Hi Philippe, On Tuesday 05 February 2008 5:35:41 am Philippe Landau wrote:
His title says more about Novell's intentions then about the holder of the title.
Actually, the job was originally to be called "Chief Evangelist," if you look at the original job postings. However, we discussed the title and thought that the "community manager" title was more appropriate and sort of standard within the industry. There's a good post here about what a community manager does: http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2006/11/16/what-a-community-manager-does/ That's not a perfect description of my role, but it certainly is close to the mark. I think Novell's intentions are to improve relations with the community, and help openSUSE grow as a project. If they were looking for a more traditional manager type, I don't think I would have been the first choice for the job.
I hope you are aware that names are important carriers of messages.
You're right. It was hoped that the community manager title was entrenched enough -- look at other community managers like Jono Bacon, for example -- that people would understand what we intended.
Great to think that Novell could be investing in bridging the gap between famously detached big corporations and the users ? Is he going to participate here too ?
Yes. I have been describing my job as part community advocate and ombudsman. I want to be able to get feedback from the community at large and go back to Novell, the openSUSE board, and openSUSE developers, to help articulate the community's needs for openSUSE and also articulate the community's wishes with respect to the direction of the project. That's not my entire role, but it is a very, very large part of it.
Or is he there purely to optimise the output of the developers who are working for free.
No. I do want to make sure that the project is efficient in terms of allowing contributors to get useful work done in areas where they're interested in contributing, my job is *not* to serve as a taskmaster. Best, Zonker -- Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier openSUSE Community Manager jzb@zonker.net | zonker@opensuse.org http://zonker.opensuse.org/ | http://www.dissociatedpress.net/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org