T. Kim Nguyen

longtime proselytizer & change agent would like to help with strategic challenges facing Plone

Who I am

I began using Plone ten years ago for a small project, and was so taken by Plone that I convinced the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh to deploy many sites using it.  Today, with only a very small team, we have over 300 Plone sites, including outward facing public sites, Intranets, custom form and workflow application sites, and searchable custom databases, many including integration with external and other campus systems.

I'm a weird mix: I'm a developer who can talk, and boy do I like to talk. :)  I have ideas and I enjoy working with people to bring them on board to make those ideas happen.  I have been able to get a lot done at the university despite not having any budget or organizational chart authority, which I think says a lot about how I can get people engaged through their hearts and minds, rather than through command-and-control (which clearly won't work well in an open source community!).  My greatest joy is in finding ways to help people work together at their best.  I have had mixed success over the years with my political battles, but those scars have made me wiser.

I was privileged to get in on the ground floor of PloneEdu when Mike Halm started it at Penn State, and while we haven't had as much success recently in keeping the membership as active as I would like, I plan to continue being the standard bearer for educational users of Plone. 

Most recently, in 2013 and 2014, I was an organizer of the Plone Symposium Midwest here in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.  

Why I am interested

As I've gotten to know members of the community and have listened in then participated in discussions, I have become aware of some rather big challenges facing our community and our project.  I believe in our project and the great people in our community and I want to contribute by shaping our response to these challenges, whether they're in the product direction, marketing or other

 strategic planning 

arenas.  

Seconders

Nathan Van Gheem

Rob Porter

Steve McMahon