Candidacy for the board: Anne Østergaard

[Anne Østergaard <anne oestergaard nu>]

Candidacy Announcement

Name: Anne Østergaard
Mail: aoe AT gnome DOT org
Affl: Easterbridge.dk
Nationality: Danish

I would like to run for the Gnome Foundation Board of Directors.

Summary:

Things I will work for as board member:

* Explaining the mission, the values, and the goals of the GNOME
   foundation more clearly to the general public. So visitors of
   the GNOME website are better informed in order to attract new
   and active members and inform visitors about contacts.

* Work for the GNOME website to be a natural place to find clear
   information about the goals and direction of both the positions
   of our organization and our new initiatives.

* To represent Europe and European angles and view points on the board.

* Building an including community where everyone regardless of gender,
   race, disabilities, age, religion etc. feels welcomed and a place
   where the tone is polite and "flaming" is not accepted.

* More "teach" and "hands-on" parties / demonstrations in connection
   with conferences world wide to make it easier for newcomers both
   females and males, to get involved.

* Work for "GNOME is for everyone and ready for the desktop" becomes a
   reality through out all parts of the world.

Background for my candidacy:

* I believe that GNOME needs some change in how it works on the social
   level and I have much experience in implementing change in volunteer
   organizations.

* I have experience with leadership in real life from board work in
   commercial business and government, and also in volunteer/FOSS
   projects.

* I have experience in legislative and administrative matters, drafting
   statutes etc.

* I have a track record of being a good organizer and of finding
   sustainable solutions.

These steps would make GNOME a more enjoyable place to participate and
donate time and efforts to and at the same time I feel the need for
scalability also in the social part of our world wide project.

Implementing those changes as a one-shot measure is sure to fail and
will do more harm than good. Social change needs to be implemented
gradually and gently. None the less it is important to start as soon as
possible, and even though we won't see instant results, it is important
to continue steadily and patiently.

We need to be able to appoint project leads, give the project a clear
written mandate, estimated time frame to be negotiated and regulated and
let the project lead choose the people they feel they can work with in
the core team. We need to have both skills, diversity, and positive
chemistry in the group for it to be able to deliver good results. With
conflicting goals it just doesn't work in a group and the persons
consume each others time and energy and are less innovative and
constructive. 

What I would like to accomplish:

* Having a more friendly and helpful environment on mailing lists.

* Making people aware of their leadership role in the project and
  encouraging them to accept it more consciously and confidently.

* Emphasize the need for diversity and respect for other persons work.

My GNOME background:

I was a volunteer at the 2nd GUADEC in Copenhagen in 2001. - Where I was
"sold" to GNOME and the GNOME Community because of the passionate,
motivated, warm, and dedicated atmosphere among the developers and in
fact everyone. We had a full house on user day.

Since that time I have followed the foot prints and contributed to the
conferences and the community.

I was in Seville learning. In Dublin, Kristiansand, and Stuttgart to try
to make a difference by starting a dialogue between decision makers,
developers, businesses and users.

I invited the EU Commission and civil servants from state
administrations in the European Union, who uses Free Software as
pioneers, to get acquainted with GNOME. The first time was in Dublin.
They liked it and came again to Kristiansand and to Stuttgart. Other
European conferences followed the example. 

Question:

What has GNOME developers and -users for interest in meeting and having
a dialogue with the persons that draft our regulations and state
examples of good practises and are huge trend setting software users
themselves?

Answer: 

We need to be on the fore front and help the government employees to be
able to help us in our future common interest. I see possibilities for
GNOME Foundation members and others to get future employment and impact
in local administrations when governments decide to use open standards
and file formats - which again is especially well suited for Free- and
Open Source Software.

Who Am I?

I am from Denmark and have a law degree from The University of
Copenhagen and have studied organization and administration at the
Copenhagen Business School. - In 1998 I heard about Free Software and
became a member of one of the largest LUG's in the world: SSLUG.dk where
I was a member of the board and vice chairman for a couple of years. At
the moment I am the vice chairman of the board of www.it-pol.dk an
IT-Political Association. 

I like to use my international expertise and experience to work for
spreading the news of the advantages of using the GNOME desktop because
it is a cutting edge developer platform that more governments and others
should consider getting acquainted with.

I have been working for the Danish State Administration for a decade and
in international organizations and a private multinational business.

I know the decision making processes of several member countries in the
EU and I speak Danish, Swedish, English, French, and German.

With my work and administrative experience I hope to help achieve a
healthy and growing GNOME Community with many prosperous projects going
on. Both technical - and people and community building skills. I think
it is time to have more GNOME events in other parts of the world than
Central Europe and North America, because we have left remarkable foot
prints where ever we have been.

In my spare time I attend all kinds of educational conferences on IT and
other inspiring subjects. I would be proud to represent GNOME at a
number of EU conferences. We could be represented in the EU- IDABC
-project on FOSS if we could agree on appointing a person to follow the
meetings in Brussels. Similar representation from GNOME could attend
similar working groups in other regions provided that we have a policy
which I think that we have, but need to express more clearly.

For the last 5 years I have been a member of the GUADEC- Planning
Committee- mainly making the program for "user day " to try to raise key
subjects as free and open standards and formats and no software patents
in Europe. 

Both topics are still extremely important to work for.

I also am a firm supporter of the use of Free Software in education,
health care and everywere where tax payers money are spent. This
includes information kiosks with open wireless access anywhere in the
public space. I fight for freedom aspects especially where IT is
involved.

Best wishes

Anne Østergaard
-- 
Anne Østergaard <anne oestergaard nu>