[Announcements] New Sakai Foundation Staff Members

[Michael Korcuska]

As a result of a strategic review of its goals and activities, the  
Sakai Foundation has recently introduced some important changes to the  
Sakai Development Process (see http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/x/kIGTAQ 
  for more information). The introduction of this process and an  
examination of the role the Sakai Foundation should play in supporting  
the community resulted in the creation of two new staff positions:  
Sakai Product Manager and Sakai Communications Manager.  I'm pleased  
to announce that we have completed the interview process for both of  
those positions and will have two excellent new additions to the Sakai  
Foundation staff.

Clay Fenlason has been selected for the Sakai Product Manager  
position. If you've followed Sakai at all you'll know the  
contributions Clay has made as a community member, a staff member of  
two Sakai adopters (Boston University and Georgia Tech) and as a  
member of the Sakai Foundation Board of Directors. His skills and  
experience, coupled with his passion for and dedication to Sakai, will  
contribute a great deal to supporting the community and making the new  
Product Development Process successful.

As Sakai Product Manager, Clay will lead the new development process  
for Sakai and will drive both greater engagement from users and  
contributors as well greater roadmap predictability for adopting  
institutions. He or she will also serve as the liaison between the  
community and the Sakai Product Council. This will be a challenging  
and invigorating role since the Product Manager will, in a very real  
sense, “own” the Sakai roadmap. The Sakai Foundation and Georgia Tech  
are still in the process of finalizing the formal arrangements for the  
appointment, but we are working to ensure that he can assume these  
duties as quickly as possible while still assuring a suitable  
transition at Georgia Tech. I know that everyone in the community who  
has worked with Clay understands how much he will be able to  
contribute in this role.

I'd also like to welcome Pieter Hartsook, the new Sakai Communications  
Manager. Pieter is an experienced marketing and communications  
specialist with a history in higher education and open source. Most  
significantly, Pieter spent nearly 6 years as marketing and  
communications specialist at the Open Source Applications Foundation  
(OSAF), the non-profit foundation behind the open source Chandler  
project founded by Mitch Kapor.  He also previously worked as Vice  
President of Marketing Analysis & Research at Apple Computer and  
published "The Harstook Letter" an independent newsletter focused on  
market analysis of the Macintosh. We're very excited to have Pieter on  
board to bring his extensive communications, high tech and open source  
experience to the Sakai Foundation.

Pieter will be responsible for both internal and external  
communications for the Sakai Foundation. He will own the content for  
the Sakai website and the overall organization of our wiki and other  
communication vehicles for Sakai. This will be a role with a wide set  
of responsibilities, involving everything from developing a  
communications strategy to writing lots of content.

Please join in offering congratulations to Clay and Pieter! Both will  
be at the 10th Sakai Conference so those of you attending the  
conference will have a chance to do that in person.

Best regards,



Michael


-- 
Michael Korcuska
Executive Director, Sakai Foundation
mkorcuska at sakaifoundation.org
phone: +1 510-931-6559
mobile (US): +1 510-599-2586
skype: mkorcuska