Re: Questions for the candidates

[Lucas Rocha <lucasr at mundo gmail com>]

Hi,

Apologies for the delay...

2009/5/29 Susana Pereira <susana pereira gmail com>:
> Hello,
>
> Here is the updated list of questions. Hopefully, this one will let us
> discuss important issues without taking too much time from our
> candidates.
>
> You can find the list of candidates for the upcoming elections here:
>
> http://foundation.gnome.org/elections/2009/candidates.html
>
>
> Questions
> -------------
>
>  1. For outgoing board members: what have been the upsides/good things
> from your previous stint at the Board which you would  like to see
> carried forward into this term ?
>  2. If you are a new candidate: what specific SMART
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_(project_management)) goals would
> you like to put for yourself? Or, in other words, how would you like
> to measure yourself and, let others know how you are doing ?

I think the coolest thing I have more actively participated as a Board
member is the new Friends of GNOME program. I've helped (and still
help) mostly with the production of the gifts (mugs, t-shirts,
postcards, etc) and the deployment and maintainance of the website.

I helped with a bunch of other things which I can't recall now :-P

>  3. What part of being a board member do you think will be most
> difficult for you? How do you plan to compensate for that?

My end of 2008 and beginning of 2009 were quite tough (changing jobs,
moving to another country, etc) so I ended not being as present as I
wanted on board activities. This is something not likely to happen
during this term. So I expect to be much more present and active.

>  4. Do you have any experience on management teams or boards at
> non-profits? If so, can you give an example of a change you affected
> in that role? If not, what makes you think that you will be a good
> board member? What single change do you want to affect during your
> term?

Yes, I'd say I have some experience on team coordination. Actually,
I've been doing it since my school times :-) In GNOME, I've been
module maintainer, Board member, release team member, Membership
Committee member, release organizer of GNOME Journal, GNOME Brasil
coordinator, GNOME Roadmap coordinator, Summer of Code admin, and some
other stuff.

I'm a good listener and, maybe because of that, GNOME people feel
comfortable to talk to me. I always try to keep an eye on the all
major activities inside the GNOME community. I think that helps me, as
a Board member, to better support the community.

>  5. What are the specific areas of the Foundation's focus and strategy
> where you think you can contribute as a change agent ?

I think I can be helpful with making sure the Board communicates
efficiently with the community by talking to the right people
depending on the topic at hand. As I said before, the fact that I've
worked on different teams inside the community helps a lot in this
regard.

I'm especially interested in how we can improve our "officlal"
communication with Foundation members and the general public. I'm sure
there's a lot of things we can do in this area (Dave has made some
interesting suggestions). The main question is how to do that without
overloading the Board too much. Honestly, I don't have concrete
proposals yet but I'll be happy to discuss that with members.

I'm now coordinating the development of the new GNOME website. I'm not
sure I'm doing this solely with Board hat. Honestly, I don't know
which hat I'm using in this case :-P Anyway, as a Board member, I want
to make sure we have a clear, consistent, and apealing message about
our project and community in our website.

>  6. Do you think we need to make the being a member of the Foundation
> feel more valuable, and how do you think we should do that? What would
> you change about the Foundation to make it more useful to members.

I think the Foundation is already quite useful to the community.
Especially, through all the people, hackfests, and conferences we
sponsor. Foundation membership is taken into account in our decisions
for those things. The Foundation is there to support the community.
Foundation members should feel comfortable in contacting the Board
whenever any support (not necessarily sponsorship) is needed in order
to make a GNOME-related activity happen (conference, hackfest,
contacts, speakers, people, etc).

>  7. Do you have any plans on how can the board help bring the GNOME
> platform and desktop in the top of opensource desktop and mobile
> application development?

For now, I'm trying to focus on our new website in order to present
our project, products and community in the most creative, appealing
and consistent way. Having a good presentation is an essential step
towards wider desktop and platform adoption. This includes having an
exciting marketing plan for GNOME 3.0 as well. This is a discussion
that is already happening in the marketing list btw (thanks to Paul
and Stormy).

>  8. Do you think the GNOME Foundation and the GNOME projects get
> enough representation at events? If not, how would you fix that?

I think we're in a better shape than before in terms of presence in
conferences. We have a GNOME-specific conference in almost all
continents (still missing an African event...). GNOME.Asia was a very
welcome addition to our yearly calendar. Latin America Tour has been a
nice experience as well. We have presence in some of the biggest FLOSS
conferences around the world (FISL, EncuentroLinux, Fosdem, LinuxTag,
...). My impression is that the event boxes could be more oftenly
used. We need to remind community about it. Another good way to
improve/increase our presence in events is to provide a more
consistent set of marketing materials (slides, leaflets, flyers,
posters, banners, etc).

>  9. What, in your view, are the top 5 requirements (from a strategic
> perspective) for the GNOME communities world-wide ?

1. Bring new contributors to GNOME. We always need more people full of
energy to make things happen in our community.
2. Promote GNOME in your neighborhood, city, country. This is a nice
way to promote software freedom and bring more users around us.
3. Be positive, nice, and welcoming when people come to talk to you
about GNOME. That should be the way newcomers truly perceive our
community.
4. Bring your ideas to the project. Spread the word about your ideas,
projects, code, etc. New/cool stuff oftenly comes from the sinergy of
several ideas inside the community.
5. Make a difference. GNOME is large community but individual efforts
can still have big impact on the project.

Cheers!

--lucasr