I’m going to hopefully show examples of some qualities I have that will benefit me if chosen as a board member.  I’m going to do that by pretending you folks asked me some questions.  Here we go!

Here are the other posts in the series.

 

 

Question 1

Board members are expected to take ownership of projects, sometimes projects of their own creation. Can you tell us about a time where you saw an opportunity to either join or create a project that was a success?

Answer

The most recent was the 2015 Performance Palooza we held as the Performance Virtual Chapter. As the President I oversaw the budget, assigned volunteer roles, hosted sessions, and followed up with attendees and speakers. We delivered 8 hours of training to almost 3,000 attendees and had a lot of amazing feedback. The team (Carlos Bossy, Jeff Renz, Paul Hiles, and Leslie Weed) made it a smashing success with a 174% growth over last year.  My hat is off to them for all their hard work and time!

Question 2

Can you describe a situation in which you were able to use persuasion to successfully convince someone to see things your way?

Answer

For our next SQLSaturday I wanted precons to be chosen by the community.  Some board members were not comfortable with that because they felt good sessions that would sell might not be chosen.  It’s the community that attends these sessions and I wanted to put the power in their hands to choose what they would attend.  It might fail, but I thought it was worth trying to find out, keep the community involved, and increase transparency in the process.  I was able to persuade them into trying my idea by putting some parameters around the submission process.

Question 3

Can you give me an example of when you showed initiative and took the lead?

Answer

When I started as a Regional Mentor the parameters and goals were very loosely defined. I took the initiative in my region to start regular bi-monthly calls with the leaders. I would even host webcasts to demonstrate new features of the PASS websites and various other changes in the portfolio over time. I would also provide call notes back to the leaders as well as the Director over that portfolio and PASS HQ. Now every RM is encouraged to have regular calls with their region and the template for holding those calls was written by myself and Karla.

Conclusion

I hope this gives you some insight into my character, my ability to execute and get things done, and my focus on the community members in everything I do.  Stay tuned for more!