I’m running for re-election to the ONA board of directors

Update: I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve been re-elected to the ONA board!

Whoa! It’s hard to believe that it’s been another two awesome years on the ONA board of directors. I’m running for my third term with a fantastically talented and impressive group of candidates.

Generally, the number of members who cast a ballot is a very small, so please be sure to vote and encourage others to do the same.

Below are my candidate materials (originally published here), including my vision to continue serving the organization. If you have any questions or wish to share your thoughts on how the organization can better serve its members, please let me know.

Industry Involvement

I’ve been a member for 8 years and a board member for almost 4 years. As a member, I volunteered with ONA local and led the conference stream team for 3 years. My first term on the board included leading the student committee and helping with conference planning—particularly the workshop sessions. During my second term, I continued to help with the annual conference and planned two karaoke fundraisers. I’ve also led the website committee and have been an active member of the legal committee.

Bio

As a young Padawan, Greg wanted to be a scientist and inventor. Then, as a teenager, he turned his eye toward writing and later reporting. Somewhere along the way those interests blended and he now works as a data developer for McClatchy. Using his knowledge of journalism and code, Greg builds web applications and works on tools to empower the company’s 29 newsrooms to tell better stories with data. Prior to McClatchy, he worked at The Washington Post and served in roles such as producer, developer and data projects editor. Greg has also worked on two start-ups: Publish2, which created software platforms for newsrooms, and CoPress, which helped college media organizations thrive digitally. Outside of the newsroom, he has taught web development as an adjunct lecturer at Georgetown University and at the Medill School of Journalism’s D.C. campus. Some of his other interests include abstract art, visual poetry and the history of science.

Vision

As ONA continues to grow and thrive as the leading organization for digital journalists around the world, we must keep our ambitions high—always striving to better serve our members.

Outside expertise: There’s additional untapped value in bringing more speakers and attendees into the fold from outside of journalism. Because ONA represents such a broad cross-section of the news industry, our organization is uniquely positioned to help journalists grow beyond our individual niches. Specifically, learning from other fields can better inform our work.

Diversity: I will continue to recruit more diverse members, speakers and conference attendees, as well as board members.

Leadership: In addition to the leadership breakfast and women’s leadership academy, we must continue to pursue professional development as an organization. We have the opportunity to identify, train and develop the next generation of newsroom leaders.

ONA Local: As we expand our local group footprint around the globe, I will continue to share my experience both as a longtime active member of the D.C. meetup group and organizer of other events.

Freelancers: This is a large and relatively untapped segment of the news industry that can help us grow and broaden our ranks. Bringing more freelancers into the fold would help expand our geographic, ethnic and economic diversity. Freelancers also face unique challenges—and opportunities—that are not directly addressed by any specific journalism group.

Links

Bonus

It wasn’t part of my board application, but I’ll just leave this here…

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