Nominations Open for Plone Foundation Board of Directors

If you are interested in serving on the board, or are just curious, please see

I have been on the board for the past year and can say it has been a great experience, and has helped me to understand how the whole Plone community works.

Feel free to use this thread to ask any questions about what is involved with being part of the Board!

One big reason I got interested in serving on the board is that I wanted more direct access to information about what was happening, who was doing things, and what needed to be done.

I also had gotten to know board members over time and wanted an opportunity to work with and learn from them. It's been a privilege to have been part of this year's board and I certainly have learned a lot.

Just to put some names to this somewhat generic "Board" that I've been so glad to have worked with, in no particular order:

  • Chrissy Wainwright
  • Carol Ganz
  • Cris Ewing
  • Steve McMahon
  • Alexander Loechel
  • Paul Roeland

We got so much done in 2014-15, but let's not rest on our laurels!

If you have ideas and want to help make them happen, please consider joining the board!

@tkimnguyen don't take it personal, but as a criticism to strive to improve it, but I totally relate to your first paragraph (I want to know what's happening), the step you had to take (being a board member) is probably not the right answer to everyone who has the same desire/wish/need (know what's happening).

Is that something that has being discussed on the board meetings? How to share that knowledge that you gather as being part of the board?

@gforcada I agree, the ability of "knowing whats happening" is essential for a community. So "to be on board" as the only way to get information is the wrong way. I must admit, communication improved a lot and @tkimnguyen was one of the persons pushing this. So imo his personal motivation turned into a surplus for the community.

OT:
There is always room for improvements anyway. I.e. the marketing team is a black box to most of us. It seems it did some work (at least new posters), but there are no public meeting-minutes posted at this forum. For a marketing team a poor result (/me waiting for shit-storm now hide). Those folks should be communication experts.

But that is not limited to marketing team. Other teams must improve her too.

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Gil, I can say truthfully that it isn't the case that the board keeps information to itself! What I felt before was that there was a delay of approximately two weeks before the board approved the minutes of the previous meeting. Also, while the minutes are a good (and sometimes quite detailed) summary of what was discussed, there is no quick/easy way to ask a question about a nuanced topic without having to compose an email. Sitting in on a meeting (whether in person or in a hangout/skype) is much more interactive and leads to richer discussion and understanding.

But now that you've mentioned it, I'm sure other members of the (outgoing!) board will be thinking about this topic too.

As to what happens to information and decisions that come before the board, I can also share with you that IMMEDIATELY the board members individually take on tasks that often include working with a specific team or person to let them know what they need and/or to proceed with some agreed upon action.

I see the process as follows: a question or decision comes to the board (sometimes originating from past board discussions, from board members, from the community, sometimes from external events or people), the board discusses by email sometimes ahead of time, the board meets and discusses and comes to agreement, then even though the minutes will not be approved and published until the next meeting, any resulting necessary action is taken immediately, and that usually involves communicating or working with an established Plone team. In many cases, board members are members of those teams, making it much smoother to coordinate.

Jens, it is my fault that the work of the marketing team (which blended into that of the Plone 5 launch team) did not get more visibility here or on mailing lists. If you look back you'll see minutes of the launch team posted here, but I ran out of time (and energy) and did not post subsequent minutes of those meetings (there were 9 all told of the launch team, right up until the actual launch date). That is because I wanted to clean up the minutes - they were very raw because we were all scrambling to try to do everything that needed doing.

I will do that cleanup and will share those minutes here later today.

I'am sure you're not the only member of the team able to post minutes...

Not to be too pedantic, but everyone involved in the combination of marketing/communications team, Plone 5 launch team, Plone.com team was running around like headless chickens the last months. It takes extra work, as you know, to record and edit and share minutes, and that would have meant time and energy that we wouldn't have to do the actual work. We simply did not have enough people. On occasion, only 2 people could attend the marketing/comms meetings. This is a struggle we all face, as a volunteer-driven project!

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To expand a bit on what Kim's said:

I think the past many boards have been quite transparent about what they do. Our minutes are pretty detailed and they're both published and pushed to the membership.

What may not be as obvious is what the board does not do. Every meeting of the Plone board is like a sprint compiling community information. This often results in lots of actions by the individuals who make up the board. Very few of these actions involve the formal authority of the foundation or its officers. And that informal part doesn't necessarily hit the minutes.

We've all done sprints. If you miss the sprint, you see the committed results, but you don't necessarily know everything else that was discussed. That's part of why we all want to get to sprints when we can.

Being on the board is like taking part every two weeks in a mini sprint on Plone's community and structure. When it's a good board (and nearly all are good), it's a lot of fun and it feels like a very meaningful contribution.

Want to know what actions are taken at board meetings? Read the minutes. Want to feel like you're doing an organizational sprint every couple of weeks? JOIN THE BOARD!

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By the way ...

If you're wondering if you'd enjoy being on the board and would have the time or skills to make a contribution, just informally ask a current or past board member. If you're an involved community member, the odds are good you know someone on the board. If not, pick a name and ask anyway. We'll be happy to write or chat.

Obviously you guys have been busy with marketing. I might have missed it somewhere but it would be really helpful to have the unified plone 5 message that individuals like myself should be posting on social media etc. So far I've seen posts saying plone 5 is 15 years old etc as its main point and I'm not going to repeat that as it paints plone 5 as a new wrapping on old and likely outdate technology. Do we just make up our own marketing messages?

I replied to this thread via email but it didn't show up. Here's what I wrote:

Hi Dylan,

The messages about Plone being 15-years-old have to be addressed—the focus these last few months was on materials and messages for Plone 5. Given the diversity of the Plone community it's difficult to define messages that don't exclude some segment of Plone clients. Our goal was to produce some general messages about Plone 5 that businesses like yours, could use as-is or adapt to fit their specific marketing plans.

Please feel free to use the Plone 5 posters (they're available on plone.org at https://plone.org/foundation/marketing/marketingprojects/marketingmaterials/plone-5), the Plone 5 logo (the blue "5"), and/or anything from plone.com. I know these materials aren't easy to find right now—we're in the midst of redesigning plone.org (there will be a sprint at the conference next week) and one of my personal goals is to find a better way to compile and share the marketing materials we have.

If these materials aren't in a format that you can use, please let me know. I can send them to you in another format.

Christina