Archive for September 4th, 2008

Posted on September 4, 2008 - by jono

Two Years Going Strong

Two years ago today I came to work at Canonical as the Ubuntu Community Manager. When I started at Canonical, it was just me working with Mark to define my role and focus and to determine what I wanted to do to help grow and facilitate our stunning community. Since then I have become part of the wider Ubuntu team at Canonical, and I have grown out my own team with my fellow horsemen Daniel Holbach and Jorge Castro. I am looking forward to continuing to grow the team and continuing to help our community to do amazing things.

Canonical is a fun and inspiring place to work, and it has a very distinctive atmosphere; an atmosphere that is driven by a workforce that has the bit between their teeth to get out there and really make a difference. With today marking my two year anniversary it has got my mind thinking about the incredibly smart people that I have the pleasure of working with each and every day. Firstly, this obviously includes Daniel Holbach and Jorge Castro – not only great staff, but my brothers in our Ubuntu journey, plus our close brothers in arms Graham Binns and Pedro Villavicencio Garrido. I also want to send props to the main man himself, Mark Shuttleworth, my immediate peers with Matt Zimmerman, Scott James Remnant, Colin Watson, Rick Clark, David Mandala, Pete Graner, Henrik Nilson Omma and the various people I have worked with closely at Canonical (including, but not limited to) – Malcolm Yates, Ben Collins, Steve George, Kat Kinnie, Michelle Surtees-Myers, Billy Cina, Cezzaine Haigh, Claire Newman, Gerry Carr, Jane Silber, James Westby, Matt Nuzum, Magdalena Lobodziec, Sebastien Bacher, Kenneth Wimer, James Troup, Chris Jones, Brian Murray, Claire Davis, Randy Linnell, Ted Gould, Mirco Muller, Chris Cheney, Alexander Sack and many more.

Of course, Canonical employees are only a fraction of my colleagues; they are augmented by our incredible community…a community that is brimming with the same kind of enthusiasm, excitement and commitment to the crusade, and our community is doing great. We are nailing bugs with 5-A-Day, getting more and more participants on Ubuntu Open Week and Ubuntu Develop Week, our LoCo teams are now 170+, MOTU is growing every month, and our UDSs are becoming breeding grounds for great contributors. I am also incredibly happy that Ubuntu is still fun – when producing an Operating System as large and well known as Ubuntu, there is a risk of us getting wrapped up in the less interesting side of popularity, but from what I can tell, we are all still having a blast.

I am hugely proud of our community, I am hugely proud of Canonical, and I am hugely proud to be both a member and employee. Here’s to another two years, and lets just see what is possible…