> What do you see as the best way to spend this money? In terms of hiring, > do you prefer hiring a sysadmin, or an executive director? What other > priorities do you have for expenditure this year, outside of our usual > cost centers (GUADEC + salaries + travel sponsorship)?
As many of the other candidates, I also believe that we should spend money by promoting smaller events, specially the type of meetings that would bring a group of people who share the same interests and can tackle a determined task. The first of such meetings should be a board of directors meeting, so that we can nail thing down, bond and do some team building. Also, I believe that some of the money could and should be spent with a strong marketing campaign to help promote and attract new users, volunteers, and partners. As far as hiring, it is fairly hard to answer it without having a little bit of background of the roles and tasks to be performed, as well as the issues that led to the decision of hiring theses positions. Sure I can infer some of the needs and tasks to be performed by the titles, but as I have learned long ago, titles don't always mean anything. > A second question to all candidates: what do you see as the weak points > of the current board, and how do you propose addressing those weak points? It seems to me that that current board had the best intentions and were prepared to accommodate and support user led events with financial support. However, one thing that came to my attention was that the information about this "fund" wasn't made as public and transparent as it should have. Also, it is my oppinion that like good investors, the board should be always in the look out for opportunities to promote the Foundation and augment out user base. Remember, our users are our best asset! There are some great markets to explore in South America, South and East Asia, to name a few. And if we cannot financially (or for whatever reason) make it to such places, we should seek out and tap on our contacts, helping them establish a plan of action to hold events. We should be the ones seeking for these opportunities and not assume that everyone knows about this possible financial resource and wait for them to come to us. Also, I feel that a little bit of public recognition to our past and current collaborators could do everyone a great deal of good! Sure, everyone who has ever helped in any way, shape or form has done it without the expectations of fame and success. But if I can point out the latest post by Olav[1] titled "Stats" as an example, it is a great example of some public recognition to those who spend a great deal of time down in the trenches. Take Daniel Nylander for instance. This guy has been atop the commit list, bug triage and translations for pretty much as far as I can remember. And he is only ONE of MANY doing some great work for GNOME. You know those mugs I just recently heard of that have been used as gifts to our partners? How about some type of recognition plaque for those who are doing some outstanding work for us? Or for those who are showing potential as a means to fuel their drive? Remember, our users (and obviously our collaborators and developers ARE our users too) are our biggest and most important asset! [1] http://blogs.gnome.org/ovitters/2007/11/21/stats/ Cheers, -- Og B. Maciel [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] GPG Keys: D5CFC202 http://www.ogmaciel.com (en_US) http://blog.ogmaciel.com (pt_BR) _______________________________________________ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
