Candidacy: Jeff Waugh

[Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org>]

  Name: Jeff Waugh
  Mail: jdub gnome org / jdub perkypants org
  Nick: jdub
  Affl: Waugh Partners <http://waughpartners.com.au/>
  Blog: http://perkypants.org/
  Biog: http://perkypants.org/about/


Summary
-------

I love GNOME. I am passionate, motivated, and dedicated to building our
success, both outwardly - a foot on every desktop; and inwardly - making
sure our developer and user communities are rocking all the time. I believe
I've earned the trust of the GNOME community to represent it, both as a
communicator outside the project, and as a mediator and leader within our
community. I am here to help GNOME rock.


The Rest
--------

First and foremost, I am passionate about and dedicated to GNOME. I have not
contributed to GNOME by writing code because I found very rapidly that I was
not going to be useful to the community in that capacity. Embarrassing, yes.
Useful, no. So, I have spent a long time contributing in every non-technical
way I could. If there's one skill above all others that I bring to GNOME and
the Foundation, it is my ability to communicate and connect people together.

Perhaps it's due to being in the thick of election season here in Australia,
or perhaps it's due to having a hard year on the Board while creating a new
company, or perhaps even because the Board should be facilitating more than
doing: Whichever way, I'm not going to do the "election promises" thing this
year. I will always have crazy projects to work on, but the most important
contribution I can make to the Board this year is continuity, experience and
continued representation of the community's values.

Some thoughts:

 * Priorities change, but values don't. I vote for folks who represent my
   values in GNOME, knowing that they're more likely to make decisions based
   on those shared values, no matter what arises during their term. I hope
   members choose to vote for me on these terms more than anything else. :-)

 * It will be interesting to see whether the 18 month term will be a good
   thing for the Board. It's a necessary evil from my point of view, but it
   may actually have a good impact on some of the bigger decisions we have
   to make, such as what the next step is with regards to hiring full time
   staff (whatever the definition of that role ends up being).

 * This year has been pretty tough for me as a Board member, as I've been
   starting a new business which has required a lot of time, I have been
   travelling a lot, and conference calls have been at a particularly bad
   time for me in Sydney.

 * I'm very pleased to have driven the bylaws change that helped us ensure
   that the next Board will be able to begin its term with a face to face
   meeting, something that has been raised numerous times but never solved.

Finally, my previous candidacy statements are well worth reading if you want
to know more about me and what I feel is important for the GNOME Foundation:

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2006-November/msg00011.html
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2005-November/msg00014.html
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2003-November/msg00010.html
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2002-November/msg00008.html

- Jeff

-- 
GNOME.conf.au 2008: Melbourne, Australia http://live.gnome.org/Melbourne2008
 
       "The worst vice is ad-vice." - Al Pacino, The Devil's Advocate