What’s up ?
Those days my friends are suffering conversations with me related to W3C, W3C and W3C. One of the reasons for that is that there is a nano-event happening (nano at the scale of the boiling web planet) : W3C is currently trying to renew part of its Advisory Board. Advisory Board members are 9 people interacting with W3C management on the questions of process, strategy, conflict. Even if ABs do have a limited power, there are part of the mechanics to make sure that W3C office stays connected with their membership.

Election. So what !
Where this election is becoming interesting is that there are 12 nominees in total for 4 available seats, a record in the history of W3C. Demonstrating the traction of that organization. Most of them are experienced smart people from big corporations. Some of them made public their application, such as Tantek from Mozilla, Chris from Google, Chaals from Yandex, and David from Apple. And I am part of the ones who would like to seat there. My two years in W3C planet, representing my company, and also chairing Web Crypto Working Group were such an experience that I would be delighted to use it to support migration of W3C.

What is at stake ?
To my point of view, W3C is getting transformed: it is getting bigger, welcoming so much members every year, it is getting more ambitious, covering more market such as mobile, automotive, payment, and members are bringing more and more ideas… In such changing time, it is key to stay a solid, delivery oriented, flexible organization. Challenges for the next team will be to progress on the evolution of W3C process (everyone is blaming W3C to be a slow delivery machine), dealing with open licensing of W3C documentation, potentially rethinking the AB itself (as some member do require it), and listen to the W3C members ideas to make that organization better. There will be also effort to maintain on the learning curve of new members, capturing the innovations in specifications, keeping the W3C culture (collaborative, sharing), and of course being the guardian of the open web platform ‘openness’.

Why me ?
I have heard a lot of enthusiasm around my application – actually more then expected. Here is a list of funny things I heard about the quality people believe I have : I am new to W3C and can have a fresh look, I am a chair (understand a chairperson, not an object), I am a woman (yes, I am representing a minority in W3C), I know well the mobile industry (one of the major playground area for the web), I am European (while W3C is highly US centric), I am interested in document open licensing, I am representing an industry that may save the web (which lacks of security we-all-know-that).

All of this may be true, but I must confess that those were not the first skills I thought about when running the election. I am firstly committed to *contribute* to the AB. I do want the W3C machine to become efficient, progressing on all the items mentioned above. Being reasonably connected to the web community and members, I am able to report the good ideas, actually transforming it efficiently in W3C arena, making the best effort to roll out the promise of the open web platform.