Greetings to all !

William Quiviger, at your service, typing his introductory Mozilla blog post on his first day at the office.

I have joined Mozilla to help support and develop our communities in Europe. As part of the marketing team, my role will encompass creating and running activities to further engage participation in the Mozilla project. I'll be based here in Paris, enabling, assisting and working closely with communities in more than 30 countries to promote and spread Mozilla's products and vision. That means you'll often find me on SFx, many forums and lots of IRC chats. And of course, I'll also be doing quite a bit of traveling, meeting lots of Mozillians in person, seeing lots of faces and shaking lots of hands giving lots of high-fives. Most importantly, I'll try to be the eyes and ears of Mozilla wherever I go, eager to bring home ideas, thoughts, suggestions about how Mozilla can further help communities grow and spread the word.

Now for the short bio : I worked for several NGOs in Europe and in Africa before getting bitten by the start-up bug three years ago and joining the French subsidiary of FON. FON is a Spanish start-up that pioneered international WiFi-sharing. I was in charge of FON’s communities of developers and non-developers in French speaking countries to promote WiFi sharing and get users to participate in building FON’s “open source” WiFi technology. I learned a great deal, working and sharing with so many volunteers and contributors, all driven by the same passion for open source which, ultimately, they passed on to me.

Which brings us to today.

In this blog, I'll be sharing news bits on Mozilla's community marketing efforts in Europe and posting info on happenings, gatherings and events across continent. Over the next blog entries, I'll go into more detail as to what I'll be doing and the different projects I'll be working on in the months to come. Also, I might occasionally succumb to the temptation of writing short blurbs about two things that are particularly dear to me: jazz and tropical fish. Rest assured though, I won't stray off course too often ;)

Obviously, it'll take me a couple of weeks to get into the groove of things, so don't hesitate to drop me a line if you have any suggestions, recommended readings, links, etc...anything you think will help me break into my new Mozilla shoes.

En avant !