Earlier this week, we launched version 1.0 of Mozilla’s community support project called SUMO — this is the project behind the popular support site Firefox Support. Driven by the Mozilla community, SUMO has already made a big difference to Firefox users around the world.

Currently, support.mozilla.com answers approximately 2,000 users’ questions every week through the Support Forum and Live Chat features. And over 1,000 users per day are reporting that the Knowledge Base solved their problem.

What makes this all the more interesting is that all the answers in the forum and Live Chat are provided by Mozilla volunteers. These people are passionate about the Mozilla project and the Firefox browser, and are not paid customer support agents — which is very different to a traditional support helpdesk. All translations for Knowledge Base articles are provided by volunteers, making SUMO a global support site.

Version 1.0 of SUMO includes improvements to localization, which will allow more volunteers to get involved, helping translation of support articles and ultimately, solving more user problems.

SUMO aims to create a centralized support channel, and has initially focused on supporting the Firefox browser. However, the platform is designed to be used by other Mozilla projects, and other community-driven software projects in the future.

Aside from support.mozilla.com, there are also a number of independent community sites around the world dedicated to supporting Mozilla’s products, for example Gecko Zone, Mozilla Hispano and Mozilla Italia.

Check out the SUMO blog for the full story and the road to SUMO 1.0 — and please visit http://support.mozilla.com/ to give us your feedback, get support or to provide support for other Firefox users!

This Support Firefox Day also hopes to engage users, contributors and localizers in a discussion about the directions Mozilla will be taking in the next couple years. Mozilla is not traditional organization — it’s a global community that spans not only the people involved in making software products, but the people using them as well. As such, we feel that it’s important to have input from this greater community when looking forward and planning goals. The highlight of one of these sessions will be a live discussion with Mitchell Baker, chairman of the Mozilla board, where we will be taking your comments, questions and suggestions on Mozilla’s goals for 2010.

As this event is fully interactive, we’ll be running a live video stream and chat channel from the Support Firefox Day main page, tailoring our presentations and discussions to focus on what you are interested in. All you have to do is go to that page during one of the times listed below, scroll down to the video and join our chat room.

Reflecting the international nature of the Mozilla community, there will be three sessions across a number of time zones. Each session will have a number of main events as follows (all events will be held in English):

Friday Nov 21st, 2 PM Tokyo time (5 AM GMT, 6 AM Central European time, Thursday 9 PM PST)
(These times below given in Tokyo time, GMT+9)

• 2 PM: Introduction to Support Firefox Day and support.mozilla.com
• 2:10 PM: Getting started with localization, translating your first article and some advanced tips.
• 3:00 PM: Questions and answers.
• 3:30 PM: Mozilla goals for 2010 discussion with Cheng Wang, SUMO team member
• 4:30 PM: Open meet and greet — get to know the other people who showed up and meet other people interested in Firefox.

Friday Nov 21st, 1 PM Central European time (noon GMT, 9 PM Tokyo time, 4 AM PST)
(These times below given in Central European time, GMT+1)

• 1 PM: Introduction
• 1:10 PM: Getting started with localization, translating your first article and some advanced tips.
• 2:00 PM: Questions and answers.
• 2:30 PM: Mozilla goals for 2010 discussion with David Tenser, Mozilla Support Lead
• 3:30 PM: Open meet and greet — get to know the other people who showed up and meet other people interested in Firefox.

Friday Nov 21st, 11AM PST (7 PM GMT, Saturday 4 AM Tokyo time, 8 PM Central European time)
(These times below given in PST, GMT-8)

• 11AM: Introduction to Support Firefox Day and support.mozilla.com
• 11:10 AM: Getting started with Firefox support, translating articles and advanced tips.
• 12:00 PM: Questions and answers
• 12:30 PM: Mozilla goals for 2010 discussion with Mitchell Baker, chairman of the Mozilla Foundation
• 2 PM: Open meet and greet — get to know the other people who showed up and meet other people interested in Firefox.

We’re really looking forward to seeing you there!

Did you miss the buzz about the Firefox Screencast Contest? Don’t worry! There are still plenty of chances to win some prizes, but there’s one catch: you have to submit your screencast before 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time today!

Participating only takes a few minutes, and doesn’t require any particular computer or Firefox skills — you just have to pick one of the top 100 knowledge base articles and follow the instructions while recording it with e.g. Jing.

1. Pick an article from the top 100 list
2. Create a screencast for the article
3. Submit your screencast

If you’re one of the 100 winners, your screencast will be used in a Knowledge Base article read by thousands and thousands of Firefox users. Not only will you be rewarded with a prize, you will really make a difference to provide invaluable help for all those users.

]]> http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2008/06/15/firefox-screencasts-contest-ending-tonight/feed/ 0 http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2008/05/27/share-your-knowledge-firefox-screencasts-contest/ http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2008/05/27/share-your-knowledge-firefox-screencasts-contest/#comments Wed, 28 May 2008 06:48:25 +0000 David Tenser http://blog.mozilla.com/?p=105

Get ready to participate in the Firefox Screencast contest! This is your chance to use your talents and passion for Firefox to create support screencasts for the Firefox Support (SUMO) knowledge base on support.mozilla.com.

We have prepared a list of the top 100 most popular support articles from the SUMO knowledge base and ask YOU to create screencasts for one, two, three, or all of them!  You can enter as many screencasts as you like.  With 100 different articles, anyone can choose whatever article for which they would like to create a screencast.

Mozilla will not be hosting the videos during this contest, so please use a third-party application like Jing to record your screencast and send us the link so we can view it. Ever used Jing?  Here’s a great online demo.  Click “Video Tour” on the front page to see how to use it…it couldn’t be easier!  Just download and begin recording!

All entries will be judged by a team who will look at the submissions and pick the best one for each of the 100 articles. That’s 100 winners!!

What are you waiting for? Go to the Firefox Screencast Contest and start sharing your knowledge!

Any questions? We’ve got the answers.

Here is the action-packed schedule:

• 8:00 AM PDT – 10:00: Support session #1
• 10:00 – 10:45: Workshop: Supporting Firefox 3 users with Live Chat. In this workshop, you’ll learn all you need to know about the cool user-to-user support solution on SUMO to start helping others. Host: Lucy Connor
• 11:00 – 11:30: Chat with Mike Connor, Developer Lead of Firefox 3. Mike will be taking your questions about the upcoming release of Firefox 3 and all its new features, including the all-new product help (yes, SUMO!)
• 11:30 – 12:30: Support Session #2
• 12:30 – 1:15: Workshop: Learn all about the new bookmark system in Firefox 3 (tags, smart location bar, keywords) to better help others. Host: Dietrich Ayala
• 1:30 – 2:00: Chat with Mike Beltzner, Phenomenologist & Usability Design Expert. This is your chance to get your questions about the Mozilla way of designing software answered straight from the source. You’ll learn, among other things, how user feedback and support continuously loops back into product.
• 2:00 – 3:00: Support Session #3
• 3:00 – 3:45: Workshop: Learn how to troubleshoot Firefox 3 like a pro. You’ll find out more about how Firefox works, and at the same time you’ll become an expert of user-to-user troubleshooting. Host: Matthew Middleton
• 4:00 – 4:30: Chat with John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla Corporation. John will be available to answer your questions about Mozilla, including how it was started, where it’s going, and any other things you can think of.
• 4:30 – 5:00: Chat with Asa Dotzler, Spokesmodel and Storyteller. Asa has been a part of Mozilla since the very early days and is the perfect person to ask your questions — any questions — about… anything!

Of course, the big highlight of the day will be the best new Firefox 3 feature of all: Firefox’s new user-based support system. All throughout the day, we’ll be showcasing the various aspects to the support system: from the collaboratively written knowledge base to the forums and chat-based support and inviting you to take part. We’ll be around all day in #sumo to answer questions and help you get started helping your fellow users and Firefox enthusiasts.

Hope to see you on Friday! If you’re coming, please let us know so we can better plan the events.

*) OK, we did host something similar that we called SUMO Day last month, but with the new name, we think this is a fresh start.

If you haven’t already, this is a great opportunity for you to get involved with Mozilla, regardless of your interests or expertise. We need people to write articles, create screenshots, correct spelling and grammar, answer people’s questions in the forum, or interact directly with Firefox users in live chat — just to name a few of the many ways you could help us out. Even if you’re just curious to learn more about the project and don’t really plan on participating, we’d be really excited to have you joining us on Friday.

Of course, we’d be even more thrilled if you stayed with us throughout the Firefox 3 launch, which is going to be an exciting event for the SUMO project. Have a look at the SUMO Day home page for more information and please pop by on Friday!