Miss me? Don't answer that!
The last several months have been... interesting... and full of emotional ups and downs. I've not really said anything for about a month now, so here's a catch-up... and a few historically relevant items to make the catch up make a little bit of sense to anyone reading this who doesn't already know everything....
Last December, I was hired by Caldera as their "Director of Community Initiatives". All of my time was donated in a roughly 50/50 split to Linux International and Linux Professional Institute.
Naturally, when they had their first round of layoffs April 27, I was among the first to go, since I wasn't producing direct revenue for the company. Of course, I wish them well, and appreciate the donation they made to both of my favorite Linux non-profit programs!
Apparently Jon "maddog" Hall, the Executive Director of Linux International agreed, and after careful thought, he decided to make me the only other contracted staff person for Linux International, even generously agreeing to donate copious amounts of my time to Linux Professional Institute.
Therefore, for the past six months, Linux International has been funding the marketing efforts of both Linux Professional Institute and Linux International and for the past three of those months, nearly all of my time has gone to helping Linux Professional Institute successfully launch and complete their Level 2 Linux Systems Administration tests.
If you were around when Linux Professional Institute was in beta for their Level 1 tests, you may recall that it took about 10 months to get thru the beta process. We recieved many valid complaints about that lengthy process, and worked hard to create a 6-8 week process instead. I'm proud to have been a participant in that significantly reduced timeline, working closely with Exam Development Director Kara Pritchard, Psychometrician (and so much more) Alan Mead, and the many important volunteers who provided a great deal of help and support throughout the process. It has been fantastic to work with such dedicated people, and to see the LPI program growing internationally with double digit month-to-month percentages for the last several months.
At the same time as I've been focused on LPI, the Linux International board has been working on projects such as an open source voting mechanism, building a lean but effective future for the organization, and exploring lots of opportunities for careful growth. Many companies have been announcing Linux-related products and services, and maddog has been contining to keep up his back-breaking schedule, travelling the globe to evangelize Linux use, ensuring a future for those companies who are investing in the future of this little Operating System.
Now, maddog has asked me to focus on strategic and tactical issues which will ensure the future of Linux International. I'm pleased to be focusing on such a worthy project, but more than a little sad to be moving into a much less active role with LPI for the time being. Life is so full of comings and goings, some of them welcome, others accepted with just a touch of sorrow.
So, for the rest of 2001, I'll be reporting primarily on Linux International stuff, and leave the LPI matters to csm.
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This week, I've been re-orienting myself, building goals, and recruiting teams to work on a complete website overhaul (badly needed), survey of existing members, and building a membership drive that will help us create new and very interesting programs next year.
Historically, LI has focused on evangelism of Linux. For 2002, we are going to take a slightly different approach with more visibility to our members as s primary focus. With the departure of many leading, contributing companies from the Linux industry has come the inevitable funding issues faced worldwide. Unemployment is growing daily by the thousands, businesses continue to close their doors, and remaining companies are very hesitant to contribute to even the most worthy non-profit organizations.
So, we at Linux International are faced with the task of exploring financial alternatives. Our only revenue model at this point is memberships... so we will soon be launching a membership drive. This year, we brought all our members up to current status, so next year we can focus on growth.
To attract and retain members, it's important to tell the world what we're doing... and to make sure what we are doing is valuable to those companies who are current or potential members. Recently, we're hearing that members consider the work on defending the Linux trademark to be relatively unimportant, the endless travel around the world evangelizing Linux has been interpreted poorly, and the need for a return on investment to be the major priority of future membership drives.
Hmmmm... this is a problem. If we were to stop defending the Linux trademark, we'd go back to seeing porn sites and anti-Linux businesses using the name to deface our efforts. If we stopped going around the world to tell people how Linux and Open Source can impact their businesses, growth would stall and we'd lose our international presence, the opportunity to exchange information and ideas with people around the world, and the many media opportunities that have helped grow the Linux OS to date! As far as additional ROI based member services, we are exploring and considering every option we can think of. While building alternative revenue producing programs has come up, we are a non-profit organization, and must be very careful about how and where we accept financial support.
These are the things I've been pondering this week, and all suggestions, thoughts, criticism, and membership inquiries are welcome. I can be reached at marketing@li.org