Posted on August 8, 2006 - by jono
Goodbye OpenAdvantage, hello Canonical
Well, after an awesome time working with my good friends at OpenAdvantage, I am moving on and recently handed in my notice to move to a new role at Canonical. On September 4th I start as the Ubuntu Community Manager, and I am raring to go.
I have had a wonderful time at OpenAdvantage, and the team there are fantastic to work with, incredibly supportive and great fun. I will miss each and every one of them, and particularly enjoyed the impromptu discussions, debates and demos in and around all manner of subjects. At OpenAdvantage we have made huge strides in developing the West Midlands as a hotbed of activity for Open Source, and it has been great to be part of the ride. As the project nears its completion, I really hope OpenAdvantage can continue to do such sterling work across the West Midlands and hopefully across the UK. My departure from OpenAdvantage is entirely amicable and I look forward to staying in touch with all my friends there.
So, onto the Ubuntu role. Some of you may have seen Mark’s blog post about the position. It is an interesting and challenging role, and one I am ready for. For the last eight years I have worked in a number of different communities, developing community relations and working to understand, rationalise and manage the different aspects of community effectively. Most recently I have been doing this with the Jokosher project, and we have an awesome community with a strong culture and direction.
As Ubuntu Community Manager, my energy will be focused in a number of different areas, each a foundation for a strong Ubuntu community. This includes:
- Ensuring the wheels of the community are well oiled, and the different teams (Documentation, Art, LoCo, Marketing, Press, Accessibility etc.) can effectively work together, resolve conflict, source resources and more.
- Refine and explore methods to make the Ubuntu community as approachable as possible. I want to ensure potential contributors can get started quickly and know when, where and how to get involved easily.
- Develop processes and practises to ensure we get the most out of contributor time. Many contributors only have limited time they can dedicate to a project – we want to make sure they get the most out of that time and there are as few obstacles and red tape in the way. Happy contributors get things done and achieve doable goals – lets make this rock even more.
- To foster innovation at every level. We have so much potential to think outside the box, develop better ways of working together and new ways of delivering in each of the different teams.
- Making the Ubuntu community as inclusive as possible. The ever-growing Ubuntu community spreads across many countries, cultures and communication mediums – lets make sure that we always retain community feel and spirit.
- Measure and explore patterns in the community so we can understand it better and ensure all aspects of the community get the attention they need.
This is just a small subset of the work I will be doing as part of the Ubuntu project, and the job will bend, twist and move in the same direction that the community moves. Importantly, I am here to be a point of contact for the Ubuntu community. If you want to discuss something, have a concern, are unsure about something, do get in touch.
So, where now? Well, in the meantime I need to get the usual new-job related things set up, wrap up a book and finish up some OpenAdvantage projects. This should take me up till the end of the month and then I get started.
While I am doing this I want to know what you think about how the Ubuntu community could be improved, where is excels, what you would like to see happen and where you see the Ubuntu community in two years. I will be asking the same question to the different Ubuntu teams when my company email is set up, but I am interested in readers of jonobacon.org’s comments too. So, share with me your thoughts…
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August 8, 2006
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Congratulations! I’m sure you will do an excellent job.
Do you have to move?
Regards,
Rob…
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August 8, 2006
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Rob – thanks! No I will be working from home.
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August 8, 2006
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Well done baby; I am very proud of you, even though I am jealous that you can stay in bed til 8.58 and still be early for work while I’m sat on the M6
xxxxx
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August 8, 2006
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Congratulations
Nuff Said.
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August 8, 2006
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Congrats Jono! In the last month that I have spent working with you on the art for jokosher I have realized that your new job is what you are all about, the community. There’s probably no position in the world that fits you better and so will the people you’ll be working with also say.
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August 8, 2006
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Congrats on the new job ( and the sweet telecommuting deal, bastard
)
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August 8, 2006
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Congrats! Please also consider how the Ubuntu comminity should fit into and cooperate with a larger Debian community. It is a mayor point of contension around here and a very important problem to solve.
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August 8, 2006
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Good news! Well done.
If Mark needs anyone to hold his space hat put in a good word for me!
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August 8, 2006
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All the best Jono, I am pretty sure they have the best person for this job.
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August 8, 2006
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Congratulations!
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August 8, 2006
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Congratulations. Couldnt think of a better person if you ask me ? But will this be beard vs grin in the fight to the end ?
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August 8, 2006
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Kudos on the position! Anyone who is one letter away from being Bono has my thumbs up.
[I'm a big U2 fan]
Good to see things are moving on the UCM spot. I look forward to seeing where we will go from here.
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August 8, 2006
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Yeah, nice one Jono: no idea you were up for this post. All the best, Mr Nobacon.
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August 8, 2006
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Congratulations, yer bastard!!! I applied for that job too!
You are deffo the man for the job though, keep an eye out for some good openings for me too though…
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August 8, 2006
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Rock on, Jono, you deserve this. You had an excellent predecessor, but I’m sure you can do an absolutely amazing job here as well. Congratulations!
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August 8, 2006
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Congratulations!
You’re the man! You deserved this and you’ll be excellent at the role 
.
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August 9, 2006
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Congratulations Jono! I’m sure you’ll do a great job!
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August 9, 2006
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I knew all that endless Ubuntu-pimping wouldn’t end in vain
Congratulations!
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August 9, 2006
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So what happened to your Freespire Leadership Board membership? I guess Canonical’s money was more interesting?
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August 9, 2006
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Hey Jono,
We haven’t really talked but I have followed your blog posts and accomplishments for the last 2 months or so. I want to congratulate on your new journey and I’m sure we’ll eventually get to talk about the Brazilian community and how we can all work together toward the same goals.
Cheers,
Og
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August 9, 2006
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I’d echo the comments about the relationship with Debian specifically. As an Ubuntu user (desktop) and a Debian user (server), I’m very interested in the relationship between the two. I think as Ubuntu’s success continues, it’s Debian foundations will be ever more important (and under ever more scrutiny), as will the relationship between the Ubuntu and Debian communities.
Good luck with the position!
Cheers, Tom
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August 9, 2006
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Hey jono, congrats dude
One thing I will say about working from home – I did this for two and a half years with SmoothWall, and one of the two reasons I left was the cabin fever of telecommuting. Make sure you get out often: go for a walk at lunchtime, go out to the movies or something with Sooz at night. The danger of being in at 11pm, noticing something needs done, starting it then realising it’s 3am is huge. 
Oh and the other reason I left was getting an offer of more money elsewhere – mercenary bastard that I am
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August 9, 2006
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Nice one mate. I hope the new job goes swimmingly for you. Try not to spend 4 days at a time locked up at home with the pc. How long before you get your shiney golden hat?
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August 9, 2006
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Wow, thanks for all the kind comments folks. I am looking forward to getting started at Canonical and helping to make the Ubuntu community rock hard.
Some of you mentioned some of the issues between Ubuntu and Debian, and this will certain form part of my work. I have added it to my agenda for when I begin.
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August 9, 2006
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Congrats Jono, we’ve never met, but I was always interested in seeing who Mark would pick for this role and had to stop by. This is definitely a challenging and rewarding role and one I think will show the value of open communities. All the best.
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August 9, 2006
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Just make sure Ubuntu stays mostly a community project. Some fear Ubuntu will be controlled by its payed workers while the volunteer community mostly provides free laobor to keep up Universe, translate, and answer forum posts. If the main parts of Ubuntu are not substantially influenced by the community, in governence etc…, Ubuntu will become another commercial OS like microsoft or Mac. Only if the community has a very signifigant influence in all sectors will the project stay a true community distro.
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August 9, 2006
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Joseph – I can assure you that the community, and its involvement in Ubuntu is essential. To be honest, I had exactly the same concern a while back, and if you dig through old episodes of LUGRadio you will find it. One thing you should find comforting is that my role is there to ensure that the community plays a key role in Ubuntu, to ensure Ubuntu remains the most community focussed distro out there.
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August 10, 2006
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Congrats and best wishes in the new role! In many ways it sounds like a dream job!
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August 10, 2006
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Congatulations Jono. You have been a great asset at OpenAdvantage and will be sorely missed, but I cant think of a better man for the job. Have fun and kick ass:lol:
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August 10, 2006
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Congratulations! Your going to do Canonical proud!
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August 10, 2006
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Well done Jono! – I’m sure you will do a fantastic job, you’ve achieved a lot in your young life and I’m really proud of you
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August 10, 2006
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I’d be interested in seeing developers more active in the forums really. Or at least acknowledge reading it, for many people I believe the forums is a nice place to adress common grievances and it has a pretty laidback atmosphere, and most users are unlikely to ever post to the mailing lists. I know the developers have a lot to do, but as a link to the user community it would be quite useful.
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August 10, 2006
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I love ubuntu (and gnome) but the one real thing i think is lacking is GUI configuration for EVERYTHING. (fstab editor, grub editor, some samba settings, etc, etc, etc). this is important to technical users and non-technical users because i myself help people resolve issues over the phone (on windows) and i don’t know what people would say if i ever asked them to drop into a command line, probably freak. i love the command line
. sadly not true for everyone. if you have any questions regarding specifics, i have tons of ideas.
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August 10, 2006
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i’m so glad to see you now in canonical, for sure you’re gonna do a really nice job
hope to see you soon in latin america particulary in Chile
best wishes.
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August 10, 2006
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congratulations!
you even made the front page of Digg! No mention of the sterling work you and the team have been doing ono lugradion though:smile:
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August 11, 2006
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Bit late, but wanted to say Congratulations
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August 12, 2006
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Congrats on the new job jono. Rock Hard, Ride Free!
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August 13, 2006
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Regards Quidam
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November 17, 2006
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Hopefully Ive found someone at Canonical who answers emails, I want to do Ubuntu training and distribution for a big Linux rollout in New Zeland, I want someone form Canonical in our part of the world to contact me, can you help?
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February 6, 2007
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I am quite touched by the amount of support you lovely people have given me.
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August 1, 2010
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Congratulations and all the best Jono.