Tuesday, June 5, 2007

It doesn't seem like it, but it's nearly two years since I started ORG, along with Ian Brown, Rufus Pollock, Cory Doctorow, and Danny O'Brien, at the OpenTech conference. In the following weeks, we got together with Stef Magdalinski, James Cronin, Louise Ferguson and Ben Laurie and William Heath to form the ORG Board. Later on we acquired Neil Gaiman as our patron, and gathered a group of digital rights experts together to form our Advisory Council.
At the beginning of this year, I moved from the Executive Director role to the Board when we recruited Becky Hogge to be our full-time ED, with able support from Michael Holloway.
We've campaigned on data retention, copyright term extension, DRM and evoting, just to name a few. We've had some spectacular successes, some great press, and have built strong relationships with a host of other rights organisations, journalists and MPs.
All in all, it's been a busy two years, but now the time has come to recruit some new blood to the Board and are looking for people to take up non-executive positions.
So what are we after? Well, your expertise. Not so much your knowledge of digital rights issues – although interest in that area is helpful, we have the Advisory Council to set policy – but your expertise in how to run an organisation like ORG. This is all about the stuff that keeps ORG working, keeps it successful – deciding strategy, guiding the Executive Director and staff, and helping the organisation meet our goals.
We meet once a month, and you'll be expected to take part in two low-volume mailing lists (Board and Advisory Council) and our internal wiki, as well as attend Advisory Council meetings once a quarter. You'll need to be able to dedicate 1-2 days a month to ORG. Although unpaid, your out-of-pocket expenses will be covered.
Again, it's worth stressing that this isn't about digital rights policy, so you don't have to be an expert, you just have to be interested in helping to protect our digital freedoms and liberties. We'd much rather see people who have experience in a business area such as finance, long-term business planning, or management. Maybe you've worked as an entrepreneur, in big business, or in an SME – NGO or non-profit experience isn't essential, but a good head for Board-level matters is!
Full job description is on the ORG site, and the closing date is 22 June. To apply, send covering letter and CV to michael [AT] openrightsgroup.org.

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