bhoward
|
|
statement from bhoward
| 
Dec 5 01:03 UTC 2003 |
Hello, my name is Bruce Howard and this is a brief statement of some
of my background and why I am running for the board of directors.
I've been involved with online communities in one way or another since
1984 including grex, the river, the well, arbornet, meet:students
and m-net. At different times, I have been a denizen, fairwitness (or
organizer), technical staff and founding member of one or more of these.
I have also volunteered in "offline" organizations including the
Performance Network (stage manager) and WCBN (DJ, sound engineer).
Tokyo has been my home for last seven or so years, before that London,
New York and eight years in Ann Arbor. Professionally, I have worked
as a university research programmer and various technical roles in the
securities industry. These experiences have exposed me to a range of
cultures, organization models, and systems for raising and resolving
issues in communities populated with a diverse and dynamic range of
opinions and perspectives.
In seeking membership on the board, I do not bring a specific agenda
for "how I want to change grex". Rather, my hope is to take this
opportunity to contribute back to grex with time, effort and where
helpful, share any useful experiences from other online and offline
communities.
And for the record, I support the idea of having remote members
of the board :-)
|
bhoward
|
|
response 2 of 4:
|
Dec 8 00:18 UTC 2003 |
I originally came to Tokyo for a short term assignment (2 weeks).
One thing led to another and the intended 2 weeks somehow transformed
into 6 months of itinerant hacking, bouncing between the Tokyo and HK
offices ("Have laptop, will travel").
Working in Asia turned out to be a lot of fun so when an opportunity for
a permanent position in Tokyo came up several years later, I went for it.
Another attraction was the chance to know my wife's family (she's from
Japan) and try to learn some Japanese.
Will my travel and cultural experiences help on the grex board?
I certainly hope they would prove useful. My own belief is that the key
drivers for any successful endeavour are a shared commitment amongst
the participants to make it work, a diversity of perspectives and a
willingness to hear those perspectives out (if not necessarily to agree
with them!)
Having said that, it's possible the time I've spent in online communities
and other member/participant driven organizations may prove more directly
applicable to a term on the grex board.
|