[OSCOM] new member greetings

Hi all
thanks for making me a new member and apols for late reply

First of all congrats for making some moves - any move is a good move -

'Bout me
-------------
I was born in Italy, lived in UK for so many years whre I studied and have a
home, currently living in Asia but travel regularly among countries - have
many homes and many sets of clothes in different places. Thanks to the
internet I can minimise physical movements and keep activities in many
places. Always wanted to be ubiquitous.

My professional background is rich and diverse (never really been happy
enough anywhere)  worked in travel , music,  publishing, international
relations. Learned everything, became general manager type of pro .
Realising that things were happening in the world that I could not
understand, I started studying information technology and got a   Masters
degree in information systems, where I learned about programming - actually
never learned about programming - soft eng, AI, KBS, OO - was lucky enough
to have met people like Grady Booch, Ed Yourdon, and lots of other folks.
The modern world started making more sense gradually and I was part of it!

Workin as a journalist in the late nineties (UK correspondent for Italian
press) made me very repressed and made me wish I had my own publishing house
then I discovered content management (hey presto). The I realised that being
an online publisher was too committing and got tired of it. Left home again
and now I am on the road, working  as consultant, writer, content manager,
ICT planner for rural development - and I have started  migrating content
wire.com to DRUPAL hurraya - wish me luck.

Never actually met Bob Doyle nor Seth Gottlieb in person, although we have
exchanged a long time and we all joined the CMpROS effort.  Also exchanged
with Greg Rothfuss, Paul Everitt and sat on a panel with Henri Bergius in
Amsterdam a few years ago (Hi Henri)

My vision for Oscom
--------------------------------
I do not expect to be popular, nor to be elected for a Board position, but
if you are desperate to get an extra board member, I am available for
office. Dont let the sun go down on Oscom.

As it was for CMPros, my vision for Oscom  is a member led organisation
(With CMPros it is not happening, Bob and the others are fully aware of my
frustration, it has become a corporate
management heavy, removed from reality, expensive to run and to be part of
gig - but well done guys for giving it a try)

To me, its not important  what a few board members want, but want the whole
of the membership base wants, and how OSCOM can server the public at large.

As an Oscom member, I would like to promote ease of use of Open Source
implementations by creating a network of project managers and programmers
who can serve any community
by providing fast, competitively priced and efficient web site
implementations. Being in Asia I am well positions to locate price
competitive developers who are eager to learn all about Open source
So my idea is to foster local communities of Oscom devlopers, maybe start an
Oscom Asia thing. if that's alright for you people

As a member I would like to be consulted on all decisions, and be involved
in all
 development activities.

WHAT I THINK OSCOM SHOULD DO NOW
-----------------------------------------------------------------

1)  make a clear missions statement
what is the purpose of Oscom?  to promote oscms? how? why?

example mission statement:
'to create an international community of open source cms professionals
available to
train others and provide competitive implementations, and any other support
inititive that can support the proliferation of open source content
management systems  wherever required'

2) SURVEY/QUESTIONNAIRE OF EXISTING MEMBERS

up to now, I dont know exactly who the members are, and what they want Oscom
to be
- I suspect that many developers are looking for legitimate business
opportunities
is that so?
anyone interested in saving the world for no rewards whatsoever? -

ask members questions like  - how would you spend the 19K bucks (what
currency btw) in the coffers?


3) HOOK UP WITH OTHER FOSS COMMUNITIES
Until now  OSCOM has been a small mainly swiss based community, with an
insular feeling to it - kind of closed shop - I think it should be a global
org. To that extent, maybe it would be good to have people like seth and bob
work in us over this, and maybe myself in Asia, and try to get others in
Latam and Africa for example

Easy enough to hook up with the FOSS people.
I think that should definitely be done, because the FOSS movement is growing
fast
(unless people have a problem with that, if so, discuss)

4) KEEP OSCOM AS OPEN AND AS CREATIVE AS POSSIBLE, CHANGING THE BYLAWAS IF
NECESSARY TO MAKE IT LESS BUREAUCRATIC AS POSSIBLE


I am very busy, but let me know how can I help
good luck with it

Paola Di Maio

_______________________________________________
General mailing list
[email protected]
http://oscom.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/general