T. Kim Nguyen

developer/organizer/evangelist, currently on the Board

Who I am

I came to Plone in 2003, when I did some research and recommended Plone for a web site project for Wisconsin's Department of Public Instruction. The success of that project and our experience using Plone led to my recommending Plone as the official CMS of University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, where our very small team deployed over 300 web sites, intranets, and workflow application systems, and hosted the Plone Symposium Midwest 2013 and 2014.

Earlier this year I left the university to work freelance on Plone projects, and it has been my good fortune to work with both Wildcard Corp (wildcardcorp.com) and Jazkarta (jazkarta.com) while still working independently on other Plone projects.

Over the 2014-15 term, I'm proud to have participated in these efforts:

  • Plone.com development and launch, our new "high level decision maker" / "entirely new to Plone" marketing site
  • PLOG Strategic Summit in Sorrento, where we successfully negotiated agreement on a number of strategically important issues, and the community and Foundation Membership surveys that helped guide us at the summit
  • Formation of Plone 5 Launch team, which formalized the coordination of all non-development aspects of Plone 5, including documentation, training, marketing
  • Plone Foundation Membership committee chair - am very gratified that we have added several outstanding individuals to our ranks
  • The successful, on time, coordinated release of Plone 5.0

Why I am interested

I originally wanted to join the board to have more direct access to current information about what was happening in the wider Plone community, who was doing what, and what needed to be done. That is still a major motivation for me, because after having served for 2014-15, I believe there are several important things I'd still like to continue working on (or get started), including:

  • continue, strengthen, and make sustainable Plone marketing
  • improve processes and coordination so that it's easier for all Plone community members to collaborate, without feeling that they need to be on the board to know what is happening and who needs help
  • continue improving Plone.com and coordinating that with marketing
  • incorporate strategy as an ongoing part of Board and Plone Community processes

What I think I can add to the Plone Foundation

Over the years, kind souls have pointed out that I ask good questions, which often (it seems) lead to better understanding of what we are doing and perhaps where we should be going.

Partly this is helped by my being open to new possibilities - I don't believe in doing something simply because it's the way it's "always" been done. 

While I have been a change agent and admire Darth Vader, I do strive to work with people to develop consensus.

Seconders

Nathan Van Gheem

Rob Porter

Steve McMahon