Final Thoughts?

[SeanKilleen]

Question

I think since we're now getting some eyeballs, it's only fair that this place have a spot for folks to make their final pitch in addition to their campaign statements.

@dotnet-foundation/candidates -- any final thoughts for folks who might be looking?

About Me

I'm a candidate in the election.

[SeanKilleen]

I think everyone has really put a great foot forward during this campaign. The candidate statements are well thought out and the passion for the community is clear.

As a final pitch beyond my campaign statement, here's what I'd say makes me a best choice for the Board amongst the other (great!) candidates:

• I am biased toward action. I am the reason you are posting questions or reading answers here right now, in that I realized we needed a place for questions, offered to help out, pitched the idea of a process to Jon and the other candidates, got buy-in for it, and then crafted the pull request to make it happen.
• I am willing to jump in, no matter the task. Jon was swamped with the election, so I offered to write up a draft of the e-mail announcing questions and reminding folks they could still join the Foundation. There will be many tasks like this as part of Foundation board membership; I'm here to move the Foundation forward even when it's not glamorous.
• I ask that you consider the other candidate statements and look at what folks have specifically said they intend to propose or achieve for the Foundation. No matter what, I want this election to be about what folks will do, not who they are or the reputation they have in the community (many candidates have a great reputation, which is wonderful, but won't necessarily help a Foundation accomplish its goals)
• The Foundation has many challenges ahead. We need a way to look to achieve specific impacts. As I outline in my campaign statement, I bring a history of solving problems and techniques for divergent and convergent thinking, and I am keen to act in a transparent manner and measure our results.
• I am not an MVP. This is not to ding anyone who is, but to mention that I bring a different perspective as someone who does not roll in those circles but who experiences life as a consultant with many different interactions with those in the .NET community -- from "dark matter developers", to corporate consumers, to all manner of OSS community members, and many in-between.

A vote for me is a vote for someone who will listen to you and work their butt off to ensure that .NET is a vibrant, growing community that we all can be proud of.

It's been an honor to campaign amongst this group, all of whom I consider champions for .NET. I ask you for your vote, but am comforted knowing that regardless, the .NET Foundation will be in extremely capable hands.

[jskeet]

My final pseudo-pitch to voters:

Look beyond the names you know. There are many candidates, and I completely understand if folks don't have the time to read through every candidate's statement. But it would be a pity if only those with more "name recognition" got a look-in because of that.

Also, bear in mind that the skills required for being a great board member aren't the same as those required for being a good developer. Think about the direction you want the Foundation to take, and which candidates will take it that way.

Thank you for taking the time to help steer the Foundation's future.

[SaraJo]

I just want to say a big thank you to everyone for participating in this process and allowing me to be a part of it.

I want to thank the many active members of the community for making .NET what it is today. Really as a board member you work for the community. They are the people you work to support and everything you do should be in line with community growth, sustainability, and support.

I hope to get the chance to work for this community and be a part of the open and fruitful future of .NET.

[stevejgordon]

I want to mirror many statements above. It's been amazing to be a part of this process and an exciting opportunity to get even more involved in our .NET community. I would relish the opportunity to help the board drive improvements to all areas of .NET and the community around it.

Whilst I have a few specific areas that I'm personally passionate about, ultimately I would expect to spend much of my time listening to the views of those in the community, in order to feed those back to the board for discussion and consideration.

The candidate list is amazing and I'm sure we'll get a great board from this process.

[ericsink]

"If I am elected, I promise a chicken in every pot, and a..."

Seriously, I would like to serve on the board, but I'll be optimistic about .NET and the Foundation either way.

My respect and thanks to those who decided to move the Foundation in this direction. Great stuff happening in the .NET world these days.

[daveaglick]

As a candidate, I've been extremely humbled and honored by the chance to engage with the community and the other amazing candidates through this process. As someone who loves the .NET open source community, I'm incredibly excited about the future given the enthusiasm and commitment shown by both the candidates and Foundation members.

I'd like to think that none of the candidates have final thoughts because the conclusion of voting won't be final for anyone. There are only six elected seats available on the board and 45 candidates with a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and ideas. Every single one of the candidates would make an excellent board member, but serving on the board isn't the only way to serve. I personally commit to continuing to work with the Foundation in any way that I can, no matter the outcome of the vote. I suspect every one of the other candidates have similar intentions.

The most important thing I can say to voters is to spend a little time doing research and to make an informed choice. While all the candidates are amazing, some may have thoughts, ideas, or positions that resonate more closely with what you want to see the Foundation accomplish in the coming years. This is your chance to set that direction. By becoming a member of the .NET Foundation you've made an investment in the future of .NET, and like any investment it's wise to make sure you're investing well.

[IEvangelist]

My final pitch is that I'm excited to be a part of this... there are so many amazing people who have come together to strengthen and build upon this awesome Developer Community. I'm humbled by co-candidates as they are certainly the "big names", but I'd like to echo @jskeet by saying this shouldn't be a popularity contest. Instead, we should do our best to select the best possible candidates regardless of how we know them.

I'm thrilled that this process is in place and helping move the .NET Foundation forward. Together we can "Make .NET Great Again"...wait, maybe that's gone too far. 🤣

[mitchelsellers]

similar to what others have stated, I’m excited st the opportunity to serve in this capacity. I feel that I can bring a lot to the table, but we have an amazing pool of talent in the running and regardless of the results I’ll still be here!

I hope my actions and experience can speak to my abilities and I really do look forward to an opportunity to take a more hands on approach here. I appreciate everyone’s consideration and am excited to see what the future holds.

[robertmclaws]

All I can say is, thanks for the opportunity to serve the community. I believe this organization's duty is to be a force multiplier, and there are a bunch of amazing people in this group that will multiply force like few organizations have seen. I would be honored to be amongst those chosen to lead this fine group of people.

[Ant-hem]

A big thank you to everyone for participating! The community is who shows up and I am impressed by the quality of all the candidates for this first election! In any case, I am sure the board will be great and I can't wait to see all the great things to come for .NET.

[tidusjar]

I think as everyone has already mentioned, at the end of this I will be extremely happy with any outcome. The candidates currently running are all amazing and I think will do very well on the board.

What I think makes me stand out is that I have gone through multiple issues with open source that the .NET foundation could help with. I have unfortunately experienced all of the pain in regards to open source going from burn out to legal issues. I know how it feels to be in those positions and I know there are many other .Net projects that are also suffering from the same issues. I deeply just want to be able to assist others and try and prevent or assist with the issues they are facing. At the end of the day we want as many projects to live on and not die. That is my mission statement.

Good luck everyone, I can't wait to see the results.

[ErikSchierboom]

I think as everyone has already mentioned, at the end of this I will be extremely happy with any outcome. The candidates currently running are all amazing and I think will do very well on the board.

Agreed. And I must say I'm impressed with how many candidates there are and their diversity. Thanks everyone that has helped organize this!

[prkhandelwal]

I think irrespective of who gets to the board, this whole campaign has already been a great victory for everyone. The campaign has most importantly been a medium to share all our aspirations for the community, the changes we would like to bring to the table.

I am sure whoever will be elected for the board have already thought about all the amazing ideas that all the candidates have discussed in their campaigns and will do their best to make best of all our aspirations for the community.

Now isn't that the whole point? Being able to make an impact for the betterment of the Foundation! .. Kudos to all the candidates, one way or other, we have already started doing it :raised_hands:

[Lakritzator]

Although I've been writing open source software with .NET for many years, you could have called me a "dark matter developer", I only recently got into doing more for the .NET community which is a great experience and lots of fun!

What triggered this? For me it was the switch in the way Microsoft was thinking & working, which resulted in the .NET Foundation. The amount of documentation, videos and projects which are available out in the open is amazing. Developers, Product Managers and all sorts of other people are sharing information in Twitter and in Blogs! Being in the business for many years now, from my point of view this is the best time to be a developer and work with .NET!

This is the main reason why I joined the .NET Foundation! About my motivation of being a candidate for the board of directory, seeing so many amazing candidates with so much experience was first slightly overwhelming! But than I noticed that a lot of them have similar experience and backgrounds, I noticed I can complement the other amazing candidates with my quite unique background, the result is what you see...

I'm a professional Java developer for a financial institute, and have many years of experience. For many years, unfortunately for me, Java was "meh"! Not really going forward, but the alternative with .NET was restricted to mainly the .NET Framework on Windows and thus not a real replacement. Currently the Java ecosystem is, after a long winter, somewhat blooming again, which most likely has to do with the Java Development Kit release cycle being changed from 2-3 years to 2 versions each year.

Being underway in multiple ecosystems will help us to understand why people are coming or leaving an ecosystem, which in its turn will help the .NET Foundation to make better decisions.

Another thing that Andrew Hoefling noticed while doing my interview, was that experience in bringing an Open Source product, in this case Greenshot, to both end users and companies is quite unique. With the dotnet global tools and especially with the recent desktop additions this will certainly be a thing we will be confronted with more and more.

While I'm from Europe, Dutch but living in Germany, I also noticed that due to living in a different time zone most of the discussions take place when I sleep. When I wake up, and get to work, a lot of answers to the election questions have already been posted. And although the main language in the open source communities is English, although I am not a native speaker this is fine by me, there is a whole world of people separated geographically and by language which needs to be taken into account.

This leaves me to say: The most important thing in the election is having a diverse selection of people! And every single one of the candidates deserves a chance, although it's a lot, please try to read through as many of the campaigns as possible before making your decisions!

P.S. I actually am a bit sad that Lea Wegner (@Luminca) hasn't been able to provide a bit more information about her. I find her very brave and I can imagine that a starting developer can actually have a place on the board, so I am trying to reach out to her to see if I can get her to provide a bit more about her and support her where possible.

[wordshaker]

I echo the comments of the candidates previous to me. There is a great variety of people who have put themselves forward in the election and I hope that those voting can find a few voices that represent their priorities and wants.

This is an opportunity for the greater community to not only be heard but have an actual effect on change. It's empowering and will lead to great things. It's an honour to run for candidacy against all those who have put themselves forward, the more well-known names, and the lesser knowns who care so much about .NET OSS and community.

I hope that many take on this opportunity to have the representation they want, but I don't think there is a bad candidate in the bunch. If I am selected, I look forward to hearing from many of you and trying to represent your views, if I am not, I look forward to watching the great this that will come from this board selection.

[Luminca]

First of all, i want to thank @Lakritzator for mention me, i was very busy lately because it is the end of our semester and there was so much work for me to do :)

I know that i can't offer you a lot of expert advise or much of experienxe sind the computer science is still pretty new for me and .NET even newer, but i'm so hyped about this field. I'm so happy to got into this branch and i love the fact that i learn every day soemthing new.

If i will be chosen forthe board the biggest thing i will do is learning new things and share how easy or hard it is for a newcomer like me to follow and adapt. I will try to but all the things i already learned and will learn into my opinion and proposition.

And if someone want my knowledge about the software branche in germany or other things you are interested in, i would be more then happy to help :)

One point that maybe goes a little bit beyond the planned tasks that would come with this seat is, that i would love to organize event or small campagnes to introduce more young womans to the computer science because it is (at least here in germany) still kind of unexpected for a woman to work in this field.

I want to thank everyone who made it up till here and please feel free to ask any open questions :)

[sbwalker]

It has been an honor to participate in this election process. My final thoughts are not about providing an elevator pitch, but rather urging members to focus on the key requirements for creating an effective Board of Directors. After serving on a number of boards - both commercial and non-profit - it is clear to me that the most successful organizations have a strong core group of directors who are highly aligned in terms of their vision and are committed to serving multiple terms to provide continuity and consistency.

The Board of Directors are your community representatives, governing body, foundation builders and strategic planners. They are the public face of your organization and act as your chief evangelists and fundraisers. They are also responsible for steering the organization towards meeting its mission and ensuring its financial stability.

Board members need to be active, available, and demonstrate a high level of commitment as they will need to attend regular meetings and be responsive to the needs of the foundation. They should be well-connected as their personal networks and reach will be essential for distributing the message of the foundation and establishing strategic relationships. They should also have experience and wisdom in dealing with large complex organizational problems and formulating solutions which meet the needs of all constituents. Good communication is essential and skill in negotiation, mediation, and conflict resolution is also a key asset.

In closing, I would like to say that I have very much enjoyed serving the .NET Foundation for the past 5 years as an Advisory Council member, and I also have a keen appreciation for the amount of work that is required to manage the foundation behind the scenes. I am very pleased with the quality of candidates in this election I am confident that the .NET Foundation will be well served in the future.

[IrisClasson]

I wont sell in myself, as I'm not convinced I'll fit in with fantastic contributors running for the board. I'll leave that decision to the voters- but I do want to ask for a favor!

When I started learning programming I found it immensely hard to join the inner crowd, which felt at the time as en exclusive club- the elite. Besides the difference in experience, I was also intimidated by the homogeneity (is this the right word?). I saw nobody like me, in terms of gender, experience and several other factors. Today I know that its not a group of scary people, but I still struggle to find my place and feel at home.

What I want to ask of you, as a voter, is to please keep in mind that we desperately need more diversity, and the board should represent the people we want in our community. Diversity will yield more diversity, and in the long run a better community with better projects and products.

That's all I wanted to add. Plus, I wish we had more candidates to choose between. As awesome as the selection is today, we could benefit from a bigger pool and maybe a few new faces ;) Consider running for the board next time, if you aren't already.

Hugs from Sweden!

[rdiazconcha]

(English)

I created a diagram, where I think I captured the gist of what would be required for a director.

This whole election is NOT ABOUT US, is about the people, the community. The Board of Directors shouldn't be an Ego Echo Chamber.

Having said that, I believe every single candidate would be a perfect choice for the board.

Keep up the good work everyone!

(Spanish)

Creé un diagrama, donde creo que capturé la esencia de lo que se requeriría para un director(a).

La elección NO SE TRATA DE NOSOTROS, se trata de la gente, la comunidad. La Junta Directiva no deben ser una Cámara de Eco para el Ego.

Dicho esto, creo que cualquier candidato(a) será una elección perfecta para el puesto.

Salu2!

[tenor]

I'd like to start my final pitch by saying that the roster of candidates is filled with impressive and capable people. Any one of them will make a great board member.

However, I'd like to echo @jskeet and ask you to look beyond the accolades listed in campaign statements and try to decipher the heart of the candidate. What is the motivation of the candidate? Why do they want a seat on the board of the foundation?

I was lucky to have gotten involved with computers and started programming at an early age. Back then, it felt like I had discovered magic and wanted everyone to know about the amazing capabilities of computers. This was way before the public internet happened.

I still carry that desire today. I want everyone, regardless of background and opportunity to discover the magic of computer programming. It's what led me to develop C# Pad, which allows anyone with a web browser to quickly try out a C# code snippet.

.NET is an awesome platform, but many developers are not even aware of its power. In the next decade or two, the computing landscape will be barely recognizable from what it is today. This is because the next wave of innovation will come from the next generation of programmers. It would be great if .NET benefits from this coming wave of innovation. It would even be better if .NET influences that wave.

With your vote, I can steer the foundation towards keeping .NET important, influential and influenceable in the future. Thanks for participating in this process and for the opportunity to serve the community.

[haacked]

I was speaking to someone the other day about the challenges .NET faces. I'm hoping to teach my son and daughter to code. There's a lot of great tools online such as Code Combat and hour of code. My brother, when he was trying to learn to code, went to a coding bootcamp called Coding Dojo.

The thing all these things have in common is none of them teach or use .NET. I worry that .NET is increasingly for the dinosaurs (no offense to my fellow dinosaurs).

When I think about what would serve the .NET OSS community best, it's (as @jskeet noted) not just the names you've heard or the folks with the most .NET experience. Of course, I think it would help to have one or two members with deep experience, ideally in .NET as well as OSS beyond .NET.

But we also need people who are brand new to .NET, but want to see it succeed. Folks for whom the pain of getting involved with .NET OSS is fresh. We also need people who represent diverse backgrounds. I don't know first-hand what it's like to try and read .NET documentation in another country and language. I don't know first-hand what it's like to be a woman or non-binary developer in the .NET OSS community. Or to be a person of color in an underrepresented group in the .NET OSS community.

And I know, folks will chime in, it shouldn't matter, we're all just developers! And yes, it should't! Unfortunately, we don't live in that world. It matters because the world absolutely does treat people differently based on these factors. This is why it's important to have a board that is representative of many backgrounds. Representation matters. Diverse representation improves the raising of concerns others of us might not consider because it's not a part of our lived experiences.

So I'm glad to see @IrisClasson putting her hat in the ring because she understands that it's "immensely hard to join the inner crowd."

I'm glad to see @Luminca in the race because "the computer science is still pretty new for me and .NET even newer, but i'm so hyped about this field." We need that fresh perspective.

I'm glad to see @rdiazconcha applying because he understands what it means to be a .NET developer outside of the US.. in another language.

I could go on and on because there are so many wonderful candidates.

So in the end, my pitch is...

[ddieruf]

As a .NET Foundation board member, sustainability will be my top focus. I believe the Foundation needs a solid base to stay relevant and grow. I will be a very active member in not only the Board but the Foundation overall. Starting and joining committees, helping to raise awareness, arranging tools/systems to help all the projects prosper.

As a board member, I believe that I can help form a sustainable long term future for the .NET Foundation.

[mairaw]

I just want to thank the opportunity to be able to participate in this process because there are so many great candidates and great ideas on what we need to do to help the community. I'm sure we'll accomplish a lot no matter what.

But I really think that representation matters. And that's not to say you should vote for me - I'm glad that we got a more diverse lineup of candidates to vote for and you should vote on the people you believe can drive the vision you have for .NET forward. As @IrisClasson pointed out, it can be incredibly intimidating and hard for a lot of people to find their place and voice in this community. I wanna help to make it easier and less intimidating. And this foundation is much more than just code! It's the whole ecosystem. It's about making .NET the best platform all around the globe.

Good luck everyone and I hope to continue to meet many of you face to face!

[tonerdo]

I admittedly have very little to say. We're having publicly decidable elections for the board of directors and that alone shows just how far .NET has come in recent years. Regardless of the outcome, I'm committed to creating open-source tools to make the lives of .NET developers easier. I will also do whatever I can to support the creation of high standard open source alternatives to proprietary tools and promote the use of .NET on non-Microsoft platforms.

Happy voting!!!