Board of Directors Election 2014 - Candidacy - Jean-François Fortin Tam

[Jeff Fortin <nekohayo gmail com>]

Name: Jean-François Fortin Tam
Email: nekohayo at gmail
Affiliation: none (freelance)
Web/bio/blog/etc.: http://jeff.ecchi.ca

Hi everybody,

I would like to offer my candidacy to serve on the Foundation Board.

I have been involved in various areas of GNOME since 2004 or so, including testing, triaging, marketing, mentoring, coding, public speaking and advocacy, UI/UX design, etc. I also graduated from business & management school, so I would like to put that background to good use. I'm keeping this description short & simple (as I suspect many of you will know me); you can learn more about me at http://jeff.ecchi.ca


In GNOME's context, my areas of interest include (but are not limited to):

• The "big picture": becoming a sustainable ecosystem for attracting developers and partners. For example, sustainable bug tracking[0][1] and the revival of a QA team; steering our focus from the initial "disruptive innovation" phase of GNOME 3.x towards also re-emphasizing the perhaps more "boring" but essential bits (a renewed effort/focus around performance and robustness); etc.
• Organizational processes and tools. From my experience and what I have seen in previous threads (or meeting minutes) here, there probably is room for improvement in the way we handle partnerships, financial operations and policies, etc. I'm not saying I magically have all the answers, but this is something I would like to get more familiar with, evaluate and help streamline if possible.
• Financial security: fundraising, diversification and protection against downturns. This is not only the recent events regarding the state of the Foundation's finances, but also about the "big picture". I'd like to help ensure the sustainability of GNOME as an organization.
• Nurturing our brand.
• Major technological shifts (such as Wayland, GTK4, systemd, you name it).

I hope to continue serving GNOME to the best of my abilities.
The board is one area where I hope to make a difference.

Thank you for your consideration,
Jean-François "Jeff" Fortin Tam

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[0]: http://jeff.ecchi.ca/blog/2012/10/08/reducing-our-core-apps-software-inventory/
[1]: see also my GUADEC 2013 talk