Hello from over here

This blog is a bit of a time capsule. I started it in 2006 and my last entry was posted in 2012.

The content makes me smile. It's was mostly written during my twenties and has all the happy cringe that goes along with the perspective of time. Some of it has aged well, some of it...not so much.

I find myself blogging again for the first time in half a decade. I'm not only blogging, I'm putting up  a post a week. And all of these posts are about leading, managing, and growing in a tech org.

For me, everything I know about this topic is in some way tied to my time at Mozilla. That's not to say that Mozilla always got these things right. Sometimes the counterexample can be just as instructive as the model.

In many ways my life feels light years away from Building K in Mountain View. And in others, eternally linked. My husband and I are both Mozilla alum. Our kids sleep in oversized Firefox t-shirts and play with red panda plushies. It's been years since I've filed anything in bugzilla or checked in on IRC. These days, we root from the sidelines. Our contributions happen via emails, coffees, and late night sessions in our living room when former colleagues are passing through Toronto.

We started The Co-pour to bring those living room conversations into the open, to share what we've learned, to talk about the hard things and address the lonely road of tech leadership.

If you're interested in checking out our posts, you can find the full collection at https://mfbt.ca. We won't be cross-posting to planet but if you have a Medium account, you can follow The Co-pour and get notified when new posts go up. 

ICYMI:

• Are Strong Values Destroying your Company?
• How Fucked Up is Your Management?
• Thanksgiving
• How to Kill your Startup’s Referral Pipeline in a Single Interview
• Valley Extraction — How to Hire Senior Talent Away From Silicon Valley in Four Easy Steps
• Bullies, Bylines, and That Other B Word
• Why More Companies Don’t Do Remote Work (and probably shouldn’t)
• Big Lies, Little Lies, and the Cheat Code to a Promotion
• You Can’t be What you Can’t See
• How to be a Better Leader In 4 Badly Drawn Charts
• Your Diversity Problem isn’t the Pipeline’s Fault
• How I Talk to Leaders about Firing People
• Why it is a mistake to hire super heroes
• Unlimited Vacation and Other Forms of Guilt-Based Management
• The tech mechitza
• Why it’s a Mistake to be a Startup Superhero
• Privilege, illegal interviews, and burning curiosity
• You Won’t Brilliant Your Way Out of This
• Is it Worth Your Time to be Excellent?
• A Brief Overview of Failing, Firing, and Scotch
• Maternity Leave — an American in Canada
• Family Planning While Working in a Startup
• Stuck — How Leaders Get Trapped, and How to Save Yourself

How to Time Your Launch

I just answered a question on Quora about the best time to distribute a press releases over a specific wire service. But there's a broader question there - one that has nothing to do with the specific wire service or the various distribution mechanisms for the news. The essence of the question is about the best day of the week and the best time of the day to release news.

I pasted my answer to the Quora question below so non-Quora users could participate in the discussion.

I'd love to hear thoughts/feedback from other PR teams about their best practices.

Five simple rules for timing your news:

• Release on Tuesdays. or Wednesdays. For the biggest bump of media attention, release on a Tuesday morning.  This also gives you an opportunity to pre-brief reporters if you wish.  Tuesdays and Wednesdays are both solid options.
• Thursdays trim your news cycle. The problem with a Thursday is that, for really big news, there's no opportunity for a protracted news cycle (ie, you miss the day two and day three stories).  If it's good news, go with a Tues or Wed.
• Avoid Mondays, avoid Fridays. Mondays are for coffee and catching up on email. Fridays are for releasing bad news, the idea being that the news will be reported but will be old by Monday and by Tuesday, the media will have moved onto something new.  This doesn't always work.  The Enron folks certainly didn't get out of their media cycle over the course of a weekend.  Nor Madoff. Nor BP.  If you f*ck up royally, prepare for a lengthy skewering.
• East v. West. OK, so we've established release days, let's talk about what time to put it over the wire.  Are you a publicly traded company? Does your news impact financial trading? If so, release it early Eastern Time (usually 8am, though sometimes midnight if you're chasing a WSJ embargo).  Are you a California-based startup hoping to secure tech coverage? An 8am PT release should be just fine and will give your core press targets a chance to wake up. The time zone you favor will set the tone for your coverage so choose wisely.
• Going global and making the best of it**.  Want global coverage? Truly global? Well, that's trickier.  Who do you want to piss off the least?  Midnight ET is going to make everyone unhappy but means Europe and Asia aren't completely shut out of the cycle and the West Coast of the US has already reached their print deadlines but you might be able to eek in for online.

**I have a follow up post in the hopper that addresses truly global launches.

One Post Behind

I should blog more. I know it’s important. I enjoy doing it. And yet, I constantly feel as though I’m one post behind. I have perpetual, nagging guilt about it. My blog is an electronic extension of my Jewish mother – wondering why I haven’t written or called and manifesting as mild but persistent anxiety. 

I’m eager to start blogging about my current adventure. But there’s a catch…I never closed the last chapter. I didn’t take the advice I’ve given several times over: your blog is your story and if you jump around, don’t be surprised when the people following along at home look up and say, “wait a sec, I have no context for what’s going on here.” So two weeks ago, when Stormy asked the Mozilla Conductors group to blog, I realized I was a post behind.

Staying involved

In February, I left my full time post at Mozilla where I ran the global PR team(1). My five years at Mozilla were pretty all encompassing and the prospect of doing something new was incredibly exciting (but also terrifying). At the time, I didn’t have a very clear idea of whether or how I’d stay involved in the project. And it’s one of the reasons I delayed writing this post. I wanted to figure out what my version of “staying involved” looked like before I committed to it.


Where to find me

It no longer says Mozilla on my paychecks or my business cards but I remain an active contributor as a Mozilla Conductor, a MozillaWebFWD mentor, and as part of the NorCal Mozilla surf crew.  And while I never thought I’d miss it, I’m occasionally hanging out in IRC. If you see me around, say hi.  And if I can help with courageous conversations, startup mentoring, or San Francisco restaurant recommendations, don’t hesitate to ping.

(1)

My goodbye note:

Dear Mozillians,
Over the past five years, numerous colleagues have approached me when it was time for them to write goodbye emails to ask for some pointers.  I always said pretty much the same thing: draft it at home, take your time, speak from your heart and know that no matter what you send, it’s unlikely to capture everything.

Now that I’m on the other side of that advice, I can tell you that leaving Mozilla is exactly as hard as everyone says it is.  Mozilla lines are blurry: contributors are indistinguishable from employees, colleagues morph into incredible friends, the work, though hard, frequently feels like play.

Next Friday (February 10th), I’ll leave Mozilla and move onto my next adventure. I am honored to have worked for the Project and lucky to have spent time in the trenches alongside all of you.  It’s been an amazing experience and one I’ll treasure for my entire career.  Rarely does one get to work with such a passionate, dedicated, and splendid group of people and be entrusted to share their stories with the world.

I look forward to the next time our paths cross.  I’m including my contact details below - please stay in touch.

Fondly,
Melissa
xyz@gmail.com
@shappy

Announcing Communications Reps SIG

The Mozilla Reps program aims to empower and support volunteer Mozillians who want to become official representatives of Mozilla in their region/locale.  A few weeks ago, William shared the news that the Mozilla Reps program would be expanding to include Special Interest Groups.  Today, I'm incredibly proud to officially announce Mozilla's Communications Reps Special Interest Group.

There are many areas of PR/Communications where Mozillians can get involved and make a big impact. As a Comms Reps, you will have an opportunity to get hands-on experience while working alongside one of the most innovative PR teams working in tech today.  You will learn PR fundamentals, including how to share Mozilla news and announcements, draft media pitches, monitor and analyze coverage, and conduct outreach to local media contacts.

We're kicking off the Comms Reps program with sessions at the upcoming MozCamp events in Berlin and KL.  To join the Comms Reps program, please fill out the following form: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEVHNldzU1U4cDhOY3ZRWUJ4d25aZWc6MQ. We look forward to hearing from you!

A heartfelt thank you to Mozilla's PR intern, Annika Heinle, who worked this summer to build out the infrastructure for the Comms Reps SIG and to Shannon Prior, Annika's summer mentor.

What are the qualities of a great PR firm?

It's been months since I've blogged. These days I'm tweeting a bunch and answering questions on Quroa. In the interest of getting some content on my blog, I'm crossposting one of my recent Quora responses.

Q: What are the qualities of a great PR firm?

A: Qualities of a great PR firm from someone who's both hired and worked at quite a few...

*Organized - A good agency will set and stick to deadlines. A great agency won't make you ask about the status of a deliverable - they'll communicate along the way.

*Stellar media chops - Do they have your key journalists on speed dial? Are they BFF's with the influencers in your space? Often, good agencies do bad work because they are supporting clients where they have no domain expertise. Ask for relevant account portfolios to ensure that they aren't learning everything on your dime. You can save time and money by doing your homework and hiring an agency with prior industry experience.

*Genuine partners - When the going gets tough, are they working late hours alongside you? Or are they nowhere to be found the night before the tour when a blizzard hits Boston and you need to rebook a full week of meetings? A
great agency will feel like an extension of your team. They will have a clear understanding of your topline objectives and they will go the extra mile to get you there because success is shared. A big win for you is a big win for them.

*Detail oriented - Page numbers on every doc without exceptions. Reporter phone numbers. Directions to the next meeting. PR lives and dies by the details. The difference between a good meeting and a bad meeting is often a well constructed or poorly constructed briefing sheet. These are typically drafted by interns. Is someone senior reviewing their work before it gets to your inbox?

*Whip smart - As the client, you're wearing branded blinders and drinking the Kool-Aid every day. A good agency will flag relevant trends and articles and pull you out of the weeds.

*Proactive - Relevant ed-cals from reach publications? That new, hot industry
conference? Beat reporters moving publications? Your agency should be
all over this and you shouldn't have to ask for it, it should just show up in your inbox.

*Trust - Ultimately, great agency relationships are based on trust. These are the people who will call the press on your company's behalf. They are the front line storytellers for your company's narrative. Do you trust them to tell your story? Get key facts and figures right? Accurately represent your position in the market? Save your CEO if a briefing is going completely off the rails? Help you navigate a crisis? Cover day to day operations if you need to be offline for a day?

Leroy Stick; the man behind @BPGlobalPR

Via Street Giant...

You know the best way to get the public to respect your brand? Have a respectable brand. Offer a great, innovative product and make responsible, ethical business decisions. Lead the pack! Evolve!

What’s in Your Backpack?

After countless press tours, conferences, and events where I’m not only responsible for my own well-being but that of my traveling roadshow colleagues, I picked up a thing or two about road warrioring. “Be prepared” being the motto of the savvy pr professional, my colleagues joke that I’m better than a boy scout.

Here is a collection of ten of my favorite/best travel tips. Some of them are specifically geared toward female business travelers, but most will work for everyone. The following items are in my backpack at all times. Just in case…

1. Peekaboo, I can’t see you. Bring an eyepillow. You never know when you’ll end up in a hotel room with a neon sign directly in front of your window. It also comes in handy during long flights where the person next to you is reading and you want to sleep.



2. La la la, I can’t hear you. It is not the small child’s fault for screaming during the entire flight. It is your fault for being unprepared. Do not leave home without at least two pair of earplugs. If you are going to Vegas and have early morning meetings, earplugs are the difference between a sound night of sleep and staying up all night - people scream in the hallways at all hours for no apparent reason.

3. Tea Party. The tea in hotels (even fancy hotels) simply sucks. Travel with a few of your favorite bags. Oftentimes a nice cup of tea can make the difference between a good day and a bad day.

4. Be your own Starbucks. Carry a coffee sleeve and one of those green coffee stoppers from Starbucks. They come in handy if you end up getting coffee from a place that doesn’t stock those things.



5. Be your own RiteAid/Walgreens/CVS/Duane Reed. Pack a coughdrop. Just one. Pack two Dayquil. And at least four Benedryl. If you or your spokesperson goes into a coughing fit in a press briefing, you’ll be ready – it’s easy enough to buy more if you need them. If you or your spokesperson gets a cold on the plane, the Dayquil may save you from rescheduling a full day of meetings – that stuff is amazing. The Benedryl is the most fantastic of all. It’s intended for allergies and does a bang up job as an anti-histamine. But what the label doesn’t tell you is that if you’re stuck in an unfamiliar time zone, it’ll help you sleep with minimal side effects and no Ambien hangover.

6. Meal in bar form. You should always have at least one granola bar in your bag and at least one piece of gum. A spokesperson with low blood sugar will make your life miserable. And garlic breath is not an effective message delivery vehicle.



7. These lips were made for talking. Chapstick is a modern miracle. It does not matter if it is winter or summer, your lips will be chapped after three days of meetings.

8. Summertime and the livin’s easy. Bring flip flops on every trip, even if you’re going someplace cold. After a day in work shoes, no matter how comfortable, you’ll enjoy walking around the hotel in them. And if you find out those new shoes aren’t quite as comfortable after you’ve walked the length of Manhattan in ‘em, you can always throw them in your backpack, use the flip flops to hike across the city, and change back in the elevator. No one will ever be the wiser.



9. Oops, I did it again. Those little tiny sewing kits they have in most hotels? Take one and put it in your backpack. It doesn’t take up any space and if you lose a button, split your pants, or get your sweater caught on a turnstile, you’ll be glad it’s there.

10. Cousin It stand-in. Bring a hairtie and at least two barrettes no matter the length or style of your hair. Cute as your hair may be when at home, humidity is a wondrous thing. You can suffer through the frizz or pull it all back in a tight bun and let it down again once you’re safely inside.




Photo credits:
Flipflops.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/static/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Eyepillow.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/yelahneb/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Starbucks.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cups/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Garlic.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/calliope/ / CC BY 2.0

Cute kid with the wild hair.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/foto-motto/

Do you think you have a public relations problem?

NYTimes Q&A with Yelp's CEO.

Q. If nothing else, do you think you have a public relations problem?

A. There’s simply anger over the accountability that Yelp brings and also this feeling of powerlessness because so much power is now being put in the hands of the consumer. But the important thing that gets lost with some of these business owners who are very upset with us is it’s the whole picture that counts. Focusing on that one review you feel is unfair misses the value, which is the whole symphony of opinions you get on your page.

written or spoken - what do you think?

After Three Months, Only 35 Subscriptions for Newsday's Web Site

After Three Months, Only 35 Subscriptions for Newsday's Web Site

The paper was one of the first non-business newspapers to take the plunge by putting up a pay wall, so in media circles it has been followed with interest. Could its fate be a sign of what others, including The New York Times, might expect?

My Personas Pic

This is my personas picture. It was taken on Thursday, Jan 21 - launch day for Firefox 3.6. Though I had a terrible head cold, I think the picture turned out pretty well.

Personas are one of the most exciting features in 3.6. They are easy-to-use themes that let you customize your Firefox.

My personal favorites are:
* GG Bridge
* Japanese Tattoo
* Music Head
* Yosemite
* You Are My Muse
* Groovy Blue

Quake!

Quake!
Originally uploaded by shappy85

4.1 in the Bay Area. Was in a meeting in Mountain View and we all felt the building sway a little. Fun times :)

Howard Kurtz and the Evolution of Media

I'm a longtime Media Notes reader. It's been my morning coffee read since my days as a PR intern. In today's column, Kurtz examines the evolution of the media over the last decade. It's a good read. One that could spark a much longer blog post from me but I'm short on time. Trying to take advantage of the surprisingly quiet office to catch up on email and the remaining 2009 todos.

Here's the link so y'all can read the full piece at your leisure.

The rise of niche journalism is taking place as old-line organizations more frequently chase tabloid melodramas. Cable television and morning shows breathlessly pursue narratives involving missing white women, a runaway bride, a mom with octuplets, a beauty queen who opposes gay marriage. Reality television manufactures faux stars -- remember the media mobs over Paris Hilton's brief jail term? -- who wind up on real newscasts. It is a mind-set that breathes life into celebrity deaths -- such as the two-week frenzy over Michael Jackson's -- and gorges on misbehavior by the likes of David Letterman and Tiger Woods. (Imagine if all the reporters chasing Woods's many mistresses had been assigned to study whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.)

The Public Apology: An Exercise in Mea Culpa

Today's crisis communications lesson courtesy of Tiger...

I am deeply aware of the disappointment and hurt that my infidelity has caused to so many people, most of all my wife and children. I want to say again to everyone that I am profoundly sorry and that I ask forgiveness. It may not be possible to repair the damage I’ve done, but I want to do my best to try. I would like to ask everyone, including my fans, the good people at my foundation, business partners, the PGA Tour, and my fellow competitors, for their understanding. What’s most important now is that my family has the time, privacy, and safe haven we will need for personal healing. After much soul searching, I have decided to take an indefinite break from professional golf. I need to focus my attention on being a better husband, father, and person. Again, I ask for privacy for my family and I am especially grateful for all those who have offered compassion and concern during this difficult period.

Mozilla Security Quiz Live on Facebook!

Today, we released the Mozilla Security Quiz to the world! We're very excited to share the application with everyone.

You can go take the quiz here: http://apps.facebook.com/mozillasecurityquiz

Months ago, we sat down to talk about how - in addition to the work we were doing with security research and technical communities - we could have a direct role in educating users about online security. We saw an opportunity to communicate information that we felt was very important - key tips for keeping people safe online.

While we were working through the concept, the marketing and web development teams were in tight coordination with Mozilla's world-class security experts to make the survey adhere to Mozilla stringent privacy requirements. Where most Facebook applications allow developers a lot of access to personal data, we wanted to collect as little information as possible. In fact, we only wanted to see how people did on the quiz, we didn't care about location, gender, education, etc. To make sure we weren't collecting any secondary information, we hashed the Facebook user ID. This means that neither Mozilla, nor anyone else, can tell who answered which questions or what their responses were.

Please go check out the quiz and let us know what you think!

Big thank yous to:
Sarah Doherty
John Slater
Mike Morgan
Johnathan Nightingale
Brandon Sterne
Laura Mesa
AllWidgets
Elise Allen

Jacob Alexander 1931 - 2009

Yesterday morning I found out that my former neighbor Jacob died on Sept 8 at the age of 78. While I've known Jacob for about five years, I never knew his last name. Well, that is until I began searching Google because I heard there would be a neighborhood memorial service for him next weekend. I searched "jacob memorial haight san francisco"and this was the first link to come up. I found out from my former roommate who still lives in the Haight. She found out because there was a flier posted at the corner store. In shock, she asked the store owners when/how he had died. Apparently Jacob had been battling with cancer for the past two years. We never knew.

It's hard to explain.
Jacob was more than a neighbor.
He was much more than an acquaintance though I really didn't know any of the intimate details of his life other than where he lived and his marital status. In fact, there are people about whom I know much more, yet to whom I feel much less attached.

He watched me move into my apartment with two close friends. When we moved in, Jacob was there to greet us, like a one-man neighborhood watch/welcome committee. He said hello every time I saw him after that. It was rare to see Jacob without getting a genuine smile and a warm hug. He stood outside a lot and watched people walk by. It often made my day just to pass him on my way to catch the bus or head to the grocery store.

"Hello!"
Jacob would smile.
"Happy Tuesday to you," he would say. Or fill in whatever day of the week it was.
"And also to you," I would reply.

I've moved at least four times since Jacob lived two doors over from me. But whenever I saw him, we'd pick up just where we'd left off - with a greeting, a smile, and a hug.

The folks at the corner store said they'd seen Jacob the day before he passed away. And they asked how he was and he said "Best day of my life." The answer never changed. He was always smiling, always in good spirits.

I wanted to write a post to capture what was special about my interactions with Jacob but when I started to look for information about him online, I discovered that many, many other neighbors had very similar encounters.

From Jacob's obituary:

With his warm smile, unruly white beard, dark pants, white tunic, knit cap, a necklace of stone crab claws and camel and lion teeth, Jake was such a well-known presence in the park that he was dubbed the "King of Golden Gate Park." Walkers and joggers stopped to hug him, bicyclists shouted greetings, and drivers honked and waved.

It's really hard to imagine not seeing him again. Where others saw a bunch of strangers living in close proximity, Jacob saw a neighborhood of friends yet to be introduced. This weekend, I look forward to joining my friends and neighbors in celebrating his life.

LOL - FB punks TC

Nice work Facebook PR team...too funny:

Between laughs while catching her breath she mentioned something about this being a joke, that nobody but us could see it, and that they were placing bets around the office on how long before we noticed it and posted. And something else about teaching us to contact them before posting.

Yeah Ok, So Facebook Punk’d Us

Posted using ShareThis

Ode to Perfection

Pilon
Originally uploaded by shappy85

My friend writes a Cuban recipe blog. After a hiatus, he returned to blogging and posted instructions for making Cuban Coffee at home - a "colada" specifically. I don't think it can really be called a recipe since the only ingredients are coffee and sugar, but getting the balance right is a challenge for many people. Here's a picture of the process. Seems incredibly simple but turns out any missteps along the way yield entirely different results. Still on a caffeine high from yesterday - and can't wait to try it again with maybe a lil less sugar. That's how you know I'm a gringa :)

Mozilla in tomorrow's NYT

A lot of work went into this article. I think the New York Times piece, more than others, touched almost every part of Mozilla. These are my favorite kind of articles about Mozilla - the articles that offer the most comprehensive glimpse into who we are, why we do what we do, and capture the collective alarm call that wakes us up on a daily basis and drives us to make the Web a better place.

For Mozilla and its millions of fans, Firefox is not just cool software but also a cause: to ensure that no company, whether Microsoft, Google or anyone else, can tilt the Web to its advantage by tweaking its browser to favor its products or applications.

Very pleased to post this one on my blog. Please read and share your thoughts in the comments. I'm interested to hear your feedback.

Parting thoughts via @mitchellbaker:

“We succeeded because more people got engaged, helped us build a better product and helped us get the product into the hands of people,” Ms. Baker says. “We succeeded because of the mission.”

Mozilla's Flying Marketeers

K-Team Flyers + Extra Awesome Headgear
Originally uploaded by intothefuzz

The Mozilla marketing team went flying today at iFly in the East Bay. For your viewing pleasure, here's an adorable shot of the whole team in power ranger flying suits (photo is courtesy of intothefuzz).

Firefox 3.5 Launch: A Day in Pictures

Ugh. My poor neglected blog. I haven't posted since May. But I have a good excuse - I've been pretty busy with work lately. If you didn't already know, Firefox 3.5 launched last week.

Friends and family often ask me what it's like to be on the ground at Mozilla HQ for a Firefox launch. I brought my camera to the office for the 3.5 launch and tried to snap as many shots as I could - between fielding press calls and working through the challenges that come along with a global product launch.



So without further ado...here's a link to my flickr set from the Firefox 3.5 launch.