What’s the plan for Webmaker in 2013? Make it a product loved by makers and mentors. Working in the open with you.

Mark Surman’s slide presentation (from the Dec 2012 Mozilla Foundation board meeting) explains.

With roadmapping season now in full swing for Q1 and beyond, I’m finding Mark Surman’s last board slide presentation really helpful as a guide. Check it out:

• As a slidecast. You Tube video from the December 18 Webmaker call.
• On Flickr.
• As a text summary. Below.

What is Webmaker?

Webmaker teaches the art 
and craft of webmaking to anyone who wants to make something on the web. It starts with projects: users make (amazing) things, 
learning about the technology and culture of the web as they go.

• In 2012 we built the Webmaker brand, product and community.
• In 2013 we’ll refine, recruit and get more people using it.

Big picture goal: Turn our basic Webmaker offering into 
a product people love. Refine it, recruit mentors and get more people 
using it.

A product loved by who?

1. Makers: creative self starters with something to say or show.
   • target: 250k in 2013, 1M in 2014
2. Mentors: enthusiastic teachers and techies w/ a maker spirit
   • target: 10k in 2013, 25k in 2014

What have we built so far?

A year ago, we set out to move people from using the web to making the web. Our belief: people need skills and inspiration to build the web we want. What did we accomplish?

1) We shipped new products. Going from prototype / alpha to public release for

1. Webmaker.org
2. Popcorn Maker 
3. Thimble
4. Webmaker Badges
5. Open Badges

2) We built a core community. Approximately 1000 instructors and mentors around the world, showing people how to make things on the web.

Our Hive NYC project is now also a model for emerging instructor networks in Toronto, London, Athens and SF.

3) We built Mozilla partnerships and leadership: Mozilla is now established as a 
key player in digital making and learning. Our Summer Code Party, Mozilla Festival, UK campaign, and efforts around SOPA/PIPA have brought partners and attention to our cause.

What’s next?

• Goal #1: make Webmaker a popular way to make, animate and remix content from across the web. Secret weapon: Popcorn as core feature, + Thimble and the X-Ray Goggles.
  • metric: 1M users / 250k makers
• Goal #2: build better ways to level up skills, craft and code as you make. New feature: badges tied to social tools to encourage mentorship and critique.
  • metric: 1M badges in 2013
• Goal #3: grow our global community of mentors to power Webmaker. How: merge Summer Code Party with Hive, 
add to new geographies + run year-round
  • metric: 10x mentors / instructors

Core to our strategy: find, promote and 
build content to show off 
unique features of our tools. This moves beyond our current idea of projects. It starts with things people want to share, then bakes in learning.

The three most important things for our tools:

1. Consolidate Webmaker tools, 
putting Popcorn at the center
2. Scale our web literacy vision, put our badges everywhere
3. Infect social networks with remixable content

If we succeed in 2013: Webmaker will be a well-known tool for making a new kind of content. We will see traction amongst 
makers (250k) and mentors (10k). And we’ll have a better picture of where people learn and how we can disrupt.