Introducing the KDE e.V. marketing contractors

[Sandro Andrade]

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