoyed Iacopo’s (who I should point out is from Florence) presentation so much that it temporarily dulled the pain of Liverpool’s 2-0 humiliation at the hands of Fiorentina 5 days earlier.  There’s always the return fixture.

Later in the day, I got to meet Gorjan Jovanovski, who was talking about the achievements of the Macedonian community.

Gorjan is extremely impressive – and I do not want to give away just how young he is, but when he described his achievements and then mentioned his age as a potential barrier in business meetings…well, I think everyone’s jaw dropped.  Gorjan is a remarkable chap with a very exciting future ahead of him.

I felt we made some great connections and I look forward to even more participation next year.  I am very grateful to all our speakers, (and not just the ones I mention here), and remember, per Iacopo’s advice:

• Be Geek
• Be prepared to talk to anyone about anything
• Give help (not only on Mozilla subjects)