Dedicated Backbone Support

Thanks to the investment of SPN members, we now have dedicated staff to scale up and support SPN’s organizational infrastructure. This is a significant win for all those involved in SPN past and future activities – filling a critical gap in terms of communications, coordination, alignment and bring all the work completed till now to light. SPN Staff includes:

  • Jess Farrell, SPN Community Coordinator
  • Brandon Butler, SPN Legal & Policy Advisor
  • Hannah Ballard, SPN Communications Manager
  • Caitlin Perry, SPN Administrative Coordinator
  • Katherine Skinner, SPN Community Cultivation Advisor
  • Jessica Meyerson, SPN Community Cultivation Advisor

Learn more on the SPN Staff page about the role that each staff member plays and the reasons why they believe software preservation is important.

Establishing Shared Community Context

Beginning a new phase of seed-funded support means energy, excitement, and possibility. New phases for organizations can also mean changes to who is involved, the roles they play and a necessary re-evaluation of organizational priorities.

This is why SPN staff is hosting a series of All-Hands Strategy Meetings Jan 2019 – February 2019 — to establish a shared context and consensus about next steps among individual participants and member representatives. Below is a description of the goals and topics covered in each meeting:

SPN All-Hands Call #1: Jan 23

+ Introductions

+ Goals and Interests of Member Organizations

+ How do current SPN Strategic Goals and Member Organizational goals align?

+ Which Member Organizational goals for software preservation are not addressed in current SPN Strategic Goals?

+ What do we Start-Stop-Continue moving forward?

SPN All-Hands Call #2: Jan 31

+ Report from Working Groups

+ Resourcing needs

+ Recommendations for new committees to address organizational infrastructure

SPN All-Hands Call #3: Feb 7

+ Governance changes – new committees

+ Seed-Funded Timeline

+ Voting and moving forward on implementation

Following Call #3 on February 7, SPN staff will revise strategic goals and the two-year, seed funded action agenda and hand off to Advisory and Steering Committee members for comment. Once the SPN action agenda has been approved by the Steering Committee, we will post the plan to the SPN website so everyone knows what we are up to – and how much fun we plan to have acting collectively to preserve software over the next two-years!

We are seeking new members and sponsors to join and/or contribute throughout the two-year seed funded period – just download and complete the SPN Participation Agreement located on the SPN Prospectus page. If you have any questions, please contact us.

Preferred citation:

Meyerson, Jessica. SPN Launch: January 2019. Software Preservation Network. https://www.softwarepreservationnetwork.org/spn-launch-january-2019/