Second Annual Ken Kovash Day Celebrations Begin

Second Annual Ken Kovash Day Celebrations Begin

Numbers panic, have nowhere to hide

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. - December 19, 2008 - Today ushers in the second annual Ken Kovash Day. Last year’s celebration was the first of its kind. It was a significant milestone for Ken Kovash fans worldwide.

In its second year, Ken Kovash Day (KKD) celebrations went above and beyond those of last year. An official website, http://kenkovash.com, officially launched today. Kovash fans everywhere can go online and share their adoration with the world. Additionally, fans can make and purchase KeKo-inspired clothing at http://www.zazzle.com/kenkovash+gifts.

"Some people mistakenly think Ken looks out only for number one. But that sells him way, way short,” said, David Rolnitzky. “There are a lot of other numbers he looks out for."

"I have never seen someone hunt down data abnormalities with such precision, determination, and skill as Ken Kovash,” said Justin Fligtar Scott. “Since Ken has been around, we've actually noticed data voluntarily working to correct itself rather than face a never-ending pursuit of the truth by The Numerator."

About Ken Kovash
Kovash, aka the Numerator at Mozilla, began his career at Boomerang, followed by a brief stint at Yahoo. He also worked as a Research Associate at Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory. In 2006, Kovash graduated with an MBA from University of Chicago. He has an undergraduate degree in Economics from UC Berkeley.

Family tech support

I just had a very funny conversation with my mother-in-law over gchat.

Lorraine: you have to tell me how you make a smiley face.
me: ok. i will
it's a colon : and a shift zero )
:)
Sent at 12:51 PM on Wednesday
Lorraine: it doesn't turn
me: it will
try it
do it and press enter
Lorraine: :))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
:::::::::)
me: try again
this time with one colon
and one close paren
Lorraine: :)
me: YAY
Lorraine: :)
love you. talk to you later. bye:)
:)
me: love you too
bye
Sent at 12:57 PM on Wednesday

Mozilla Community Store

This morning, Mozilla and Zazzle announced a strategic partnership and the launch of the Mozilla Community Store!

At the Mozilla Community Store, folks can browse the gallery to shop from an array of community generated designs. Designs consist entirely of artwork supplied by Mozilla's worldwide community, with all designs available for customization on over 400 apparel products including t-shirts, sweatshirts and tank tops. To get things started, we've seeded the store with over 50 designs from the Firefox 3 t-shirt design contest, but anyone can start from scratch and add their own.

Tara over at MusingT and John at Intothefuzz have also posted about the exciting news!

An exercise in passive voice

From the Facebook team:

Unfortunately, the settings that control which email notifications get sent to you were lost. We're sorry for the inconvenience.

To reset your email notification settings, go to:

http://www.facebook.com/editaccount.php?notifications

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

PR Decoder Ring

Found this page that defines newspaper terms and thought it could also be really helpful for people trying to figure out what the heck their PR person is talking about. :)

Brendan Eich on CIO Sessions

Just posted the following to Mozilla's Above the Fold PR blog. Great interview between Mozilla's CTO and CNET's Dan Farber about Mozilla, Firefox, and the future of the Web. Check it out!

Introducing Fashion Your Firefox!

This morning, Mozilla launched the Fashion Your Firefox application, making it easy to customize Firefox based on your interests and personal preferences. Great posts about the news can be found here and here. The press release is here.

Aging

This makes me feel old.

Birthday roll call

Happy birthday mom!

Happy birthday Firefox!

Prop 8

A few months prior to our wedding, I wrote a post about gay marriage. In the post, I talked about the rush of emotion upon finding my soul mate and planning to get married.

i'm looking toward this august, feeling amazingly lucky to have found my besheret. i hope that we get to a point where everyone can experience this feeling - regardless of whom they've decided to love for the rest of their lives.

This morning, I had the opportunity to vote on Prop 8. It was one of the simplest decisions I've ever made. Easier than the ballot question about renaming the Oceanside sewage plant. Easier than the one about the number of people who should participate in the Historic Preservation Society. Easier than anything else on the phonebook-sized San Francisco ballot.

Dead simple.

Vote no on Prop 8.

Greetings from Detroit

Just finished a few days of PR-related conferencing in the Motor City. Couple of quick thoughts.

- Bringing about 3000 PR peeps to a city with an image problem is simply brilliant
- Attending a PR-specific conference when you spend a lot of time at tech events is a refreshing change of pace (except for the enormous line at the ladies room)
- PR folks across all industries are catching onto social media and the importance of TRANSPARENCY - beyond just the high tech ones
- PR people are eager to share experiences, introduce themselves to strangers, network, ask questions, and speak up in sessions where they disagree with the speaker - all making for a highly interactive conference
- Only about 1% of conference attendees came to sessions with their laptops (I did the first day but soon discovered there was no wifi)
- Many of the proprietary PR internet applications in the expo center only run on IE
- Most of the PR professionals had not heard of Mozilla but were familiar with Firefox
- All of the PR students I met both knew of, used, and evangelized Firefox (hello 2009 intern pool!)

More to come when I've had time to digest my notes.

Mozilla PR Metrics

At Mozilla, we are exploring ways to evaluate public relations programs to determine both short and long term efficacy. How do we know if we’re getting better if there’s no baseline indication of impact? The answer isn’t a pure science. True PR metrics are not just quantitative but qualitative as well. Quantitative analysis explores things like total number of articles, mentions in the press, coverage by country, etc. Qualitative analysis includes message penetration as well as audience and tone analysis. It turns out they are equally important in evaluating the success of Mozilla’s major PR initiatives.

PR is notoriously difficult to quantify. Part of the challenge is developing PR metrics that will be meaningful over time. If PR objectives are constantly shifting, certain programs will undoubtedly get more attention than others. Setting PR metrics is a semi-existential undertaking. Will things that matter today still matter a year from now? Two years? Ten? Fifty?

The first step in setting PR metrics is to look at our overarching PR/Communications goals. From there we can determine a solid methodology for tracking them in the short and long term. The idea is to compare apples to apples.

In the pre-Internet days, every PR professional had a ruler at his or her desk and would simply count newspaper and magazine column inches. If the number of inches increased quarter over quarter or year over year, it was presumed that the PR team was doing a good job. Apples to apples? Yes. Meaningful? Not really. Print inches are great if every story is glowing but not if the content written in those inches says lousy things about the company/product/executive team/etc.

Quantitative Analysis

Quantitative analysis is decidedly less labor intensive than qualitative analysis and can be broken down into a number of subcategories. This is useful for media analysis in countries where we lack native speakers helping with PR. Much of the analysis can be done using structured query language and complex media databases. There are a number of these media database programs, but the people in the US tend to be most familiar with Lexis Nexis because of its prevalence on college campuses. The resulting analysis offers a breadth of insights about where, when, and on which topics we’re getting coverage.

Examples of quantitative reports we can generate based on media tracking systems in place at Mozilla:
• Number of articles*
• Coverage by topic/keyword*
• Coverage by country*
• Coverage by language*
• Coverage by media type*
• Coverage within a specific date range*
• Overlays of active user data
• Competitive coverage
• Analysis of outreach
o Number of reporters contacted v. number of reporters briefed
o Number of reporters briefed v. number who wrote articles
• Apollo tracking – Mozilla mentions compared to other major technology companies (170,000 Web and print technology articles in 13 countries)
• Firefox market share (Xiti for Europe, Net Applications for worldwide)

*Coverage maintained through Meltwater News System (only online coverage)

Use case for quantitative PR analysis:
The number of articles around Firefox during June 2007 looks very different than the number of articles written during June 2008. This is because Firefox 3 launched in 2008 but there was not a comparable launch happening at the same time a year prior. To make these numbers meaningful, we compared coverage for the Firefox 2 launch to the Firefox 3 launch. This gives us a much better sense of our PR reach over time.



The analysis of Firefox 2 v Firefox 3 coverage shows steady media interest throughout the betas followed by a statistically significant spike in launch day coverage. We know the media covering betas are primarily technology press and that more media outlets write articles about Firefox once it reaches general availability (GA). The graph is in keeping with what we expected to see, but it’s very interesting to see it demonstrated visually.


Qualitative Analysis

Qualitative analysis can be very time and labor intensive, but often covers the things ordinary article counts miss. This type of analysis attempts to answer the following questions:
• Who did these articles reach and were they the target audience for our news?
• What key messages are they going to take away from the article?
• Was the tone of the article positive, negative, or neutral?

Qualitative analysis is much more subjective but covers changes in types of coverage, rather than simply volume. Qualitative offers a “depth” counterpart to the “breadth” that quantitative analysis offers. Through qualitative analysis, we learn more about which messages are resonating with specific audiences. From this, we can uncover future targets for PR outreach.

Examples of qualitative reports we can generate based on media tracking systems in place at Mozilla:
• Key message penetration
• Coverage in top publications: tech, business, consumer
• Tone analysis: positive, negative, neutral

Use case for qualitative PR analysis:
For the Firefox 3 launch, there were literally thousands of articles from around the globe. The sheer volume of coverage was impressive but we wanted to focus on getting answers to the qualitative questions above. It would have taken our entire PR team working around the clock for months on end to fully analyze every Firefox 3 article. Instead, we opted to review non-tech coverage to see which messages non-users were most likely to have encountered during the launch. The analysis is available here in PDF format.

Upon review, we found that all of the top non-tech publications had positive to neutral articles about Firefox 3. Key messages were picked up throughout. We did not conduct this type of review for Firefox 2 so we do not have a second data point to contrast the launches.

Conclusion

The qualitative and quantitative analyses from the Firefox 3 launch were Mozilla’s first look at how our PR activities relate to press coverage. We long suspected that the structure put in place for mainstream PR outreach and the increase in spokesperson training across the organization would result in a net positive change in press coverage; only we had no way of demonstrating that numerically. Until now…

This post is meant to kick off a conversation about PR metrics. If we’re not analyzing PR activities, it’s hard to tell if we’re improving. Our goal is to post ongoing analysis of how we’re mapping to Mozilla’s PR objectives from both a quantitative and qualitative standpoint. The program is new and we’re starting with only a few data points. We hope to grow over time and generate better analysis to increase the impact of our PR campaigns.

BusinessWeek's 25 Most Influential People on the Web

Exciting news - BusinessWeek just published their list of the 25 most influential people on the Web and we have two Mozillians on the list! Mitchell Baker and Joi Ito were both included!

Also good but from a different angle

Jason's been getting a lot of attention for this one. Figure it's good to repost it in addition to my last repost about PR 101.

Getting your PR right is important in the way the decor of a restaurant is important: folks like a nice-looking restaurant, but they are only going to go to it once if the food sucks. What you put on the plate--your product--is the most important.

PS - the repost is sorta late because I was traveling this summer (sans computer).

PR 101

Came across this great post from Mark Cowlin from Cafepress about how and when to get started with PR. Thought it was worth sharing with others. It's a multi-part post so be sure to click through to the next section when you get to the bottom.

Pre-honeymoon horoscope

From iGoogle:

You are growing stronger day-by-day as you move closer to realizing your goals. But there appears to be so much on your plate now that you wish you accomplished more when you had extra time on your hands. Fortunately, you may be ready to accept a more balanced approach to life. Ease off on the gas pedal just enough to enjoy the ride. You'll still reach your destination on time.

Three days and counting...

Planning a wedding can be extremely stressful. There are brides who take sabbaticals from work in order to plan their weddings. Others hire high-price professional wedding planners to help with the coordination and execution. And others opt to go it alone.

On the night my fiancee and I got engaged, we made the decision to plan our wedding in San Francisco, where we've both lived for many years. We're East Coast transplants so planning the wedding here meant it would be very difficult for our families to support us during location scouting, vendor selection, menu selection, compiling guest lists, selecting gift registries, ketubah and wedding ring selection, dress selection and alterations, music selection, and general coordination of the entire event. We both work pretty intensive full time jobs and wedding planning was going to take a backseat if we didn’t figure out a way to get on top of it.

How do we plan a wedding where nearly everyone except the bride and groom are from out of town? How do we make sure that our moms don’t miss out on the experience of planning the wedding with us? How do we bridge the 3000-mile distance between our guests and us? How do we get the wedding of our dreams without diverting too much attention from our demanding jobs?

I had an idea.

I spend an inordinate amount of time sitting in front of a computer. In fact, outside of Silicon Valley, the amount of time I spend online might be considered a severe illness. Lucky for me, I live in California where this is just par for the course.

I’m three days away from my wedding and the only tool I used was free and under my nose the whole time. Firefox 3. My browser of choice since the first beta came out.

Announcing that I wanted to plan my wedding using a Web browser that hadn't yet been declared "final" made some people very nervous. "You mean you're not only planning your wedding online, you're also planning it with BETA software?!" The moms were sufficiently horrified. What if something crashes? What if you lose everything you've been working on? What if? What if? The moms had an abundance of "what if's," particularly around wedding planning.

There was an opportunity buried in this challenge. I work on public relations for Mozilla. Much of my job involves talking about the importance of the browser, why it matters, why it’s more than a commodity, how it can make you more efficient, more effective, and more organized. So, I decided to “dog food” Firefox 3 and plan my entire wedding on the Web and then share how I did it. Here’s a quick run down of all of the things I’ve used the Web to plan my wedding. After the honeymoon, I’ll let you know how it turned out. :)

Using the Firefox 3 Awesome Bar:

1. Location scouting
2. Vendor selection
3. Gift registry
4. Ketubah and Wedding Ring Design
5. Wedding Dress Selection

Using Gmail and Google Documents:

1. Compiling Guest Lists
2. Menu Selection
3. General Coordination
4. Music Selection
5. Shared Scheduling/Calendaring

SF Marriage License Form

In San Francisco, this is what the marriage license online application form looks like. The lines to get marriage licenses have been so long that SF is now requiring online appointments to get everyone in who wants one! Check out the "type" category - I love that in SF "same sex" is listed before "opposite sex". I should have posted this yesterday. Happy belated pride.

Shameless self-promotion

Sort of weird to have the shoe on the other foot.

My interview with PR Week can be found here.

Quote of the day (Firefox 3 edition)

The very famous, completely overused, almost ubiquitous quote from Margaret Mead has been running through my head all morning on the heals of more than 8 million Firefox 3 downloads within the first 24 hours.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

The Mozilla community is precisely that. A small group of thoughtful, committed citizens - changing the world one download at a time.

Congratulations all around on an amazing first 24 hours!

photo credit: Clare Bayley

Firefox 3 Live!

Firefox 3 is officially live!

The coverage to date has been astounding. I took a screenshot of our Google News feed for "Firefox." Check it out: http://flickr.com/photos/misdemeanor/2588369710/. According to Net Applications, Firefox market share is going up by the hour. You can view their full report here: http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=31.

Also, if you haven't downloaded it yet, go here: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html and get it! Help Mozilla set the world record for most software downloads in a 24 hour period!

More Mossberg!

Just got the link to a CNBC piece that aired today. In the video, Walt is interviewed about Firefox 3 by CNBC's Bill Griffeth. The CNBC folks also used the b-roll I mentioned in yesterday's post.

Mossberg on Firefox 3!

A positive review from Walt Mossberg at The Wall Street Journal is a highly valued thing in both PR and consumer technology circles. In his comprehensive article and accompanying video, Walt calls Firefox 3 "the best browser out there" and offers a personal recommendation to users.

A few of us went to visit Walt in DC early last month. Our DC meetings kicked off several weeks of press meetings with what we PR folk call long lead publications. The online reporters and bloggers are typically known as short lead because they are able to turn around multiple articles per day and have them post almost instantaneously.

You may be wondering where Walt picked up those images of the Mozilla campus. No, they didn't send a camera crew out to Mountain View. The Mozilla PR team actually provided the B-roll and Walt's team spliced it into the final version of the video he posted. B-roll is broadcast quality footage that companies create and provide to news organizations to help them augment visual stories. A huge thanks to all the Mozillians who allowed us to invade their space with cameras!

Walt sums up the article nicely with the following bottom line: "Even though you already have a built-in browser, Firefox 3.0 can improve your Web experience."

Couldn't agree more.

Best Futurama Quote

From the Godfellas episode:

"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

Apt hunting in SF

Came across this little gem while searching through Craigslist postings. Lulz.

"If you like to garden and don't mind frequent raccoon visits then this would be a great opportunity in the city."

Source: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/apa/698745286.html

Firefox World Record Attempt!

Mary just posted the exciting news that the Firefox community is attempting to set a Guinness world record for the most software downloads in 24 hours and will occur on Firefox 3 launch day. There's some additional background on Mary's personal blog as well.

You can find out all the details here. Please get involved with this awesome community effort and help set the world record!

There are LOTS of ways to get involved. Here are a few ways you can help:

• Plan an impromptu Download Fest at your school, office, or home - anywhere with an Internet connection. Or, attend a Firefox 3 gathering.
• Join one of the following social networking groups and invite all your friends.
• Find your Firefox Campus Rep and see how you can help today or what festivities you can join.
• Add our buttons or banners to your site, blog, or profile.

Sign up here: http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/

Two New York, Same News?

Went to a corner store near my house to pick up a few extra copies of the New York Times. Mozilla is featured above the fold on the front page of the Business section. In a word: w00t!

I grab two copies and head to the counter to pay. The corner store guy looks at me cockeyed.

He says, "Two?"

I smile. And nod.

He looks at me again, profoundly perplexed.

He says, "Two New York, same news?"

I smile again and say, "Yes."

Sometimes it's worth paying double in order to hear good news twice.

Pic from first yelp elite event

orson yelp elite sf yelpsf (68)
Originally uploaded by calmenda

Too cute, right?

The slow death of the press release

People often ask me why Mozilla doesn't put out more press releases or why the releases that we do put out are relatively short and news-driven. I then proceed to pull out my PR soapbox and spout off about the changing face of media and the need for PR to adapt beyond methods that are at best unproductive, and at worst detrimental to the entire industry. That's good for drunken debates at PRSA events but not quite palatable for everyone. When I'm talking to non-PR people, I typically illustrate the concept by telling a story about my early days in PR.

In 1999, I was an intern on the Tech, Telecom, and Energy team at a global PR firm's DC office. Part of my job was to fax press releases to editorial teams at newsrooms nationwide. I would spend hours punching in the phone numbers of major newspapers and publications for a fax blast (anyone remember those?). I later heard from reporters that at the other end of the transmission, they had the incoming faxes feeding straight into a garbage can. They would use the discarded press releases as scrap paper.

I love this story for two reasons. One, it explains the immediate failing of the press release; pushing news to people without any context or expressed interest is ineffective. Two, it illustrates the ever-changing face of media and the need for PR to adapt or get sucked into the newsroom garbage can (or its modern equivalent, the editor's spam folder).

Back in October, Chris Anderson of Wired and Long Tail fame, posted a scathing indictment of the PR industry. His complaint? Being blasted with news that he didn't request and wasn't interested in receiving.

I've had it. I get more than 300 emails a day and my problem isn't spam (Cloudmark Desktop solves that nicely), it's PR people. Lazy flacks send press releases to the Editor in Chief of Wired because they can't be bothered to find out who on my staff, if anyone, might actually be interested in what they're pitching.

I am certainly not the first person to assert that the golden age of the lengthy mass-blast press release was coming to a close. Flickr has long been a leader in the movement to move PR beyond the press release. In early 2004, they began blogging their announcements in lieu of a traditional wire release. Tom Foremski wrote a post about this in 2006 but the progress has been slow. Two years later, social news releases are starting to gain traction but they tend to look like deconstructed versions of standard news releases.

Perhaps we are in the Web 1.0 phase of the press release. When corporate content first appeared on the Web, most companies modeled their online presence after offline norms. Businesses took their existing marketing materials and simply put them online. Mainstream media did pretty much the same thing with early online news sites. Today, the Web has progressed far beyond that. Offline ported to online does not equal Web presence. Considering this, how do we advance our understanding of PR?

At Mozilla, when we put out press releases they are often coupled with blog posts and/or FAQs in order to provide context or quick fodder for right click journalists looking for a quote. They offer a voice, a perspective, a point of view. Traditional press releases, by nature of their construct, simply cannot compete with the rich, interactive experience of the Web.

The PR industry needs to revisit the concept of the next generation press release more than once every few years. Media is always changing. PR needs to keep pace or it will go the way of fax blasting: still around but completely out of touch with the modern era.

Mozilla Firefox Wins Webware 100 Award!

A few months ago, I blogged about Mozilla Firefox being a finalist in the 2008 Webware 100 Awards.

Today, the winners were announced and Firefox won in the Browsing category. Over 1.9 million votes were cast to select these Webware 100 winners and the most votes were cast in the Browsing category.

Also, sending out congratulations to the friendly folks over at the Participatory Culture Foundation. Nice to see Miro win in the Video category.

Metablogging.

I’m sitting down to write a blog about bloggers coming to yesterday’s blogger event at Mozilla. I’m thinking about liveblogging, microblogging, and metablogging. I’m thinking I don’t know too many other PR people who would get the opportunity to write this post. I'm thinking about how much tech PR has changed since I started my career path a decade ago (though that’s probably a separate post).

The unique part of yesterday’s event wasn’t about a tech company opening the doors and inviting in a bunch of bloggers. I have been a part of those types of events in the past. What made yesterday’s event unique was that there were no embargoes, everything was on the record, and we had a bunch of non-media trained folks participate.

This is rare in PR and corporate communications. It’s much easier to do things that have proven track records for success – such as embargoes, limiting media interaction with non-spokespeople, holding events in fancy restaurants, sticking to a powerpoint deck and a strict agenda, etc. But Mozilla exists in a different space. We live in a fishbowl. We thrive in the open. We are a public benefit, mission-driven organization. And mission presented on paper doesn’t have quite the same impact as mission presented in person.

Bloggers traveled from as far away as LA and as near as Atherton. We had 10 visitors total and about 10 Mozillians there. John Lilly kicked off the event by providing some background and history on the Mozilla Project. Then Mike Schroepfer, our VP of Engineering talked about Firefox 3. We had an open Q&A session running throughout the event. I noticed this at SXSW this year as well. Running Q&A instead of formal presentation followed by formal Q&A is all the rage these days. :)

We ate some pizza and then split up by interest, not by agenda, so people were free to gravitate toward others with common interests. A lot of people met for the first time at the event but had been following and commenting on each other’s blogs for years.

I asked participants (both bloggers and Mozillians) for feedback after the event. The general consensus was that we should do more of these. So don’t worry if you missed the first one - we’re planning to have another one soon!

Mozilla wins EFF Pioneer Award, Finalist in Webware 100 Awards

Last week was chock full of good news. I got a call to alert me that Mitchell Baker and the Mozilla Foundation were awarded the EFF Pioneer Award, a prestigious honor reserved for individuals and organizations that have made significant and influential contributions to the development of computer-mediated communications and to the empowerment of individuals in using computers and the Internet.

Additionally, Mozilla Firefox was listed as a finalist for the Webware 100 Awards. Voting is now open for these awards and I encourage everyone to stop by the website and vote for Firefox in the Browsing category. Voting is open until March 31.

Another great email...

I got another great email from a Firefox community member. This one comes from Rosa and was too funny not to share.

Dear Firefox team,
After installing the new beta version this morning (thanks btw!), I realized that I had no more time to make lunch to bring to work. So I decided to pick up a quick sandwich in our new neighborhood sandwich-shop; " Lu-sub"recently opened by a sweet Vietnamese old man "Lu" who had his filtered-water-shop there before. As he showed me proudly his new printed poster of the menu on the wall (see picture attached), my eyes where especially caught by the "steak" sandwich; with " Mozilla cheese" who knew!!! Being Dutch, I am a big cheese fan, and also a big Mozilla fan, finally my two favorites together;-)
Thank for your new product guys (and girls) , you just keep surprising me over and over again...

We went from ice cream to cheese! The Mozilla community is clearly not lactose intolerant.

Quote of the day

I love this bit of writing...

I do think it behooves all of us to be skeptical of news organizations that behave like adolescents, no matter where your political allegiances lie. As all of us remember I'm sure, teen-age hormones and mood swings are very unpredictable. That boy may love you today, but loyalty isn't his strong suit. Tomorrow, he will kiss and tell, turn his back and take up with another without a second thought. News organizations that behave this way are not good for our democracy. This isn't the homecoming game -- it's an election.

source

Mozilla Community

As PR for Mozilla, I'm on the email alias for press inquiries. This means that I frequently see more spam in a day than most people see in a week. I get a ton of misdirected email and filter through it all to find the media requests that require attention. Through all the noise, I occasionally get an email that stands out, one that demonstrates the passion that people feel for Mozilla and Firefox.

Today, I got the following email from a boy named Brody:

Dear Mozilla,
I am fond of you internet service.
In fact, I drew it.
The notebook paper drawing is simply just the logo.
The other one-
Well, that's Scrap Paper from today's test.
It's a picture of the FireFox licking an Ice Cream.
The Caption reads:
We're so nice,
We'll even make you ice cream.
MOZILLA FIREFOX.
Well,
Good job.
Clicking away:
--Brody K. B.

Brody and I emailed a bit and then I talked to his dad (hi Don!) who agreed to let me share Brody's drawings with the entire Mozilla community. A big thank you to Brody for sending in his drawings!

haircuts

i came into this world bald as a ping pong ball. b-a-l-d. until i was about three, strangers would walk up to my parents and say, "my, what an adorable little boy" because i was bald. my first haircut is somewhere in my parents house. despite how creepy that sounds, i genuinely think it's because they were so relieved that there was finally enough of it to cut.

i've always hated haircuts...
that is...
until i met glenda.

glenda just cut off nine inches of my hair.

i haven't had hair this short since i was about five years old.

it's nice. i'm using a lot less shampoo.