Earlier this week, I posted some updated thoughts about ‘the next million Mozillians’. My argument: Mozilla is in a better position than ever to invite millions more people to actively love, protect and steward the open web. Great sentiment, but how do you do it?

Talking to people about ‘how’ over the past few weeks, I’ve came up with a with a rough framework for the kinds of things we might do. The simple version of the framework looks like this:

I’m not sure that a funnel is exactly the right metaphor in the long run. However, it captures some of the challenges that we’re likely to face and places we need to act:

1. We need to explain the ideas and issues we care about. Privacy and security. Open mobile. Identity and data in the could. Even the basic concept of why the web needs to be open. Doing this will require a mix of clear, simple messaging,  viral social marketing and a vibrant local ground game. Think: focused, noisy and inspiring conversation online and in coffee shops everywhere. That’s the top of the funnel.
2. Of course, a broad conversation isn’t enough to drive concrete action. We also need a way to focus and define ideas, actions and even new products people can use to make the web better. The shortest route: conferences, writing and other activities that bring the best brains together around the toughest internet issues. In areas like privacy and security, the existing Mozilla community could drive something like this on it’s own to make quick progress. With things like identity and data portability, we’d want to reach out, include others and take more time. This is the middle of the funnel.
3. The rubber really meets the road when we have 1) a list of simple, powerful actions that can make the web better and 2) millions of people who care enough about the open web that they want to pitch in. These ingredients let us encourage people to do things like upgrade insecure software, move their friends into the open cloud or call out for an open mobile ecosystem. To volunteer, educate and participate. This is the bottom of the funnel.

Of course, this is just a framework, and a very embryonic one at that. In my my next two posts, I will run a couple of examples through this framework in more detail. One will be a web health audit and security campaign and the other will look at identity, data and freedom in the cloud. My goal is to test the framework and get reactions to specific examples of things Mozilla might do.