Running for the AB
The W3C will soon run an election to renew 5 of the 9 members of its Advisory Board. As I have been nominated by a member of W3C (thank you Daniel), it is my pleasure to announce my candidacy.
Here is the statement I have provided to W3C for this election:
Many aspects contribute to making W3C a great venue to work on standardisation, but we should not rest on our laurels. The world does not sit still, and we need to constantly work at making W3C better, so that existing projects and working groups have the best working conditions possible, and so that we get a healthy inflow of new projects choosing the W3C as the best host for their standardization efforts.
I have had the opportunity to wear many hats at the W3C: representative of a browser vendor (Opera) to the CSS working group, invited expert to the same CSS-WG and a few other, AC representative of a small company (Vivliostyle), co-chair of a Community Group… I have edited specifications through the whole life cycle, from incubation (in a WG & in WICG) to REC. All that to say that I know how things work at W3C, and also how they sometimes don’t.
I’m from France, live in Japan, lived in Norway and China before, have business relations with Korea and the US… Diversity and global participation are important to me. In particular, I intend to make sure that Asian members get their voices and concerns heard. Other aspects of diversity are not lost on me, and I will support all efforts to make W3C an inclusive and welcoming place to all.
Topics I am particularly interested in for the AB:
- Institutional reform (legal entity, role of the director / TAG / AB)
- Good governance, transparency, and adhering to the rules (or changing them, but not working around)
- Normalizing the relation with the WHATWG
- Allow more existing members, especially outside of US/EU, to switch from “followers” to “contributors”
- Find a financial model allowing to sponsor some crucial Invited Experts when working groups deeply rely on them
- Further improvements to the process and related tools. Examples:
- Automate or semi-automate transition calls using pre-determined check-lists to reduce delays
- Spend more time and money on fixing / improving / getting rid of validators that block automated publication
- Set up a light-weight appeal process handled by the AB, for process-based objections
- Better define how and when specs should graduate from incubation, to make sure the transition does not happen too late (or never), and the same rules apply in all groups.
PS: I am independent, but my expenses for this role will be covered by Kodansha (one of the largest Japanese publishing companies).
PPS: By the way, I’m not only a techie, I also hold a MBA from INSEAD (often ranked #1 MBA world-wide); you can read my full resume.
