I’m always meeting our community members from around the world whether it is close to their homes or somewhere closer to mine. More than once, when I’ve said my name to a new face they will great me by saying “oh you’re Amira, the one who sends all the emails.” In fact, it’s true. Whether you’ve signed up for a new account, posted an event, signed up for a campaign we’re running or many other ways an individual has wanted to get involved with Webmaker; there I am to greet you. I like to think they are my words of wisdom but they are mainly comprised with celebration, information and next steps to getting involved. Of course, they all have a little Amira styled into them.
When I first started emailing our community I played around with my own custom signoff. “Cheers” “Talk to you soon” “Can’t wait to see what you do” where all classics but they never resonated with the tone I was hoping to leave our emails with. That’s when I started signing of my emails with “I can’t wait to see what you make (and break!).” Of course, we’re makers so the sentence was not far fetched but the twister was telling our community to break systems.
When I first started at Mozilla I remember speaking to a group of computer science students from University of Toronto. They were visiting our office and the Mozilla lead, Gregg, was showing them around asked a few of us to come talk to them and give advice while they were eating their lunch. Naturally I jumped at the opportunity and sat to eat with them. At some point Gregg asked each one of the staff members to give one piece of advice to all the students. I told them to not be afraid to break things. That the world was a place for people to make and explore, to change the world as we know it but the only way that can happen is we loose our fear or failing. Moreover, I told them to embrace breaking systems. They might find that it provides for a greater learning experience and individual development.
When I was younger I embraced my creativity side but I was always inhibited by my fear or failing and being different. Now, I am only more determined to push myself to limits of breaking and failing so I can learn more about myself. I often tell people that’s how I learn. What brought me to Webmaker was getting to work with a community that wasn’t scared to break out of the norm, fight for what they believed and teach others in unorthodox ways how to protect the world’s greatest resource. I knew when communicating to them I wanted to acknowledge the passionate rebels that they are and encourage them to continue to break down the learning pathways and ways of the web as we know it.
And that, that is why I sign my emails as I do. I can’t wait to see what you make (or break!).
Amira Dhalla 