Self-Introduction: Mel Chua

[Mel Chua]

Note: This is a test of the new template at 
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Introduce_yourself_to_the_marketing_group, which 
is part of the Join process, 
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Joining_the_Fedora_marketing_project.

It's a rewrite of my own self-introduction 
(http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/marketing/2009-May/010230.html) using 
the new format, so this is the email as I would have written it in May 2009.

Join me in testing the template! ;)

--------

Hi, my name is Mel Chua and I live in Boston, MA, USA (but I travel a 
lot). My Fedora Account System (FAS) username is mchua, and my IRC nick 
is also mchua.

I learned about the Fedora Marketing team through Jack Aboutboul, Max 
Spevack, and Greg DeKoenigsberg, and am interested in joining because it 
seemed like an interesting place to really start contributing to Fedora 
(though I've been a user for years, and have worked in downstream and 
upstream projects before).

I've worked in open source and/or Free Software in the past. Some of the 
projects I've worked on, or communities I've been involved with, include 
OLPC (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Mchua) where I did QA, support, and 
community-organizing work, and Sugar Labs 
(http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mchua) where I do more of the same.

This is the first Marketing project I have worked on!

My skills, which I hope to utilize in Fedora Marketing, include:

Marketing skills:
* None to speak of, really. I had to look "Marketing" up on Wikipedia, 
actually... my background is in engineering, so I wasn't quite sure. 
That's what I'm here to learn. ;)

Other skills:
* mediawiki ninja. I keep/make pages good-lookin', spam-free, 
well-linked, content-o-riffic, and push stuff that should be on the 
wiki, to the wiki.
* documentation nerd. teach me something and I'll write it up so well 
you'll never have to teach it to anyone else again.
* hackathon/event wrangling. I've run unconferences, hackathons, 
workshops, and most kinds of grassroots events you can think of, and can 
do it well enough to teach others.
* breaking things. I used to be in QA, and my specialty is breaking 
things (technology and content) like a very creative newbie might. Point 
me towards something and I will get confused and tell you exactly why.

I'd also like to learn: How to spark up the open-source mentality in 
academia through working on stuff like 
http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/POSSE. Fedora is a great example 
of a learning ecosystem that's done way better than academic 
institutions at creating folks who can Make Real Stuff For Real people, 
so figuring out how that happens and how to spread the word of it is the 
first thing I'll be hurtling towards. Not sure exactly what that means 
yet, but I'll listen for a while and let you know.

When I'm not working on Fedora, I work with the Community Architecture 
team at Red Hat. (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Community_Architecture)

A couple of goals I have for the Fedora Project are to have the 
Marketing team have more people with marketing backgrounds participating 
in it (I know my presence doesn't help that statistic much ;) and to be 
able to do something with all the data we gather 
(https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Statistics) but don't seem to use to 
shape our future actions very much. I would also like to see a Marketing 
FAD and a Join-Process FAD happen in Fedora.

I am wondering about what has been done in Marketing in the past.

Please help me get started!

--Mel