Dear KDE community, As discussed in the kde-promo mailing list, we have been working on hiring someone to help us in the marketing tasks around KDE and KDE e.V. We published a call for proposals and six applicants have contacted the board interested in such a position. After a preliminary evaluation of their CVs we had a video-conference interview with two of them. Our expectations for such a position involve two major accomplishments: come up with a medium-/long-term overall marketing strategy for KDE; and fulfill our daily demands for marketing-related work, including dot stories, fundraising themes, and so on.
The two applicants we interviewed, Ivana and Paul, have a strong background in free software culture and, in particular, in KDE. They have been working on marketing and outreach efforts for established free software communities, organizations, and FLOSS-related media. We think they are both a very good fit for the two aforementioned expectations and, since our 2017 budget includes the hiring of two positions related to marketing, we decided to move on and hire both of them. We believe they, as a team, will push the marketing actions we sorely need in KDE and help set stage for a long-term KDE marketing team. Let us introduce Ivana and Paul to you: Ivana is a writer and translator from Croatia. She became a full-time Linux user in 2007 and fell in love with KDE community and its software a few years later. Her marketing experience is primarily related to social media management and content strategy development. She promotes FLOSS by spreading awareness, knowledge and advice in reviews, tutorials, and user guides she writes for online publications. In her local Linux user community, Ivana has served as a community manager and content editor, helping volunteer contributors and new Linux users, and promoting local FLOSS events. Paul Brown is a writer, copywriter, editor and social media junkie. He has written and edited on the topic of Free Software for magazines and sites such as Linux Magazine, Ubuntu User, Raspberry Pi Geek, Linux.com, OpenSource.com and LWN.net. He advises tech companies and organisations that work with FLOSS technologies on how to improve the way they communicate and reach more people. He has also given chats at events on the subject, including once to crowd of Spanish KDE developers. He started using GNU/Linux in 1996 and quickly made KDE his desktop of choice when he installed Mandrake in the late 90s. We're looking forward to the ways both will help us spread the word about KDE, and we hope that you do as well! Sandro Andrade for the KDE e.V. Board of Directors