Big news from mySociety! I am confident that Tom will move on to bigger things, but I don't know about better things. :-) mySociety is a real inspiration to so many of us in the e-democracy world.
I had the privilege of meeting Tom not too long after he left college and recall sharing a pint over a two pager then labelled something like the "Civic Hacking Fund." I helped match-make the nascent effort with UK Citizen Online Democracy, an earlier effort in the UK with charitable status essentially sitting on the shelf ... and now I am a helping mySociety's (and others) Poplus.org effort on a contract via E-Democracy. So now that we've gotten to work together officially, I am truly saddened to see him getting ready to move on. Here is what I'd like to see - some big funder in our space tell Tom to take a year off, invest big time in their approach (the Poplus.org idea has huge global potential IMHO) and team and then have Tom come back ready for more. Of course, I do wonder what opportunities may emerge with the UK general election in May ... it will be interesting what kind of institutions will seek to swoop up his talent. ;-) (I have no insider info here - just pure speculation that opportunities will arise for Tom that will be quite interesting.) - Steven Clift See: https://www.mysociety.org/2015/03/02/mysocietys-director-tom-steinberg-to-step-down-new-leadership-position-will-be-advertised-soon/ Date: Mar 2, 2015 6:15 AM Subject: mySociety: mySociety’s Director Tom Steinberg to step down – new leadership position will be advertised soon Today, after several months of quiet planning, I’m announcing that I will be stepping down as Director of mySociety, although I will remain in the post for the next few months to ensure a smooth handover. An open call for my successor will be published within the next two weeks. Why now? Quite simply because the coming year will be the most stable period, in terms of effecting a leadership transition, that mySociety has ever had. I want to seize the opportunity to hand over before I start to tire of a job that has been the great privilege of my life. Thanks to our generous donors and our commercial team’s success we have an unprecedented window of financial security, a terrific team of wide-ranging talents, and a clear three year plan that’s already starting to roll out (I’ll be writing more on this plan, soon). In short, we’ve got a good map, a solid car, and we’ve got enough money for fuel. When could be a better time to change the driver? For those of you who are our partners, whether charitable or commercial, and wherever you are in the world: don’t worry – this switch isn’t going to change any of our plans to support you and your use of mySociety’s open source technologies. In fact I expect my successor to double down on serving your needs. And what will I, Tom, do next? I really don’t know – I’ve not got a job lined up, and I’d really like some time off to think about it before I make any big decisions. My main reward – very rare for any founder – is that I get to hand over an organisation that is stable, harmonious, mission-focused and with bags of talent onboard. I greatly look forward to seeing what mySociety’s amazing staff and volunteers achieve next. from mySociety http://ift.tt/1AOE8uV via IFTTT <http://ift.tt/1bODNcb> ―― View topic http://groups.dowire.org/r/topic/7hyxIJQ8cZQvMcK87WwcWd Leave group mailto:[email protected]?Subject=Unsubscribe
